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Concept note fv
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Joint Migration and Development Initiative & City of Milan
âCities, the integration of migrants and co-development practicesâ
EUROCITIES âIntegrating Cities VI Conferenceâ, Tampere, Finland, 10 September 2013
Importance of the topic and context
The migration and development agenda is currently mostly conducted and framed at the national and
international levels. Yet, local administrations, and cities in particular, are at the forefront in confronting the
transformations and opportunities that migration brings about. More than 9.3 billion people are expected
to move to city centres by 20301
. Urban nodes in both the northern and southern hemisphere are thus
increasingly shaped by the social, economic and cultural capitals that diaspora groups carry with them and
local administrations are becoming increasingly aware of this international window of opportunity, as the
activities from migrants abroad are felt through various resources, knowledge, capacities and remittances
that are circulating between two territories.
A recent research2
completed by the Joint Migration and Development Initiative3
has shown that migration
and development practices implemented by local administrations exist on a global scale, but they often
remain isolated experiences. There is thus a growing need to move towards more structured forms of
intervention, coupled with opportunities for local administration in the North and in the South to exchange
knowledge and build their capacities in order to jointly manage migration flows form one territory to
another. As the impacts of migration are often most strongly felt at the local level, be it in terms of effects
on the local labour market, or the need for public services, local administrationsâ responsibilities to plan and
implement migration-related interventions are greater than ever. Increased attention should therefore be
dedicated to analyzing the role of decentralized levels of governments in the field of migration and
development and to the development impacts of integration programmes and co-development initiatives,
such as those implemented by the City of Milan4
.
At the policy level, the importance of local level actors for the success of development initiatives is
increasingly echoed across the board by many institutions concerned with development. At the level of the
European Union (EU), the role of local governments has been more fully recognized during the 2005
revision of the Cotonou Agreement. In the 2011 Agenda for Change, the EU aims "to work more closely with
the private sector, foundations, civil society and local and regional authorities as their role in development
is growing"5
. In addition, the Committee of the Regions adopted the opinion "Migration and mobility: a
global approach", which calls for regional and local authorities to be fully taken into account in the
1
Douglas Saunders, âArrival Cities: How the largest migration in history is shaping our worldâ, 2011.
2
JMDI, âMapping local authoritiesâ practices in the field of migration and development: a territorial approach to local strategies, initiatives and
needsâ, 2013.
3
The Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI) is a three year programme (2012-2015) financed by the European Commission and the
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and implemented by UNDP in collaboration with IOM, ILO, UNHCR, UN WOMEN and UNFPA. The
first JMDI programme (2008-2012) has shown that initiatives undertaken by migrants have a more positive impact on development when they are
implemented in partnership with local authorities and other entities that have a stake in local development. The new programme thus aims at
combining the actions of both local authorities and migrants in order to achieve positive results at the local development and reinforce the
capacities of local authorities to harness the potential of migration for development.
4
By adopting a co-development approach to migration and development issues and by launching a programme that sustains projects âhereâ and
âthereâ that run by migrants in partnership with NGOs, the experience of the City of Milan further demonstrates that such forms of cooperation can
strengthen the voluntary participation of migrants in to development cooperation, in addition to promoting migrantsâ integration. However, the
session will also explore other forms of cooperation frameworks and discuss which type of mechanisms (for instance Call for Proposals) are the best
positioned to combine local authoritiesâ initiatives with those of the migrant groupsâ.
5
See the communication from the European Commission Increasing the Impact of EU Development Policy: an Agenda for Change. COM (2001). See
also European Commission (2008), Changing the World⊠Locally. 25 success stories of development cooperation at local level.
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implementation of the EUâs Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM), by building on existing
decentralised cooperation projects and structured bodies.
Local administrations thus indeed represent valuable âinstitutional corridorsâ which allow for and are a
guarantee for the sustainability of interventions in the field of migration and development, but there are
also several challenges related to their capacities to effectively plan and implement concrete actions.
Among them is the availability of funding, as well as their facto competence to be the main drivers in
migration-related issues and to link those with local development strategies as the topic of migration is
mainly dealt with at the national level. Another challenge for both local administrations of origin and
destination countries is the mobilization of diaspora groups in co-development programmes and to ensure
that migrantsâ contributions are a) sustainable; and b) in line with local development needs and priorities.
Despite the fact that European cities and regions are extensively engaged in decentralized cooperation
frameworks, migration and development is still an area that has not yet received the same attention than
other development-related topics. There is thus a need to better define on how local authorities can engage
in co-development and link integration initiatives with development-orientated goals and moreover foster
solid mechanisms for transferring knowledge between sending and receiving territories.
The session thus brings together policy-makers and practitioners, who will through their concrete
experiences in both receiving and sending countries, draw on the type of cooperation mechanisms and
partnerships that can maximise the development impact of migration/integration programmes at the local
level.
Expected outcomes
The session will expose the participants to the possibilities of cities to engage in migration and
development and the available funding mechanisms and cooperation frameworks for such initiatives.
Participants will have the opportunity to discuss the challenges that local authorities face in fostering co-
development initiatives and be able to identify the appropriate tools and the type of partnerships that can
increase both the transfer of knowledge between local authorities themselves, with their respective
national governments and with their migrant population. The concrete examples will help local
administrations to link migration and developmentârelated actions into existing decentralized cooperation
frameworks and/ or twinning initiatives. Moreover, the session aims at providing a platform for policy-
makers and practitioners from receiving and sending countries to network among each other and initiative
partnerships.
During the session, the panelists and participants are expected to share forms to accommodate to growing
mobility of people worldwide and how they promote the contributions of migrants in their city/region.
Particular emphasis will be placed on networks of cities and urban regions on these issues, as well as on the
type of partnerships that can act as enablers for migrants to fully develop their potentials. The challenge for
cities/regions in formulating policies that take into account the increasingly complex global population
movements (i.e. long / short term, highly-skilled/unskilled) will be discussed and recommendations on how
to include migration as a cross-cutting issue in territorial development planning will be elaborated.
After the session, participants will be asked to engage in the drafting of a joint policy paper of Cities which
will be shared with the European Commission. The content of this paper will also draw on the
establishment of a common framework for measuring and evaluating the impact of co-development
initiatives.