UNITED NATIONS TO HOST SECOND MEETING ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AT HEADQUARTERS, 15 - 16 OCTOBER

Note to Correspondents

UNITED NATIONS TO HOST SECOND MEETING ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

AT HEADQUARTERS, 15 - 16 OCTOBER

Participants from the United Nations system, intergovernmental organizations and regional organizations will meet for the second time on 15 and 16 October at United Nations Headquarters, to coordinate their activities regarding international migration -– an area increasingly at the forefront of national and international agendas.  The meeting will be held in Conference Room 6 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

This second coordination meeting on international migration, organized by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, seeks to respond to the mounting challenges of international migration and to provide further input on the issue to the General Assembly.  The purposes of the meeting are to share and exchange information, facilitate the coordination of activities and discuss future steps.

On 15 October the keynote speaker will be Michael Doyle, former Special Adviser to the Secretary-General.  He will introduce three current General Assembly topics on migration -- migration and development; globalization and interdependence; and international migrants and development.  In the afternoon, discussion will focus on workers’ remittances; undocumented migration, with special attention to human trafficking; and international migration and security.

On 16 October, participants will discuss the major activities of their organizations.  The papers presented at the meeting, together with a synthesis of the discussions, will be included in the report to be issued shortly after the meeting.  All material relating to the meeting will be accessible from the United Nations Population Division Web site, www.unpopulation.org.

Migration is an issue that provides governments and policy-makers challenges of ever-increasing scope and complexity.  Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed the relevance of the subject in his report “Strengthening of the United Nations:  An agenda for further change”, stating that “it is time to take a more comprehensive look at the various dimensions of the migration issue, which now involves hundreds of millions of people and affects countries of origin, transit and destination”.

The first United Nations Coordination Meeting on International Migration, which took place at United Nations Headquarters on 11 and 12 July 2002, focused on the collection and exchange of information on international migration.  At the end of the conference, participants felt the need to reconvene for a second meeting.

For more information and to request interviews, please contact the office of Joseph Chamie, Director, Population Division, at tel.: (212) 963-3179; or Ellen McGuffie, Department of Public Information, at tel.: (212) 963-0499.

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