WINNERS AND LOSERS OF MIGRATION FLOWS, GENDER PERSPECTIVE AND POPULATION POLICIES AMONG ISSUES ADDRESSED BY SPEAKERS IN SECOND COMMITTEE

Press Release
GA/EF/2780

WINNERS AND LOSERS OF MIGRATION FLOWS, GENDER PERSPECTIVE AND POPULATION POLICIES AMONG ISSUES ADDRESSED BY SPEAKERS IN SECOND COMMITTEE

It was unfortunate that the new world economic order favoured a free flow of resources but did not encourage a free flow of workers, the representative of Honduras told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) this afternoon as it concluded its consideration of population and development, and international migration and development, including the convening of a United Nations conference on that question.

Migration had both winners and losers, she continued. It led to a better distribution of labour, individual migrants earned more income and their employers paid lower wages. The losers were the workers in the receiving countries who were displaced by the migrants. Such a loss in the receiving countries did not necessitate the restrictions on migration often imposed by some developed countries.

The representative of Nicaragua said countries must be careful when they closed their borders to their brothers. The massive expulsion of migrants was against international conventions on human rights and could cause great social chaos in the source countries, including an increase in the unemployment rate. Migration benefited both the source and host countries. Migration of skilled workers could also lead to brain drain in the developing countries.

The representative of the Republic of Korea said in implementing the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) countries were moving beyond traditional family planning to incorporate broader reproductive health concerns. In advancing the goals and objectives of ICPD, priority should be placed on the issues of education for girls, elimination of violence against women, and the mainstreaming of a gender perspective into development programmes and policies.

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Statements were also made by the representatives of Canada, El Salvador, Norway, Oman, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Iran, Bahrain and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In closing remarks, Joseph Chamie, Director, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Sethuramiah Rao, Director, Technical and Evaluation Division, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), thanked delegations for their input to their efforts towards the implementation of the Cairo Programme of Action.

Also this afternoon Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, addressed the Committee on the question of the late issuance of some of the Committee documents. He sought the Committee's indulgence and apologized for any inconvenience that had occurred. Out of the 50 major reports published to facilitate the work of the Committee five were delayed for various reasons.

Regarding discussions concerning the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, the document requested by the Committee was to be a report on activities undertaken by the United Nations for the observance of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, he continued. Simply as an experiment, he added, that report would be presented as an oral statement to the Committee and accompanied by a written record of that statement. If the experiment failed, the Secretariat would revert to the more established practice.

The representatives of Benin, Cuba, Egypt, Ghana, Iran, Nigeria, Philippines, Sudan, Tunisia, United Republic of Tanzania and the United States voiced their concern about the timeliness and quality of documentation as well as the use of an oral report in a meeting of the Committee. The Chairman of the Committee, Oscar de Rojas (Venezuela), suspended the meeting for 30 minutes. When the meeting resumed, following a proposal by the Chairman, the Committee decided to postponed consideration of the item on poverty eradication.

The Committee will meet again at 11 a.m. on Friday, 31 October, to consider food and sustainable agricultural development and the implementation of the outcome of the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II).

Committee Work Programme

The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) met this afternoon to conclude its consideration of population and development, and international migration and development, including the convening of a United Nations conference on international migration and development. The Committee was also scheduled to begin consideration, under the general heading "sectoral policy questions", of food and sustainable agricultural development.

The Committee has before it a note by the Secretary-General transmitting the report of the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the outcome of the World Food Summit (document A/52/132-E/1997/57), which was held in Rome from 13 to 17 November 1996. The objective of the Summit was to renew the global commitment to eliminating hunger and malnutrition and to achieving sustainable food security for all people, the report states. The FAO called the Summit in response to widespread malnutrition and growing concern about the capacity of agriculture to meet future food needs.

According to the report, the World Food Summit was successful in increasing public awareness of the extent of hunger and malnutrition worldwide, and of the causes and prospects for changing that. It also resulted in strong political commitment to promote effective strategies and activities to reduce the number of malnourished people to half their present level no later than 2015, and eventually achieving food security for all and eradicating hunger in all countries.

Adopted by the 186 heads of delegations that attended the Summit, the Rome Declaration on World Food Security set forth seven commitments which lay the basis for achieving sustainable food security for all, the report states. The Plan of Action also spelled out the objectives and actions relevant for practical implementation of those seven commitments. Commitment seven of the Plan of Action stressed that the main focus of action lay at the country level, where governments have the primary responsibility for creating an economic and political environment that assures the food security of their citizens.

