key: cord-0941746-xz3m3q6z
authors: Ratha, Dilip
title: Staying the course on global governance of migration through the COVID‐19 and economic crises
date: 2021-02-14
journal: Int Migr
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12822
sha: 59dfedb26ea02ca23c9e6bc6c72e28097b877d48
doc_id: 941746
cord_uid: xz3m3q6z

nan

The crisis has exposed significant data gaps that have prevented real-time monitoring of remittance flows and migratory movements including stranded migrants and returning migrants. There is a pressing need to improve relevant data collection systems. Safeguarding the flows of remittances requires inclusive approaches to migrants. Governments of both host and origin countries must support the remittance infrastructure. These include recognizing remittance services as essential so that they may continue to operate, reducing the burden of remittance fees on migrants, incentivizing digital money transfers, and mitigating factors that prevent customers or remittance service providers from accessing banking services. The World Bank through the Global Knowledge Program on Migration and Development (KNOMAD) is launching an International Working Group on Improving Data on Remittances in collaboration with National Statistical Offices, central banks and selected international organizations to improve data on remittances and international cooperation in the collection and dissemination of data. Plus, the Governments of Switzerland and the United Kingdom jointly launched a Call to Action "Remittances in Crisis: How to Keep Them Flowing", in partnership with institutional partners, including the World Bank (KNOMAD) and the UNCDF. The coalition now includes thirty member states, UNDP, IOM, the International Association of Money Transfer Networks and the International Chamber of Commerce and several other organizations from the civil society and the private sector. Also, in response to the UN Secretary General's call for global solidarity in addressing the COVID pandemic, IFAD launched the Remittance Community Taskforce to come up with immediate measures to really address the impact of COVID on remittances.

Amid the crisis and decline in remittances, what has been the progress so far on global governance of migration?

Will COVID-19 halt the recent progress? Progress on the GCR has been smoother although thorny issues remain. For much of history since the Second World War, there has been agreement about the definition of refugees and a set of legal guidelines established through the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, centred on the core principle of non-refoulement, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. The UNHCR was entrusted with the implementation of guidelines as the lead agency. 1 Burdensharingwhich nation(s) should host the refugees other than the country of first arrival-continues to nag the global governance of international protection. An associated problem is financial burden: host countries may have neither the political will nor the financial ability to support a large number of people from other countries.

More recently, the creation of refugee windows under IDA18 and IDA19 (totalling over $5 billion) has been successful in scaling up activities addressing refugees and forced displacement. 2 Also, the Global Concessional Financing Facility was created to combine grants from donor countries with loans from multilateral development banks to provide concessional financing to middle-income countries (such as Colombia, Ecuador, Jordan and Lebanon) hosting a large number of refugees and displaced persons from other countries.

Unlike the GCR, progress on the GCM has been slower. Tangible progress has been made in identifying the International Organization of Migration (IOM) as a "UN-related agency" well positioned to play the role of the lead agency on migration. Also, in trying to present a cooperative framework addressing migration in "all its dimensions", the GCM document lists 23 objectives covering almost all the important issues surrounding migration.

However, from the start, the GCM faced opposition and non-participation from many nations. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block to the implementation of the GCM is the scale of migration-at over 240 million, the | 287 STAYING THE COURSE ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE OF MIGRATION THROUGH THE COVID-19 AND ECONOMIC CRISES number of (economic or voluntary) migrants is more than nine times the number of refugees. In the coming decades, migration pressures are expected to increase significantly due to income gaps, demographic divergence among countries (especially between the countries in Europe and those in Africa and South Asia), and climate change. Daunted by the prospect of hosting so many migrants or by the perceived scale of resource requirements, it has been difficult to reach an international agreement on guidelines for the governance of migration.

While nations agreed with the GCM statement that "refugees and migrants are entitled to the same universal human rights and fundamental freedoms", they also agreed that "only refugees are entitled to the specific international protection as defined by international refugee law". Implicit in these statements is a threat to national identity in the face of large immigration flows and a loss of national sovereignty by ceding governance to a multilateral treaty perceived by host countries. 3 Sovereignty, citizenship and citizens' rights depend on a clear definition of national boundaries, some argue.

However, these very concepts require strict enforcement of national borders, which, in turn, invariably, creates developmental gaps between peoples and places and, thereby, increases migration. In other words, the denial of a global governance architecture can lead to disorderly migration pressures. 4

A second stumbling block is the perceived impact of (im)migration on citizens, especially as it affects jobs and earnings. The good news is that there is a significant body of literature now pointing out that large benefits accrue from immigration to citizens. More recently, the benefits of migration are visible in the fight against COVID-19. During the pandemic, local and migrant workers alike are serving side by side on the front lines of grocery stores and health services. In the OECD countries, a quarter of medical doctors in the OECD and one-sixth of nurses are migrants. In many OECD countries, more than a third of the workforce in other key sectors, such as transport, cleaning, food manufacturing and IT services, are migrant workers (OECD, 2020) . Supporting all workers' ability to live and work safely is essential to the well-being of the whole community.

A third stumbling block to global governance of migration is a lack of concessional financing. Faced with financial and political constraints, most host countries need concessional financing from external sources for public spending associated with migrant populations. Origin countries also need financing to address developmental gaps. And in both cases, migration programmes need to be aligned with respective national development strategies, and with global goals such as the SDGs. 5

A proposal for a Concessional Financing Facility for Migration has been presented in a background paper for the upcoming summit of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD, 2020) . Presently, there are no such large-scale financing facilities dedicated to addressing migration. To be more effective, migration governance must embrace the power of partnerships and leverage available financial resources. Funds are not necessarily scarce but are presently spent in a piecemeal and uncoordinated manner. For example, the EU Multiannual Financial Facility's Neighborhood, Development, and International Cooperation Instrument would have a funding of over €96 billion during 2021-2027. The annual budget for immigration enforcement in the United States reached approximately $25 billion. On the one hand, there is a need to channel resources in a more efficient and coherent manner. On the other hand, making partnerships between host and origin countries effective, innovative and adaptable to changing circumstances requires adequate funding. In other words, effective partnerships need to be supported by a Concessional Financing Facility for Migration with a carefully designed governance structure to ensure equal and voluntary participation.

In the unprecedented environment brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, international cooperation may be more important than ever as countries seek to meet their human rights obligations towards migrants and, simultaneously, recover from the economic damage caused by the pandemic, potentially looking to migration as one way in which to do so. Certainly, a community's safety during the pandemic depends on the safety of migrants in the community as well. Indeed, supporting host countries in providing vaccines to migrants could be among the first activities of a concessional financing facility.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publo ns.com/publo n/10.1111/IMIG.12822.

The opinions expressed in this Commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors, Editorial Board, International Organization for Migration nor John Wiley & Sons.

See World Bank 2016 for a short history of governance arrangements on refugees and migration

IDA provides zero to low-interest loans (called "credits", with 30-to 40-year repayment terms) and grants to the world's 74 poorest countries for programmes that boost economic growth, reduce inequalities

There are more than 10 migration-related SDG indicators including reducing worker-paid recruitment costs (indicator 10.7.1), reducing the cost of remittances (indicator 10.c.1) and increasing the volume of remittances

Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). (2020) Fostering partnerships to realise migration-related goals. Background Paper for Roundtable 6 Fostering Partnerships

COVID-19 crisis puts migration and progress on integration at risk

On global governance of migration

Leveraging economic migration for development: A briefing for the World Bank board

Phase II: COVID19 crisis through a migration lens. Migration and Development Brief 33