“The future and possible solutions of migration”

Dear students,
Ladies and gentlemen:

It is a great pleasure for me to be speaking here at the Oxford Union – “the world's most prestigious debating society.” The Oxford Union has, without a doubt, brought forward many skilled and well-educated leaders across different sectors of society. Your focus on critical discussion and the promotion of exchange between students and decision-makers is much needed in today’s interconnected and fast-paced world. And I am very happy to be able to benefit from this exchange today.

Here in Europe, there is currently no topic that illustrates the need for well-informed and fact-based discussion more clearly than the migration challenge. The topic that I have been asked to address – the future and possible solutions of migration – is therefore very timely. But I would like to stress, at the outset, that we have to be very careful about the narrative we choose to apply to migration. The question about a “solution” to migration implies that there is a problem with migration. But migration really is not a problem by definition. People have moved to different places for different reasons since the dawn of time, many of them – indeed, many of us in this room – voluntarily.

The chaos that we are seeing in Europe and elsewhere at the moment is due to weak coordination and mistakes in the management of migrant flows rather than to the fact of migration itself. And if you think that what we are experiencing at the moment is an extraordinary challenge, think ahead to climate change becoming an increasingly important cause of migration in the future. Refugees, in particular, suffer the consequences. Based on the definition by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, they are among the most vulnerable migrants as they are outside the country of their nationality owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted.

These transformations require new legal frameworks. Whether you flee from persecution or from natural disasters, drought and other climate-related phenomena –you move because you have to. So new categories of refugees will likely emerge, and the 1951 Refugee Convention will need to be examined carefully.

To continue this line of thought about the future of migration, including voluntary and forced migration, it is important to bear in mind the challenges that come with large population movements. These include logistical aspects, the need for inter-cultural dialogue and protection of the human rights of all migrants. A number of UN entities and partners, in addition to the “obvious” ones such as the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration, are working to address these, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. If we take care of these challenges, we, all of us, can harness the benefits of migration. And they are numerous.

First of all, despite what some increasingly loud, and increasingly xenophobic public figures would have us believe, migrants bring skills and a workforce that is in demand in many of the countries of destination. And with current demographic trends in many developed countries, this demand is likely to increase rather than decrease. According to the International Labour Organization, migrants, especially migrant women, actually have higher labour force participation rates than non-migrants. And rather than taking away these jobs from “locals”, migration creates jobs. According to OECD research, migrants expand the domestic market and create a job for every one they occupy. The image of the “lazy migrant” who is only coming to live off social security is therefore in no way representative of the “average” migrant.

These economic benefits are of course supplemented by an increase in cultural diversity, which can be a source of creativity and well-being if positively embraced. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration, Sir Peter Sutherland, tirelessly highlights these and other benefits in political forums to change the perception of migrants.

In addition, there are notable benefits of migration for the countries of origin in terms of remittances, but also of skilled workers with new experience who may return after some years abroad. This is not to gloss over the phenomenon of “brain drain” which needs to be addressed, but the numbers are quite impressive: in 2014, according to the World Bank, remittances reached USD 583 billion. This is more than twice the total Official Development Assistance in the world. In this sense, migrants should be seen as an opportunity for new development models, not only because they can help resolve imbalances in the labour market in host-economies, but also because they provide flexible and direct flows of resources back to their communities of origin.

To capitalize on this potential, it is essential that the right policies are promoted globally, through cross-cutting collaboration. And this is where the UN has a major role. The Declaration of the High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development of 2013 underlines this, and the new policy frameworks that the world gave itself in 2015 – particularly the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which was adopted at the end of last year – present us with a unique opportunity for change.

To foster political support for realizing the benefits of migration and to generate a more integrated approach, the Global Migration Group was established in 2006. It is currently comprised of 18 UN and related entities, many of which are headquartered in Geneva and other parts of Europe. So the political and technical UN response to the current refugee and migrant challenges is coordinated to a large extent from Europe. And yet, it often feels like there is a large gap between the calls for action and the implementation of policies in Europe and elsewhere.

The current crisis related to the large number of Syrian refugees in the Middle East and Europe is an example of this mismatch. The global number of forcibly displaced persons is estimated to have crossed the 60 million mark. Syria’s war remains the single biggest generator of both new refugees and continuing mass internal displacement. But even excluding Syria, the underlying trend remains one of rising displacement globally. So this is not just a European or Middle Eastern problem. It concerns the world community and requires a global approach.