The Rome Declaration also emphasized the importance of strong international cooperation in the effective implementation of the Plan of Action, according to the report. That would require effective coordination and cooperation within the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, taking into account the mandate of the FAO and other relevant organizations. Stimulating and supporting action at the country level is one of the fundamental principles underlying the arrangements for inter-agency cooperation in follow-up to the World Food Summit.

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The report states that commitment seven also assigned to the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) a significant role in the Summit follow-up. Relevant United Nations organizations were encouraged to initiate consultations, within the framework of the ACC, on the further elaboration and definition of a food insecurity and vulnerability information and mapping system. The FAO is expected to play a catalytic role in that effort, the results of which should be reported to the Economic and Social Council through the ACC.

In addition, the Summit called upon governments, in partnership with all actors of civil society, in coordination with relevant institutions to establish, through the Committee on World Food Security, a timetable, procedures and standardized reporting formats for reporting on national, subregional, and regional implementation of the World Food Summit Plan of Action. Governments were also expected to provide regular reports on the implementation of the Plan of Action through the Food Security Committee via the FAO Council to the Economic and Social Council.

Statements on Population, Migration

SALLY ANDREWS (Canada) said her country would support the convening of a conference on international migration and development if it would serve the needs of sending, receiving and transit countries. There must be agreement on the conference's agenda and on the process which would guide the conference's development. Without such a focus, preparations for a conference would be unwieldy and outcomes would be unlikely to provide governments or non- governmental actors with a coherent strategy for addressing migration issues. If a consensus failed to emerge on defining the objectives or modalities of an international conference, the issue of global migration and development could be meaningfully addressed through other forums.

Noting that there were ongoing processes and alternative mechanisms within and outside the United Nations system for dealing with international migration and development, she said Canada was enthusiastic about the utility of regional, interregional, subregional and bilateral discussions about the issues. Such discussions would enable both sending and receiving States, as well as other interested and relevant parties, to engage in substantive exchanges on migration issues of direct concern to them. Canada would favour a discussion of migration issues within the context of the five-year review and appraisal of the international conference on population and development.

CHANG BEOM CHO (Republic of Korea) said many countries had reoriented their population policies in line with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), particularly moving beyond traditional family planning to incorporate broader reproductive health concerns. It was vital to ensure a coordinated system-wide follow-up for all major conferences, including the ICPD, through more extensive and efficient inter-agency cooperation.

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He said that, in advancing the goals and objectives of the ICPD, high priority should be placed on the issues of education for girls, elimination of violence against women, and the mainstreaming of a gender perspective into development programmes and policies. The operational aspect of international assistance programmes, including those of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), should be geared towards strengthening national capacity-building through national co-ownership and execution of projects. In addition, South-South cooperation could provide an effective means for the implementation of the Programme of Action and should therefore be encouraged.

The international community should concentrate greater attention and cooperative efforts on the issue of international migration, especially where it involved the protection of the human rights of migrants and the control of illegal immigration, he said. His Government had some reservations, however, about the merit of convening a United Nations-sponsored international conference in the near future on international migration and development. No real consensus existed regarding the purpose or set of objectives such a conference would serve, even among the relatively small number of countries that had expressed support for convening it. Both inside and outside the United Nations system, there already existed institutional and legal mechanisms which dealt with the various aspects of the issue of international migration. Rather than pushing for another international conference, it would be more practical and cost-effective to focus on strengthening existing mechanisms and bolstering the commitment of national governments to them.

GERALDINA BENEKE (El Salvador) said, regarding the relevance of convening a United Nations conference on international migration and development, it was important to have intergovernmental dialogue in order to exchange experiences in a frank and open manner and to cover all the aspects of the subject objectively. Since there did not appear to be a clear consensus on what form the dialogue would take, her Government adopted a flexible position and was prepared to join a consensus that might emerge.

The importance of migration was self-evident, she said. In the 1980s there was a massive emigration from El Salvador, due to the armed conflict. Those emigrants were looking for job opportunities and better living conditions. The family remittances of Salvadorans comprised an important contribution to the economic and social development of the country. Her Government had participated actively in the regional conferences on migration of North and Central America, also known as the "Puebla process". It represented an important regional mechanism that facilitated dialogue on important migration subjects and the implications of migration for the region. Migration was multidimensional and many factors must be considered. It was important to carefully analyse the phenomenon of migration when considering the relationship between migration and development.

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It should be recognized that migration was a phenomenon that had benefits for both sending and receiving countries, she said. Yet, there needed to be measures to "arrange" migrations in order to more evenly spread those benefits and to counteract the anti-migrant attitudes in many countries and strengthen relationships between participating countries. The human rights of migrant workers must be protected, and special attention should be paid to the needs of women and children.

