The GFMD and the Governance of International Migration

Abstract

The current international debate on migration and development, particularly in the context of the GFMD, may be strengthening multilateral cooperation in these two policy fields and contributing to enhanced governance of international migration. The actions that states can take on migration are constrained by the realities of global forces that no state can control unilaterally. But there is still no consensus on whether global governance of international migration is really needed, what form it might take, and how it should develop. Movement toward greater international collaboration on migration picked up pace in the last decade. A number of conferences and consultative processes were initiated, and multilateral organizations showed a new or renewed interest in the topic. One of the new structures created in this period was the GFMD. This chapter reflects on whether and how the interaction among states and other stakeholders in the GFMD is leading to more collaboration on global mobility. Is it encouraging existing organizations to pursue common agendas on migration? While nonbinding, the GFMD shows signs of becoming a forum to identify and test agreed approaches on issues of common concern, which could be the building blocks of more robust international governance of migration.KeywordsCivil SocietyUnited NationsInternational MigrationMigrant WorkerMigration IssueThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.