It is important, when considering the broader issue of migration, to remember that the greatest proportion of migratory flows is south-south, much more that south-north.

The UN’s political response to the rising numbers of refugees has always been a call for shared responsibility. Yet, most governments, including in Europe in the context of the Syrian refugees, have responded by adopting an “out of sight – out of mind” attitude. This was evident for a long time with the under-funded and over-crowded refugee camps in the countries neighbouring Syria. And despite the fact that the “richer” governments have now come to realize that conditions in refugee camps elsewhere have an impact on migration flows to their own countries, still only 7 % of the needs of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for the 2016 Syria response are covered as of the end of March.

This reluctant approach by many countries around the world to cooperate and develop a coherent response to the migration flows has been the subject of criticism by senior UN figures including the Secretary-General himself, who stressed in Geneva at the end of March that “all countries can do more.” What this means is that it is imperative to rekindle Global solidarity. The current refugee problem is no exclusively a European one – it is a global one and has to be dealt with as such.

One way to do more to address the refugee crisis globally in the long run is to be serious about addressing root causes and prevention. With respect to conflicts in Syria and Colombia – another major driver of displacement – as well as other crises, UN mediation is offered continuously. And as I mentioned earlier, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals covering all aspects of life, is a major chance to further address root-causes. This agenda is different from the previous Millennium Development Goals in that it applies to all countries – not just to developing countries. It is therefore also a guideline for European countries and its implementation across Europe must be part of the efforts to better manage migration flows.

These development efforts also need to be linked to the humanitarian response to crises. Needs are outstripping resources despite the fact that Member States are allocating increasingly large resources to humanitarian aid. By linking development and humanitarian aid in a framework focused on prevention, we can overcome the major funding gaps we are facing and address the fact that many refugees stay in their host-communities for a considerable amount of time. We need to rethink the relationship between development aid and humanitarian assistance. Better targeting of development interventions, addressing the causes of humanitarian tragedies is obviously the way to go.

In the short-term, however, a lot more needs to be done to access the benefits of migrants, including refugees, and to relieve the suffering which many refugees and other migrants currently undergo. Concrete announcement at the conference for Syrian refugees in Geneva at the end of March were limited to commitments for some 7,000 further places for resettlement as well as scholarship programmes and other integration measures for Syrian refugees. But the meeting was an important first step to generate political momentum towards three further crucial conferences with a broader scope that will take place this year: the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul next month, and the High-Level meeting of the General Assembly on large movements of refugees and migrants in September. Followed by a meeting the day after called by President Obama to generate greater global support it terms of resettlement opportunities and financial resources. These come on the heels of the meeting in London in February of this year that generated USD 10 billion in resources.

These meetings are important opportunities to reach real results that improve the situation through global responsibility sharing. The international community has dealt with similar challenges in the past. Following the Vietnam boat people crisis in the early 1980s, there was actually a more coordinated response than what we see today. And we can learn some lessons from this and other past experiences as to what the upcoming conferences need to achieve.

We need also to globally change the negative narrative surrounding refugees and migrants. The benefits of migration I have listed earlier, are only a few. There are many more which the wider public has to be informed and aware of. Our politicians have failed to do so. Their incapability to push back the language and the narrative that is xenophobic, racist, that is allowed to grow simply because it hasn’t been dealt with in a proper way, is really not acceptable.

Further, financial and non-financial needs of primary host countries, directly neighbouring conflict zones or regions of natural disasters have to be addressed appropriately at global level. In combination with security-based measures that have recently been taken to apprehend people smugglers and to increase search and rescue capacity on sea crossings, the current chaos and suffering of those caught up in it would be significantly decreased.

These actions may prove that enlightened self-interest, humanity and international solidarity can come together to produce a win-win outcome. But this will only address the current short-term spike in numbers of refugees and migrants. There is a lot of work left to do to address the effects of the long-term migratory trends. Climate Change, demographic changes and growing populations together with declining resources as well as the impact of technological changes point to more, not less migration flows in the future. How to address these trends? Better and more coordinated policies. New legal frameworks. Globally agreed rules and procedures to deal with large flows of people. A new found global solidarity. And changing the negative narrative on refugees and migrants will be critical to these efforts. As a debating society, you are most familiar with the power of words and the ability that all of us have to shape the discourse. The next months will be essential, and political leadership will be necessary to achieve a more coordinated approach in Europe and elsewhere. The United Nations will continue to push for global responsibility sharing.

Thank you very much.