ICMC Coordinates Civil Society Participation in the 2024-25 Global Forum on Migration and Development
The GFMD Civil Society Mechanism kicks off ‘Civil Society on the Road to Colombia’, building capacity and dialogue and ensuring a civil society voice at the first GFMD preparatory meeting.
The 2024-25 25 Global Forum on Migration & Development (GFMD)* was officially launched on 3 September 2024, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ahead of the 15th GFMD Summit, to be held in Colombia in 2025, the Colombian Chairship of the 2024-25 GFMD process is coordinating a program of preparatory consultations and discussions. In its long-standing capacity as the Civil Society Mechanism of the GFMD, ICMC facilitates the engagement of civil society organizations in the GFMD process.
“Within the 2024-2025 civil society preparatory process, we’re placing a renewed emphasis on the GFMD as a process,” says Elana Wong, Coordinator of the Civil Society Mechanism at ICMC. “The Summit is the culmination, but ensuring that multistakeholder dialogue, collectivization, and advocacy are sustained all year long will lead to more robust civil society GFMD contributions.”
Preparing the Ground: GFMD Priorities for 2024-25
The Colombian Chairship has introduced three overarching priorities for the 2024-25 GFMD, namely human rights, labor migration, and regular pathways. Per the normal GFMD process, the Chair has worked with stakeholders to identify six thematic priorities to guide GFMD discussions, which for 2024-25 are:
- Strength in Movement: The Impact of Women on Global Migration and Development.
- Children and Youth on the Move: Innovators for Tomorrow’s Development.
- The Interplay of Media and Culture to Construct and Deconstruct the Reality of Migration.
- Climate Change: Safe Labor Routes as a Bridge to Prosperity.
- Regional Cooperation and Integration to Promote Safe and Regular Migration for Development.
- New Technologies and Digitalization: Improving Migration Management and Regular Migration Pathways.
The six thematic priorities will form the basis of three rounds of preparatory Roundtable Consultations, organized by the Colombian Chair in the lead-up to the GFMD Summit.
In addition to being an official observer at the GFMD Steering Group, and participating in all Roundtables as a mandated stakeholder within the GFMD process, the Civil Society Mechanism co-chairs the Roundtable on Regional Cooperation and Integration, alongside the governments of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
The 2024-25 Roundtable Consultations are designed as a ‘building block’ process, in which each preparatory meeting builds on the outcomes of prior discussions:
- First Roundtable Consultations (6-7 November, 2024), focusing on challenges and opportunities related to each of the six thematic priorities.
- Second roundtable consultations (19-20 February, 2025), focusing on the exchange of policies and practices.
- Third roundtable consultations (5 June 2025), focusing on solutions and partnerships.
Civil Society on the Road to Colombia
Civil society GFMD preparations, known as Civil Society on the Road to Colombia (Sociedad Civil en Rumbo a Colombia), formally began on 16 October 2024, with two online information sessions, organized by the Civil Society Mechanism and open to civil society representatives from around the world.
The events built the capacity of a diverse range of civil society representatives to engage in the GFMD. Alongside an introduction and overview of the GFMD process, they presented three key ways in which participants can engage in Civil Society on the Road to Colombia: participating in Civil Society Thematic Dialogues, hosting self-organized activities, and engaging in small civil society thematic strategy groups.
In preparation for the first Roundtable Consultations, held on November 6-7 2024 in Geneva, the Civil Society Mechanism organized the first GFMD Civil Society Thematic Dialogues. Held on 28-30 October 2024, these online dialogues gathered input on the six thematic priorities of the Colombia Chairship, and served as a basis for developing key messages to inform contributions of the civil society delegates who attended the first Roundtable Consultations.
Following the Colombian Chair’s ‘building block’ approach, the first Civil Society Thematic Dialogues focused on exploring challenges and opportunities related to each of the GFMD priority areas. The dynamic dialogue format, using Zoom whiteboards for collective brainstorming, allowed for discussions that found common challenges for the regions whilst still incorporating specificities where they emerged.
The outcomes of these first civil society dialogues are published as a series of GFMD Civil Society Advocacy briefs, available in French, English, and Spanish.
Civil Society Voices in the GFMD Process: At the Roundtable
The first Roundtable Consultations brought together over 160 delegates from 52 governments, alongside representatives from the three GFMD Mechanisms (Business, Civil Society, and Mayors), the Youth Stakeholder Network represented by the Migration, Youth and Children Platform (MYCP), and international organizations. The GFMD Mechanisms and youth representatives participated as officially mandated observers.[RW1] [HP2]
The Civil Society Mechanism, with financial support from ICMC, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), and self-funding from participants, organized the attendance a delegation of 11 civil society representatives from around the world. The Civil Society Mechanism briefed all representatives on the GFMD and Roundtable process, and on the civil society advocacy priorities developed in the preceding Civil Society Thematic Dialogues and summarized in the subsequent advocacy briefs.
During the meeting, the Civil Society Mechanism’s Elana Wong delivered a statement introducing civil society GFMD preparations, and highlighting common concerns on language accessibility and the limitations it presents for the participation of civil society stakeholders working at grassroots level.
“We are looking forward to an engaging first preparatory meeting, and to testing out the new modalities for discussion,” she said. “We are sure we will all collectively learn from this experience, and we hope there remains room to adjust the modalities, if needed, to ensure both quality discussions as well as diverse multi-stakeholder dialogue, for which language justice remains crucial.”
* The GFMD is a state-led, informal, and non-binding process that helps shape the global debate on migration and development and allows governments – in partnership with civil society, the private sector, local and regional governments, youth and other relevant stakeholders – to analyze and discuss sensitive issues, create consensus, pose innovative solutions, and share policy and practices. Find out more about the GFMD Civil Society Mechanism and the 2024-25 GFMD.
Rachel Westerby
Independent writer and researcher on migration, refugees, and human rights.
