Informační centrum OSN v Praze: Generální tajemník OSN dnes Valnému shromáždění předkládá zprávu o mezinárodní migraci.

Podle odhadů žilo v roce 2005 mimo svou vlast 191 milionů lidí – 115 milionů ve vyspělých státech a 75 milionů v rozvojových zemích.

Se vzrůstajícím počtem migrujících lidí se toto téma posouvá vzhůru v agendě OSN. Konečné rozhodnutí o větší či menší míře migrace spočívá na vládách jednotlivých států, ale světové společenství by se mělo zabývat bezpečnostním aspektem migrace a jejím přínosem pro rozvoj.

Podle Annana však nejsou výhody, které mezinárodní migrace přináší, dostatečně chápány. Nejen že jsou migrující pracovníci často ochotni vykonávat v hostující zemi potřebná zaměstnání, o která zde není velký zájem, ale mají také důležitý ekonomický význam. V zemích se stárnoucí populací přispívají do penzijních systémů a hodnota finančních prostředků, které tito lidé posílají zpět do rozvojových zemí, se odhaduje na 167 miliard dolarů ročně.

Annan ve své zprávě navrhuje zřízení poradního fóra zástupců vlád členských států OSN, které by hodnotilo různé migrační politiky a navrhovalo nové možné přístupy. 8. června proběhne na půdě Valného shromáždění diskuze o zprávě generálního tajemníka a o problematice mezinárodní migrace bude Valné shromáždění jednat na vysoké úrovni ve dnech 14. - 15. září 2006.

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Příloha: Související tisková zpráva a shrnutí fakt o mezinárodní migraci.


Secretary-General sees UN as site for exchange of views on migration, in new report out today

(UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, 6 June) In a wide-ranging new UN report on the development impact of international migration, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today proposed a standing forum which governments could use to explore and compare policy approaches.

Such a government-led consultative forum on migration and development would not produce negotiated outcomes or recommendations, the Secretary-General stressed. Rather, it would make new policy ideas more widely known, add value to existing regional consultations, and encourage an integrated approach to migration and development at both the national and international levels.

Mr. Annan described his report -- which he presented today to the General Assembly – as “an early road map for this new era of mobility”. In it, he says that “the advantages that migration brings are not as well understood as they should be.”

Migrants not only take on necessary jobs seen as less desirable by the established residents of host countries, the report finds, but also stimulate demand and improve economic performance overall. They help to shore up pension systems in countries with aging populations.

For their part, developing countries benefit from an estimated $167 billion a year sent home by migrant workers. The exodus of talent from poor countries to more prosperous often poses a severe development loss. But in many countries this is at least partially compensated by migrants’ later return to, and/or investment in, their home countries, where profitable new businesses are established.

General Assembly takes up migration in September
Traditionally considered too hot for a global institution to handle, the issue of international migration has recently been moving up \the UN agenda.

Last year, the independent Global Commission on International Migration presented a report and recommendations to the UN Secretary-General. In 2005, the International Labour Organization adopted a non-binding Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration And a special representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Peter Sutherland, is now engaged in preliminary talks with governments, leading up to a “high-level dialogue” to be held by the General Assembly on 14-15 September.

The report finds that migration has become a major feature of international life. People living outside their home countries numbered 191 million in 2005 -- 115 million in developed countries, 75 million in the developing world.


One third of all current immigrants in the world have moved from one developing country to another, while about the same number have moved from the developing world to the developed. In other words, “South-South” migration is roughly as common as “South-North”. But migration to countries designated as “high-income” – a category which includes some developing countries, such as the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – has grown much faster than to the rest of the world.

“It is for Governments to decide whether more or less migration is desirable,” the Secretary-General says in his introduction to the report. “Our focus in the international community should be on the quality and safety of the migration experience and on what can be done to maximize its development benefits.”

Benefits at both ends of the voyage
The UN report reviews scores of promising policy developments -- multiple-entry visas that provide more fluid and better regulated access to needed immigrant workers, support for immigrant entrepreneurship and host-country training programmes, international cooperation to increase training of skilled workers in migrant-sending countries to allay brain drain, and country-of-origin outreach to overseas diasporas.

Migration is not a zero-sum game, the report finds. It can benefit both sending and receiving countries at once. Significantly, many countries once known for emigration – Ireland, the Republic of Korea and Spain among them – now boast thriving economies and host large numbers of immigrants.

The UN report recognizes governments’ right to decide who is allowed to enter their territory, subject to international treaty obligations, as well as their capacity to work together to upgrade economic and social benefits at both ends of the migrant voyage, and to promote the well-being of the migrants themselves.

“We find that while countries share people through migration, they often neglect to share knowledge about how to manage the movement of people,” Mr. Annan writes. “We need to learn more systematically from each other.”

For more information, contact the UN Department of Public Information, Development Section, Tim Wall, 1-212-963-5851; or Oisika Chakrabarti, 1-212-963-8264, chakrabarti@un.org



International migration facts & figures

• At the global level, international migrants numbered 191 million in 2005.
• Roughly one third live in a developing country and came from another developing country, while another third live in a developed country and originated in a developing country. That is, “South-to-South” migrants are about as numerous as “South-to-North” migrants.
• In 2005, Europe hosted 34 per cent of all migrants; Northern America, 23 per cent, and Asia, 28 per cent. Only nine per cent were living in Africa; three per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and another three per cent in Oceania.
• Nearly six out of every ten international migrants (a total of 112 million) reside in countries designated as “high income”. But these high income nations include 22 developing countries, such as Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.
• Nearly half of all migrants worldwide are women. In the developed countries they are more numerous than male migrants.

• In 72 countries, the number of migrants decreased between 1990 and 2005. Seventeen nations accounted for 75 per cent of the increase in the migrant stock over that period -- the US gained 15 million migrants, with Germany and Spain adding more than 4 million each.

• Between 1990 and 2005, at least 35 programmes were undertaken in both developed and developing countries to bring the status of migrants who were in an irregular situation into conformity with national regulations. Overall, these programmes regularized the status of at least 5.3 million migrants.



Skilled migration

• In 2000, there were about 20 million migrants with tertiary education and aged 25 or over living in OECD countries, up from 12 million in 1990.

• People with tertiary education accounted for nearly half the increase in migrants older than 25 years in the OECD countries during the 1990s .

• Nearly 6 out of every 10 highly-educated migrants living in OECD countries in 2000 originated in developing countries.

• Between 33 and 55 per cent of the highly-educated people of Angola, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania live in OECD countries. That proportion is even higher, about 60 per cent, for Guyana, Haiti, Fiji, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.


Remittances

• Money sent home by migrants worldwide increased from US$102 billion in 1995 to an estimated US$232 billion in 2005.

• The share of global remittances going to developing countries has also increased, from 57 per cent in 1995 (US$58 billion) to 72 per cent in 2005 (US$167 billion).

• The top 20 recipient countries accounted for 66 per cent of world remittances in 2004. Only eight of them are developed countries. One third of global remittances went to only four countries: in order of total money received, these were India, China, Mexico and France.

• Remittances constituted a high share of gross domestic product in only two of the major recipients: the Philippines, and Serbia and Montenegro. Most of the 20 countries where remittances accounted for at least a tenth of GDP are small developing economies.


Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division

For further information, please visit www.unmigration.org or contact Ms. Hania Zlotnik, Director, United Nations Population Division, Tel: (212) 963-3179, e-mail: zlotnik@un.org.