LOOK: APMM’s General Manager’s message during the Global Policy Forum on Development in Brussels, Belgium

Presentation for the Migration Session                                                                                                          Global Policy Forum on Development                                                                                                                 27-29 September 2023 | Brussels, Belgium

Good afternoon!

Thank you very much for joining this session on migration. Originally, the input was to be provide by Ms. Eni Lestari, an Indonesian domestic worker in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, she could not get visa on time so I was asked to present instead.

I am from the Migrants and Diaspora Constituency of the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE) and the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM), and I am very much hoping that I can give voice and justice to the grassroots migrants whose concerns and aspirations we hoped to present and highlight for this session.

How does migration relate to the themes – on equality and civic space – of this global PFD? First, present-day migration stands on inequality. The reason why 300 Pakistanis that Azra mentioned yesterday had to leave and die is essentially the same with the 270 million migrants and 60 million refugees now. Inequality is so severe and the gap between the haves and have-nots is ever expanding. Even gender inequality is so serious that we see women relegated to the most stereotyped of migrant work vulnerable to abuses and exploitation.

But unfortunately in host countries, migration is not designed to promote equality but just to recruit workers, mostly low- or semi-skilled, to fill in labor needs commonly for the 3D jobs. While there are indeed foreign workers in higher-skilled jobs or higher positions, it is a fact that most are the workers in supply chain industries, in agricultural plantations, in the service sector. They belong to the precariat, disposable and have limited rights.

Second point: given the first point, it is actually ironic that in the development discourse of the past years, migration is promoted as a strategy to address inequality as in the SDG 10. The catchphrase migration for development is an attempt to normalise migration primarily as an opportunity instead of a problem of underdevelopment and a development paradigm is inequitable and unsustainable.

No country has ever developed because it exported its people. After decades of systematic migration, labor-exporting countries have remained as such and now, exportation is still on the rise. Like my home country, the Philippines.

Third point: while development potentials of migration may be there, it’s realisation cannot really be achieved nor sustained if inequality and injustice are not concretely addressed. For how can migration be for development if the fundamental economic, political, social and ecological reasons for underdevelopment are not resolved? How can migration be for development if the potential of migrants in host countries are clipped by multiple restrictions and social exclusion, and access to full participation in society is not there?

Which brings us to the importance of the fourth point: civic space for migrants.

In the global and regional levels, the assertion of grassroots migrants and their advocates for space and voice has resulted to some advances – this Global PFD is one positive point. However, it is still limited and always a struggle for migrants to enable their participation.

In the national level where actual policies are created and implemented, the problem of migrants is not even a shrinking space, but to actually be present in the space. Or even be allowed to create their space.

We always say: nothing about migrants, without migrants as it is their livelihood, their life and their very future that are at stake. Support should be provided to enable and capacitate them to forward their grounded knowledge on migration and their aspirations in policy spaces.

As a fifth and last point: partnership and cooperation is indeed important both to address concerns surrounding migration and to reinforce positive gains on migration.

In the development discourse, CSOs have been proposing principles and frameworks to advance development. On the part of the CPDE, we assert that the effective development cooperation principles, aligned with human and women’s rights frameworks, must be refocused, revitalised, and accelerated for a better and inclusive response to urgent global concerns such as migration and displacement.

There are a number of justice and human rights-based frames and principles – developed through discussions and grounded practices – that partnership and cooperation can stand on. What is important is that it must serve the people’s agenda for development, address gaps and inequalities in all spheres, and unleash the full potential of people to create a system that is truly just, equitable and sustainable for the people and planet.

Thank you very much.