With the adoption of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants by the General Assembly, a process of intergovernmental negotiations is underway for the Global Compact on Migration. Given this background, the Global Migration Centre (GMC), in cooperation with the Permanent Delegation of the African Union and the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the United Nations Office in Geneva, held a high-level seminar on 04 October 2017. The purpose of the event was to strengthen the legal and technical expertise of the African Union leading to the Global Compact on Migration in 2018.

H. E. Ambassador Malloum Bamanga Abbas, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Chad gave the opening remarks along with H. E. Ambassador Negash Kebret Botora from the Permanent Mission of Ethiopia. 

A presentation about international law and the Global Compact on Migration was given by Prof. Dr. Vincent Chetail, Director of the GMC and Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Following then, Dr. Delidji Eric Degila of the GMC discussed about the geopolitical dimensions of Migration. 

The second half of the seminar featured remarks by Dr. Céline Bauloz, Migration Law Specialist at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on migration and governance and by Mr. Shabari Nair, Labor Migration Policy Specialist of International Labour Organization (ILO) on topics of labor mobility and recent work in relations to the Global Compact on Migration. 

The seminar ended with an interactive discussion among participants.