NOEMI ESPINOZA MADRID (Honduras) said a key to solving the undesirable consequences of migration was economic development. It would lessen the need to move from one country to another. People migrate because of the desire for a higher income. Wage disparity was a principal reason for migration. It was unfortunate that the new world economic order favoured a free flow of resources but did not encourage a free flow of workers. If the economic situation of developing countries were improved migration would be reduced.

Explaining that migration had both winners and losers, she said it led to a better distribution of labour and that the winners were the individual migrants who earned higher income and their employers who paid lower wages. Losers included workers in the receiving countries who might be displaced by the migrants. But such a loss in the receiving countries did not necessitate the restrictions on migration often imposed by some developed countries. The developed countries should reaffirm their commitment to meeting the goals of the Committee, namely the eradication of poverty. If that were done, migration would be minimized. Honduras was fully committed to finding solutions to the issue.

ODD-INGE KVALHEIM (Norway) said his Government was concerned about the resource shortfall for implementing the follow-up to the ICPD. Norway encouraged donor and programme countries to strengthen their efforts to provide sufficient funding to reach the targets set during the Conference. In regard to the idea of convening a special session of the Assembly in 1999 to appraise implementation of the Cairo Programme of Action, Norway welcomed a review and expressed agreement with the main content and modalities as outlined in the report of the Economic and Social Council. However, there should be no renegotiation of existing agreements contained in the Programme. The review should focus on the compilation and analysis of lessons learned at the operational level and means to improve implementation. Norway also supported the preparatory activities outlined in the report and underlined the importance of cooperative efforts among relevant United Nations agencies.

There were no clear definitions or understanding of the links between international migration and development, he continued. More reliable data and indicators on migration were needed. Norway recognized the complexity of the linkages between those matters. However, a possible conference would need to be based on agreement regarding the goals and fundamental issues to be addressed. Discussions would need to be based on a comprehensive approach, incorporating such issues as the economic constraints of the receiving

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countries, the impact of migration on the host country and the countries of origin. In view of the technical symposium to be held on international migration in 1998, a final decision on the convening of an international conference should be postponed.

SAID AL-HARTHY (Oman) said there was a close relationship between the phenomenon of international migration and development. Development was a cause of migration and also a consequence. Development in the host country reburied the movement of workers, and the low development in the countries of origin caused the movement of resident labourers. Migration also infused the host country with qualified labour, which was important to increasing development. In addition, countries of origin took advantage of the monetary remittances which, in some cases, exceeded the volume of trade exports and the income from foreign investment.

The proposal to hold an United Nations conference on international migration and development had been initiated in 1974, he said. His Government was not convinced of the usefulness of convening such a conference. To date there had been no consensus as to the holding of the conference or to its goals. The question of international migration and development had been the subject of debate at many previous United Nations conferences. Therefore, the focus of a new conference would have to be the follow-up of the implementation of previous recommendations rather than start up new discussions on the subject. International migration tended to involve countries that were geographically and politically close, and it would be more effective to deal with the subject at the regional and bilateral level. In light of the current financial crisis of the Organization, holding the conference would require the mobilization of rare resources which might be needed for more urgent and pressing needs.

KWOK FOOK SENG (Singapore) said if an international conference on migration were convened at the present time, it would fail to address the complex problems associated with the issue. The data on migration was lacking and there was no coherent theory to explain international migration. Also there was a very weak understanding of the complex interrelationship between migration and development. The lack of data had led to confusion over what the root causes of migration were. More relevant data must be collected and more time spent studying the complex issues involved. Then, the international community could decide whether there was a clear focus for the convening of an international conference.

There was no quick fix to the problems associated with migration, he continued. The international community must not let itself be distracted by the primary goal of development. Singapore would await the outcome of the 1998 technical symposium on international migration, particularly its recommendations on methods to collect data and its selection criteria.

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JAVIER WILLIAMS SLATE (Nicaragua) said international migration had a serious impact on the various strata of societies. Migration transformed both the source and host countries in several ways. Wealth disparity between the developed and developing countries and higher rate of unemployment in the developing countries were some of the major reasons for migration. Others included insecurity as a result of armed conflicts and progress in information and communication technology which enabled people to know where the jobs were.

Noting the various international conventions on the protection of the rights of migrants workers, he said those provisions should be observed. Massive expulsion of migrants was against international conventions on human rights and it could cause great social chaos to the source countries, such as increasing the unemployment rate in those countries. Migration benefited both the source and host countries. Migration fulfilled labour needs in the host countries. Migration of skilled workers could also lead to brain drain in the developing countries. Nicaragua supported the convening of an international conference on migration and development. People must be careful when they closed their borders to their brothers, he concluded.

