research
The global forum on migration and development
- Publication date
- 1 March 2010
- Publisher
- The paper explores the proposed rationale of the Global Forum on Migration
and Development that was launched by Kofi Annan in 2006 as UN Secretary
General, as an informal inter-governmental discussion space. First, it identifies
the series of claims in Annan’s speech to the High-Level Dialogue that he
convened in New York: that international migration must be managed; that to
proceed from the present situation of entrenched disagreements and mistrust
requires constructive structured communication; that the Global Forum can
provide this and is a feasible way forward, unlike proposals for binding
international conventions; and that through processes of growing mutual
education and mutual acceptance the Forum can be fruitful. Implied are
notions of building trust and community amongst the “migro-crats”, the public
policymakers in the global networks of migration. Second, the paper monitors
how the hypotheses had fared by the time of the second Forum conference, in
Manila in 2008, by discourse analysis of its concluding report. The Manila
meeting’s declaration of a “focus on the person” appeared in reality to a large
extent mean a focus on the “migro-crats” and their interactive processes of
mutual education and team-building that are intended to produce practical
cooperation. To clarify this strategy and draw out its mindset and assumptions,
the paper presents a series of tools for discourse analysis that may be more
widely useful in migration studies and for participation in migration policy
debate.