Guyana has welcomed the recently completed first round of talks on migration at United Nations Headquarters as “a milestone in the global migration dialogue”.
The initiative, which involves United Nations Member States, including Guyana, saw the completion of this first meeting as a step closer towards crafting a “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, an and Regular Migration (GCM)”.
According to a release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, Guyana recognizes that its Diaspora is at least as large as its internal population and remains mindful of the unsustainable burden of the unmitigated loss of skilled and unskilled persons, irregular movement of people and solely unilateral efforts to address these challenges.
Also, prior to the ongoing discussions, Guyana held a local national consultative meeting on migration as a means to better inform its position on the Global Compact talks.
Consequently, the State supported the proposal of Guiding Principles, with emphasis on such aspects as a people-centered approach and need for international cooperation; the inclusion of broad, clear, specific and actionable commitments or objectives; as well as for the holistic follow-up of the Global Compact.
The Zero Draft document reflecting the outcome of the initial meeting will be up for a second round of negotiations next week from Monday 12 to Thursday 15 March. Some six such meetings are scheduled to be held until July this year when UN Member States are expected to adopt the GCM. Guyana is being represented at these talks by Director, Multilateral and Global Affairs Department, Troy Torrington, and Head of the Diaspora Unit, Michael Brotherson, both of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the release added.
In 2016, one hundred and ninety-three UN Member States adopted the New York Declaration at the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants. In adopting the Declaration, the Member States signalled their readiness to finalize a GCM that not only aligns with goal 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals, but also coordinates the efforts of each UN Member State, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN to protect and empower migrants through policies that ensure safe, orderly and regular migration.
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