YUTAKA YOSHINO (Japan) said multidimensional approaches were needed for reducing the population growth rate through family planning. The root causes of population growth, such as poverty and lack of education, must also be addressed. Coordination and harmonization of the activities of United Nations agencies and other international organizations must be improved. South-South cooperation would play an effective role in population and development issues. Japan recognized the need and significance of traditional donor support to South-South cooperation.

Noting that a renegotiation of the Cairo Programme of Action was not necessary, he said what was required was a review and appraisal of progress made in achieving the goals and objectives of the Programme. Japan believed that the primary focus of implementation should be at the national level. The review process should include a compilation and analysis of operational aspects and experiences at the country level with a view to drawing lessons learned in implementing the Programme of Action. As a major operational arm for implementing the Programme, UNFPA should play an important role in the review process.

SAMANTHA ARI WARDHANA (Indonesia) said there would be insuperable risks and dangers to world peace and prosperity if the international community failed to redress the current trends in population growth. Without decisive and continuing progress in implementing the Cairo Programme of Action, the stabilization of the world population would be dangerously jeopardized. Even a moderately successful implementation of the Programme would still excessively increase the world's population, which would put unprecedented pressure and strain on global resources. Since the overwhelming amount of such increases would take place in the developing countries where the pressures of globalization had already taken a damaging toll, it was crucial

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that ways and means be found to give new impetus to the Programme of Action. Indonesia supported a review of progress made in the implementation of the Programme of Action.

Regarding the proposal for a special session of the Assembly to review the implementation of the Cairo outcome, he said such a session would provide a renewed momentum. Indonesia was rather disappointed with the proposal to devote only two days to such an important review and appraisal. While fiscal concerns must be taken into account, it would be rather shortsighted to place them above the need to ensure the implementation of the Programme of Action. Major demographic problems projected for the developing countries and the strong correlation between population explosion and the level of economic growth and development must be taken into account in the proposed review. Partnership for promoting and integrating the population component into the broader development concept was of paramount importance. Availability of financial resources for the implementation of the Programme of Action should be addressed.

MOHAMMAD JABBARI (Iran) said the ICPD Programme of Action needed to be implemented in a comprehensive, and not selective, manner. And without the provision of adequate new and additional financial resources, as agreed in Cairo, the real chances for the meaningful achievement of the objectives of the Conference were very slim.

Population policies and family planning were among the important components of the first five-year economic, social and cultural development plan of Iran and were fully integrated in the second five-year plan covering 1994-1999, he said. Both plans, while aiming at achieving economic growth and sustainable development, had addressed the urgent need for reducing the population growth rate, including reducing fertility rates as well as maternal and infant mortality rates. Iran's Parliament also enacted a family planning law, and the questions of gender, equality and equity and empowerment of women had also been addressed. Measures had been taken to provide mother and child care, establish special family courts and create special insurance schemes for widows and elderly women.

Within the general framework of his Government's increasing attention to youth, a number of measures had been adopted to address the needs of adolescents, he said. Those included educating young girls on reproductive health and family planning. Efforts were currently under way to review the high school curriculum in order to add reproductive health and family planning subjects. Despite the fact that HIV/AIDS was a very sensitive issue in Iran, culturally as well as religiously, and although sexually transmitted diseases were not particularly pervasive in the country, his Government had also undertaken a number of activities in that area.

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MOHAMMED MUBARAK AL-KHALIFA (Bahrain) said his Government saw no urgency in convening a United Nations conference on international migration and development. The question of international migration and development had been debated previously at numerous United Nations conferences. In addition, the rare resources made available should be used very carefully and not used to convene such a conference. The diversity of ideas regarding the possible objectives and questions to be studied at the conference would require very long deliberations which might continue for years and have a negative impact on the work of the Organization.

The issue of international migration and development could be dealt with through existing machinery in the United Nations system, including the UNFPA, the Economic and Social Council and the International Labour Organization (ILO). Bilateral negotiations might also help in finding tangible ways to deal with international migration.

RI KWANG NAM (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) said the issue of population and development was essential in designing and shaping humans and their socio-economic environment. Without solving the issue of population in an appropriate manner, development could not proceed on an equal and sustainable basis. The functions and roles of the United Nations system should be further enhanced in the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action. It was imperative that the role of the Executive Board of the UNFPA should be further enhanced to fully discharge its mandate as a leading agency helping to resolve population-related issues in developing countries. The implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action should also be in close association with the implementation of the measures taken at the other development-related international conferences.

The lack of financial resources should be addressed in a timely manner, as it was regarded as one of the obstacles for developing countries in their implementation of the Programme of Action, he said. While it was important for developing countries to mobilize their financial resources to the fullest extent possible, it was also equally important for the international community to provide assistance. Developed countries should honour their commitments to make contributions to developing countries.

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