MOVEMENT
2
nd
edition: 2017
A Global Civil Society Report on Progress and Impact on Migrants’ Rights and Development: through
Year 3
of Civil Society’s 5-year 8-point Plan of Action
2
nd
edition of:
MOVEMENT:
A Global Civil Society Report on Progress and Impact on Migrants’ Rights and Development: through
Year 3
of Civil Society’s 5-year 8-point Plan of Action
Author:
Elaine McGregor, United Nations University-MERIT and the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University.
Design and print:
Published March 2017
This publication has been commissioned by the International Catholic Migration Com-mission Europe (ICMC Europe) with financial assistance from the European Union as part of the activities for the Migration and Development Civil Society (MADE) Network programme. For more information about MADE, please visit the website:
The MADE programme connects civil society worldwide to promote policies for the well-being and protection of all migrants and communities. It is co-funded by the Eu-ropean Commission, Directorate General for Development and Cooperation from the Thematic programme of cooperation with third countries in the areas of migration and asylum and the Thematic programme for Non-state actors and local authorities in de-velopment. The programme is funded through two joint projects: Improving Migration and Development Partnerships and Action with Civil Society –
(IMPACS)
and Strength-ening the GFMD Civil Society network on Migration and Development
(ENGAGE)
. Both projects have been active since January 2014.Copyright: International Catholic Migration Commission Europe
MADE
Migration and DevelopmentCivil Society Network
International Catholic Migration Commission
This MADE Programme is co-funded by the European Commission. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the Implementing Organization and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission
1
Taking goals and targets seriously
In civil society, we take goals and targets seriously.This is true for important goals and targets that we join others in setting. One such example is the global
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
whose seventeen goals and 169 targets (the SDGs)
all
apply to migrants regardless of status, with at least eight of them referring explicitly to migrants or migration:
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SDG 4b on provision of scholarships for study abroad;
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SDGs 5.2, 8.7 and 16.2 on combating human trafficking, especially for women and children;
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SDG 8.8 to “Protect labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, including migrant workers, in particular women migrants, and those in precarious employment”;
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SDG 10.7 to “Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of well-planned migration policies”;
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SDG 10c on lowering the costs of transmitting remittances and;
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SDG 17.18 on disaggregating data by migratory status.In the field of migration, the 2030 Agenda goals and targets will be especially important in these next two years. Through 2017 and 2018, the world will take forward commitments that 193 UN Member States unanimously adopted at the High-Level Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants at the UN General Assembly 19 September 2016 (the Summit)—including major work to be completed by September 2018 on two new global Compacts: one for refugees and the other for safe, orderly and regular migration.At the same time, we also take seriously the goals and targets that we in civil society set for ourselves—in particular those we set in 2013 in global civil society’s
5-year 8-point Plan of Action
(with a ninth point more recently added on xenophobia). All of these points also relate directly to goals and targets in the SDGs.This is the reason for this second edition of the
Movement Report:
we take so seriously what we have set as priorities that we have asked a team from a respected university to conduct an independent assessment of our progress on them. The title “movement”, then, has two meanings: movement towards achieving the priorities, and civil society as a move-ment that is serious about achieving all of those priorities, at global, regional and national levels.With many of us in this movement ourselves being migrants or refugees or members of diasporas, we know how important this is. It is not just political, or practical: it is personal.And if the priorities are worth achieving, then progress towards achievement is worth measuring for sure. So here, on the basis of some 600 inputs from civil society actors around the world and another 20 in-depth interviews, Elaine McGregor of Maastricht University reports on progress on the eight points plus xenophobia, through year 3 of the 5-year Plan of Action. The Report observes that 2016 was a year of:
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continued movement forward on Points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 of the Plan regarding, respectively, migration in the Post-2015 Development Agenda; diaspora; migrants in crisis and in distress; protection of women and children when vulnerable in contexts of migration; and reform of migrant worker recruitment practices;
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dramatic new focus and energy on Points 5 and 6 of the Plan on governance of migration: a striking turnabout from the prior
Movement Report’s
assessment of progress during the first two years of the Plan, where governance had received the least organised attention from civil society out of all of the points;
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inconsistent progress on Point 8, advancing labour rights of migrant workers equal to nationals, and insufficient coordination of efforts to combat xenophobia, [belated] Point 9.