Invitation to a Workshop on Migration and the Post-2015 Development Agenda in the ASEAN

[Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants]

*Apologies for cross-posting

Migration and the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Where is it heading? Where do we want to take it?

Workshop on Migration and the Post-2015 Development Agenda in the ASEAN

(The workshop will be held during the ASEAN People’s Forum 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on April 23, 2:00PM – 4:00PM at the KuliahB-6, UTM. For questions, please email ap...@apmigrants.org)

Within the past decade, migration has become a discussed theme in intergovernmental meetings on development. This has been shown especially by the two UN High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development as well as the series of Global Forum on Migration and Development or GFMD that started in 2006.

While these meetings profess to not use migration as a development strategy, grassroots migrants and advocates the world over have noted that statements that came out of such meetings are really geared towards the further systematization of migration, and not to resolving forced migration and upholding the rights of migrants.

The framework of migration for development has close bearing on the post-2015 development agenda.

Fourteen years ago, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed without much of a mention of migrants or migration though most, if not all, of the MDG themes were relevant to migrants. This, it may seem, was an oversight that the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development wished to rectify.

However, the outcome document of the OWG last July still leaves a lot to be desired.

For governments, current migration is not a problem of development that must be resolved but an opportunity to be maximized. The World Bank, various UN agencies and other multilateral and multi-stakeholder bodies such as the GFMD, all choose to emphasize the enormous contribution of migration for development. They are advancing the flawed strategy of using remittance as a motor for development: be it as part of the GDP, as a credit-rating booster, or as a means to increase social capital through economic capacity given to households of migrants.

Civil society organizations have come together in various platforms and networks to influence negotiations for the poast-2015 development agenda. While migration is included in official discussions of governments, the presence of grassroots migrants and advocates in these meetings is sorely lacking. The fact that the migrants sector has not been identified as a Major Group in the post-2015 development agenda process speaks of the lack of understanding and appreciation of the real condition of migrants and the real causes and impacts of migration.

In this context, it is imperative to use the occasion of the ASEAN People’s Forum to delve deeper into the ASEAN context of Migration and the Post-2015 Development Agenda as well as the impacts of the direction that intergovernmetal meetings on the post-MDG agenda is taking to migrants and the people of ASEAN.

Objectives

1. Enable the understanding of migrant organizations and advocates in the ASEAN on migration and the post-2015 development agenda

2. Strategize advocacy to uphold rights of migrants in the post-2015 development agenda by ASEAN members

Program

• Speakers:

- Migrants and Migration in the Post-2015 Agenda

This will relate the current developments in the process of formulating the Post-2015 development goals and how migration is being positioned in such an agenda. It will also zero in on how these trends in the Post-2015 Agenda discussions will impact on migration in the ASEAN and the vision for integration.

- Migration and the Peoples agenda for development

This will elaborate on alternative frameworks advanced by the people’s movement for the post-2015 development agenda. It will present on why an alternative framework is needed and how it can serve in addressing the challenges on migration.

• Open Forum

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Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)
Office Address: G/F, No.2 Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

Tel. no.: (852) 2723-7536      
Fax no.: (852) 2735-4559
General E-mail:  ap...@apmigrants.org
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Important Notice: Effective immediately, our new official email address will be ap...@apmigrants.org, as ap...@hknet.com will be discontinued by the service provider by the end of March 2015. Please take note of this changes. Alternatively, you can write to the email list below. Thank you!
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Other Email Addresses:
Managing Director :             ra...@apmigrants.org
Marriage Migrants Program :  amm...@apmigrants.org, re...@apmigrants.org

Faith Communities Witnessing with Migrants: inf...@apmigrants.org,  ra...@apmigrants.org

Research and Publication:  aa...@apmigrants.org
FDWs & Women's Program: so...@apmigrants.org

Undocumented Migrants: r...@apmigrants.org

Migrants Trade Unionism: n...@apmigrants.org

 

WEBSITE: www.apmigrants.org

"We dream of a society where families are not broken up by the urgent need for survival. We dream and will actively work for a homeland where there is opportunity for everyone to live a decent and humane life."