Challenges to address

Migration has been a fundamental part of human development through history: people moving within countries or from a country to another have greatly contributed to economic growth, innovation, trade, culture, and wealth of both origin and destination societies. Indeed, migration is a permanent phenomenon, it always existed, and it will always exist, as a result of conflicts, serious economic imbalances, anti-democratic systems, persecutions, human rights violations, climate changes, natural disasters, poverty alleviation and personal reasons. In the historical era we are living, there are political, climate and socioeconomic inequalities that are widespread and, in some areas of the world, are significantly increasing. With them, inevitably, population movements expand, and this phenomenon is currently involving more than 280 million of people on the move in the world.

There are more women, men and children on the move nowadays than ever before. A map of the world today shows, in all continents, a complex network of internally displaced persons, refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants. Among them, women and children represent an increasing component, around 50 per cent; those who are unaccompanied, pregnant, heads of households, disabled or elderly are especially vulnerable during migration. Too often, they experience different kinds of gender-based violence at various stages of the journey and are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking – sometimes linked to criminal groups – and other forms of modern slavery. The vulnerability to severe exploitation of migrant men, women and children is amplified by the lack of access to protection mechanisms and of safe pathways to migration.

Ensuring that people migrate safely across the world, has been a long-lasting challenge for many governments. Migration impacts on countries of origin, transit and destination in different ways and, when not facilitated by adequate polices, it jeopardies people’s ability to experience and enjoy their human rights. 

The complexity of the current challenge is linked to the mixed nature of the flows, consisting of individual, social, economic, environmental, and political factors and dimensions. To address the complexity of the phenomenon and ensure rights are protected and promoted, the international community has been called to multiply its efforts.

The world has lost the long-term perspective on migration, approaching it as a crisis rather than a stable part of States’ policies. For this reason, in order to improve migration governance, the G7 vision should be to shift the focus on human mobility from an emergency approach to an encompassing and long-term one, turning migration flows into predictable, safe, regular and manageable migration channels.

It is essential to address and mitigate the potential for racist implications in migration policy responses. Racism, which may be covert, can lead to violence such as from traffickers of migrants and manifests within institutional practices and public sentiment.

Regular migrations are an opportunity that not only represent an essential component of development at a global level but are also central to combating the root causes of poverty in countries of origin, facilitating cultural and economic prosperity, flexibility in the occupancy sector and dignifying employments in destination countries. In addition, regular migration promotes cross-cultural and societal benefits for host and origin countries through skills transfer and information-sharing. Regular and planned migrations are also a key to reduce life risks and could guarantee respect for human rights combating all forms of modern slavery.

Resilient40 Policy Recommendations

In the framework of the multilateral action and in true partnership with the Global South and with the diaspora, the Italian G7 Presidency should work towards the adoption of an approach to manage migration based on the concept of human mobility, enshrined in the efforts encompassed by the Agenda 2030 and the Global Compacts to broaden and rebalance the perceptions of the migration phenomenon, reflecting a complex and highly variable reality, thus applying a Human development approach.

This implies shifting the focus from the emergency to an encompassing and long-term approach, based on joint responsibilities for shared benefits, and underlining the development and migration nexus and the necessity to establish a true partnership between countries of origin, transit and destination to ensure a safe, orderly and mutually beneficial human mobility based on human rights.

Safe and regular human mobility can indeed benefit origin, transit and destination countries in terms of economic prosperity and development (this is particularly true, for example, for ageing societies, in terms of sustainability of social security systems, but also in terms of contribution to poverty eradication).

This approach could induce G7 countries to take action in the following areas.

• Ensuring safe and regular migration channels in order to promote protection of human rights and sustainable development of origin, transit and destination Regular and safe migration paths would have positive impacts for all parties involved. To this end, it would be important to protect migrant workers, also outlawing unethical recruitment practices, and to integrate climate mobility into national and global policies.
  
  
• Establishing cooperative migration governance, according to the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches across migration corridors, and expressing commitment to share burdens. Replacing migration policy approaches that externalize borders with human-rights-centered cooperation in support of migrants and host communities’ wellbeing. Better financing and interventions to support the reception and the integration of migrants; enable their capacities to flourish together with those of host communities for the sustainable development of the destination country as well as the country of origin.
  
  
• Investing in countries of origin and transit, on the basis of specific partnership agreements, financing sustainable projects identified together with the partner country, involving CSOs and diasporas on the basis of the principle of local ownership, to pursue high social and economic impact – consistently with the implementation of the Avoiding the instrumentalisation of ODA to reduce migration through measures that are detrimental to human rights.
  
  
• Development cooperation must pursue its fundamental objectives: fighting poverty and inequality, supporting the resilience of communities. The narrative of addressing the root causes of migration to reduce flows is misleading and fails to consider how development leads to increased migration in the short to medium term, for which safe and regular channels must be provided. Fighting inequality and other structural issues is essential to affirm the right to stay, but this means transforming unjust economic and financial systems.
  
  
• Ensuring the protection of persons at heightened risk of abuse and gender-based violence, including but not limited to women and children, with a particular attention to people who experience trafficking or other forms of modern slavery. Ensuring access to protection and basic services, such as public health, with particular attention to sexual and reproductive services, education, and child-sensitive assistance.
  
  
• Valuing the positive aspects of human mobility for all parties (destination, transit, origin countries, and migrants themselves), by promoting integration and social inclusion of migrants and refugees in the host countries, and by adopting effective measures to assure the access to protection mechanisms and basic social and health services, national education systems, and overcoming barriers to labor market integration.