2016 crucial for migration

The year 2016 will be crucial for migration, which attracted global focus for amalgamating nationalism and the build up to integration through sharing sovereignty, observed Sir Peter Sutherland at a seminar in the capital yesterday.

"You have to be concerned with the movements of people. This is the missing part of the process of the institutionalisation of globalisation," said the special representative of the United Nations secretary general on migration and development.

"In the last 10 years, we have seen the gradual unfolding of this issue created by the...reality of change...like war and conflicts in different parts including Syria," he added.

Sutherland was addressing as the keynote speaker "Migration and Development: Challenges and Perspectives" organised by the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) at its auditorium.

With 40 percent of its population comprising migrants, the US has migrations as one the agendas of its presidential election scheduled for November, he said.

"The countries must respond not by closing doors but by stretching (out) their arms for the refugees," he said, focusing on the need to expand legal ways to save migrants and encourage development with migration.

Sutherland termed German Chancellor Angela Merkel a heroine for her "outstanding" role in addressing the refugee crisis in Europe.

He also praised Bangladesh's bid to chair the 9th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), scheduled to be held in Dhaka in December.

He hoped that Bangladesh would raise talks on incorporating sustainable development agendas in migration specific issues as had been previously discussed in GFMD sessions and global consultations.

"Bangladesh specifically deserves credits for the inclusion of migration as the development agenda in the SDGs (sustainable development goals). We have an agenda. We have promises not to leave migrants behind, including refugees and the displaced persons," he said.

Referring to International Organization for Migration's suggestion in this regard, he said "It (migration) does not create unemployment. It creates employment."

Ambassador Eva Åkerman Börje who served as GFMD 2013-2014 chair, Global Civil Society Coordinator from International Catholic Migration Commission John Bingham, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque and BIISS Chairman Ambassador Munshi Faiz Ahmad also spoke.