Monday, 19 September 2016, was a milestone in the process of strengthening the global governance of migration by bringing the International Organization for Migration (IOM) within the UN system, as a "related organization", during the United Nations High Level Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Migrants and Refugees in New York.
“We are actually formalizing an old relationship”, stated Ambassador William Lacey Swing, Director-General of IOM, talking at the Summit. “Many people long thought that IOM was already in the UN. We have done everything together, we cooperate with all agencies, and we have built up a level of trust that made the negotiations fairly straightforward. We were born, after all, together with our traditional partner UNHCR in 1951 to bring Europeans ravaged by the Second World War to safe shores and new lives. Since then, we have collaborated so closely that we have continued to think of ourselves as UN in many ways.”
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis with record levels of forced migration and human mobility, due to several simultaneous and complex reasons, as armed conflicts, political upheavals, natural disasters, climate change, persisting socio-economic disparities and human rights abuses, among others. In this scenario a call to action was necessary. Heads of States and Governments, along with International Organizations, took this unique opportunity to commit to strengthen the governance of international migration, discuss current challenges and paths, and draw new solutions to better and systematically respond and manage this crisis.
Though still absent from the mainstream discussion on the announced Global Compacts on migrantion and refugees, health received dedicated attention during a side event “Health in the Context of Migration and Forced Displacement “, co-hosted by the Governments of Italy and Sri Lanka and organised by WHO, IOM and UNHCR on Thursday, 22 September. “Health must be given due consideration as we move towards the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and the Global Compact for Refugees”, stated Ambassador Laura Thompson, IOM Deputy Director-General. The panel also counted as participants the Johns Hopkins University, the World Bank and the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC).
The discussion focused on current perspectives and practices, and on the fact that in many countries the most important factor governing migrants’ and refugees’ access to healthcare is their legal status and the national interest in controlling immigration. The achievement of universal health coverage, including migrants and refugees, will require short- and long-term public health interventions but also collaboration and coherence amongst other sectors that are involved in the management of migration and whose interventions and policies have individual and public health implications.
Participants also agreed on the necessity of developing a unified agenda reconciling acute, crises-driven large scale displacement as well as long term economic and disparity-driven structural migration, and paved the way towards a joint roadmap of key benchmarks and accountability. “After all”, said Ms. Thompson, “migration health issues cannot be solved by the health sector alone and migration and health are inextricably linked with other policies on development, human rights, labor, foreign policy, security, the environment, and so on.” Mainstreaming health within the global compacts to be developed by 2018 requires intersector partnership and remains a priority for IOM. It represents the best opportunity at hand for the advancement of a global migrant health agenda as an integral component of migration management and global health.
Written by Dr Davide Mosca, Director, Migration Health Department, International Organization for Migration