The speaker Mr. Bela Hovy, Chief Migration Section, UN DESA Programme Division, spoke during the virtual panel discussion held on the GCM Objective 1: “Collect and Utilize Accurate and Disaggregated Data as a Basis for Evidence-Based Policies” hosted by Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism [GRFDT], Migrant Forum in Asia, Cross-Regional Centre for Refugees and Migrants, Civil Society Action Committee on 1st September 2020.
Mr. Bela Hovy, as the Chief of the Migration Section in UN DESA’s Population Division, he and his team ensure that the international community has accurate data to help promote safe and well-managed international migration.Mr. Bela Hovy insists that refugees and migrants are to be considered as similar entities and their issues have to be, therefore, addressed with equal seriousness. He highlighted how “it took several years and two high level dialogues and the creation of a Global Forum on Migration and Development to get migration into the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).”: Bela Hovy.
Mr. Hovy further indicated that it was owing to the refugee crisis of 2015, a high level meeting on large movements of refugees and migrants was held, which finally led to the conduct of the International Migration Conference. Mr. Bela stressed that for having a better informed debate on migration, it is necessary to have data to help improve well managed migration policies.
Mr. Bela Hovy was emphatic about the need for civil societies to get involved more systematically with the representatives of National Statistical Office. Furthermore he lamented that unlike the 2030 Sustainable agenda, the GCM does not have a clear agenda and only has “encouragement to prepare national implementation plan. There is no concrete accountability mechanism”: Bela Hovy. He suggested that since the Global Compact for Migration is rooted in the 2030 agenda “we need to consider how the SDG framework can also be applied in the Global Compact for Migration”: Bela Hovy.
Mr. Bela Hovy reiterated that without continuing to link migration to development, the migration agenda will be limited to “border management”. He strongly advocated that the migration agenda should not be about migration but rather be about the development. He further suggested that since the SDG framework gives plenty of opportunity to assist the progress in implementing the GCM, the governments prefer to rely on the SDGs rather than a separate set of data to gauge the progress made in implementing Global Compact for Migration.
Finally in conclusion, Mr. Bela Hovyre commends the need to build bridges between the 230 Agenda and the GCM and leverage the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and utilize the vast collection of knowledge and experience, migration data and statistics to implement the GCM. He was quite confident that the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was extremely practical and that there was no need for further guidance.
Megha Rangaraj, the Writer is an under graduate student with Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Pune, India. She is an avid advocate for the emancipation of women and passionate about social issues. She can be found on twitter handle @MeghaRangaraj