13th GFMD Summit

This page provides an overview of the Chair’s vision for the 13^th GFMD Summit, to be held online from 18 – 26 January 2021, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai.. Given that an online-only GFMD Summit has never been held before, Member States, Mechanisms and GFMD Observers will have a significant number of questions about how it will work in practice. The purpose of this page is to provide some answers to these questions and assist stakeholders in planning their participation in the Summit. It will be regularly updated and circulated, as more information becomes available. 

The Chair is of the view that an online-only Summit is as much an opportunity as it is a necessity. It allows for a participation by a wide cross-section of stakeholders, including at a senior level, from capital, from diverse regions, and by delegates who may otherwise have been disincentivised due to their inability to forego their normal duties when traveling for an extended period of time or due to the cost of travel. Our goal is to use the online-only format to ensure we have the most globally representative GFMD Summit to date.

Despite moving the Summit online, we will abide by the principles we outlined in January in our vision for the UAE Chairmanship. To that end, the entire Summit will be open to all stakeholders for the first time, although there will be certain restriction on some sessions (see below). Although the GFMD remains state-led, we welcome business, civil society and local government as co-partners in the design and implementation of the Summit. The content of the Summit will remain future-focused, emphasise partnerships and restate the relationship between migration and development outcomes. And for the first time, regional perspectives on migration will be integral to the background papers of the Summit Roundtables.

However, the online environment does pose constraints. First among these is the issue of divergent time-zones. It is unfortunately impossible to identify a time of day when everyone on the planet can reasonably be expected to be awake. Therefore, the Chair took the decision to organise the Summit around a narrow two-hour band when as broad a representation of the global population as possible will be able to participate. (For those on either side, in Oceania and the West Coast of the Americas, the Chair requests your understanding.) In the interests of global cohesion, this approach was preferred to, for example, holding each session twice daily.

This Summit will be the end of a year-long process, which has encompassed five online regional consultations (consisting of thirty-one individual meetings), three Friends of the Forum, two Migration Labs, alongside numerous webinars and meetings of GFMD Working Groups. Since the end of January 2020, well over a thousand individuals have contributed their time and their ideas to the GFMD. We count on your continued support as we move towards the culmination of that process in January 2021.

The 13^th GFMD Summit will be held online on a specially built online platform. The Summit platform will consist of three parts: first, the registration site; second, an interactive Summit agenda; third the integration of Zoom video conferencing technology to facilitate interactive sessions.

1. Registration

GFMD Focal Points are requested to submit formal delegation lists to the Chair by email through the Support Unit (registration@gfmd.org).

Formal registration must be supplemented by applying for online access. For online access, please contact the Support Unit (registration@gfmd.org). Member States and Observers are able to register directly through this URL. Delegates from the three Mechanisms will be requested to register for online access through the Mechanism coordinator.

For Member States and Observers, registration will take place in two stages: first, the submission of an application to register for online access; second, confirmation of registration.

To apply to register for online access, delegates will be asked to enter relevant information on the online registration page, including name, contact details, organisation they are representing, and the stakeholder group to which they belong. As long as all registration fields are completed and the application submitted, the user will receive an email confirming that their application to register has been received by the organiser. 

To ensure the integrity of the registration process, applications to register will be compiled by the platform administrators and shared with the Chair and the Support Unit for verification and comparison with the list of registered delegates submitted by the GFMD focal points. Where there are question marks over the online registration, focal points will be asked to verify the registration. Please note that applications for online access will close one week prior to the start of the Summit, on Monday 11 January 2020. This is in order to give the Chair and Support Unit sufficient time to verify all outstanding applications.

Once registrants have been verified, they will receive an email confirming their registration and providing login details (username and password). These login details will allow them to access the interactive agenda, once it is made available.

2. Interactive Agenda

One week before the start of the Summit, on 13 January 2021, the online interactive agenda will become accessible to all delegates whose registration has been confirmed and are in receipt of their login details. Delegates will be encouraged to visit the Summit site and login, to view the Summit sessions that are available to them (see below for further details).

Under each item on the interactive agenda, there will be two options: a ‘Register to Speak’ option and a ‘Register to View’ option. If delegates wish to take an active speaking role in a particular session, they will need to confirm their interest by clicking on the ‘Register to Speak’ button (this can be done at any point up to the end of the session).

Clicking on either option will result in a calendar invite being sent to the email address that the delegate used to register. This calendar invite will contain a link to a Zoom meeting. Delegates will need to click on the Zoom link in the calendar invite in order to access the session.
The interactive agenda will also feature, for each session, descriptions of the session, biographies of speakers and relevant background documents.

3. Zoom

With the exception of the Opening and Closing Plenaries (see below for further details), all sessions will take place via Zoom.

For the best experience, delegates are encouraged to download the Zoom video conferencing software from https://zoom.us. If, however, delegates have not downloaded the software, the link in the calendar invite allow them to participate in the session via their browser.

Once a delegate has entered the Zoom call, the session will proceed as per the format decided by the session organiser. Available language interpretation will be accessible via Zoom.

The Chair is aware that some employers block access to Zoom for security and compliance reasons. The decision to use Zoom was made after a lengthy appraisal of the alternatives. Where devices are blocked from accessing Zoom, delegates are encouraged to make use of personal devices.

4. Exceptions to Zoom

Given that the Opening and Closing Plenaries are not interactive sessions, these will not be held via Zoom, but will instead be broadcast as videos through the platform itself. Speakers in the Opening and Closing Plenaries will receive special links to participate.

5. Other Platform Features

Delegates will note two additional key features of the online Summit platform.

First, given the timezone challenges, all sessions, with the exception of Networking Meetings, will be recorded and uploaded to the site as an on-demand video. Videos will be made available by the following session: for example, morning side events will be available for viewing by delegates joining in the afternoon; while afternoon side events will be available for viewing by delegates joining the following morning.

Second, in recognition of the value of the GFMD as a place for informal meetings and discussions, the platform will feature a list of registered delegates. Delegates will have the capacity to invite other delegates to connect, and once their invitation has been accepted, they will be able to exchange messages and set up informal off-platform discussions using their own preferred video conferencing technology.

As noted above, the entire Summit will be open to all stakeholders, with two exceptions.

First: the Mechanisms’ Networking Sessions. These will only be accessible to registrants from governments, intergovernmental unions (e.g. EU, AU) and those registered on behalf of the relevant Mechanism. For example, participation in the Civil Society Networking Meeting will be restricted to government, intergovernmental unions, and civil society delegates.

Second, the Future of the Forum will be restricted, by convention, to Heads of Delegation from governments and mechanism coordinators only.

Sessions in which delegates are not eligible to participate will not be viewable in the online interactive agenda.

Timings

Please note, for the avoidance of doubt, that the Opening Ceremony, Youth Leadership and Innovation Contest, Summit Roundtables, Future of the Forum, Business & IOE Seedstars, Open Space, the Closing Ceremony and the GCM / IMRF Reporting sessions have all been allocated up to three hours in the agenda. Side Events and Networking Sessions have been allocated up to two hours. Open Space Workshops have been allocated up to an hour and a half.

1. Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony will be pre-recorded prior to the Summit, uploaded to the Summit website on early on the morning of the first day, and accessible to all delegates as a video-on-demand at any point between the opening and closing of the Summit. The list of Opening Ceremony speakers will be announced in due course.

2. Side Events

The Chair will support twelve side event slots over the course of the Summit. The deadline to apply to organise a side event is Friday 11 December. To apply, please use this link to download the application form and return it to the Support Unit (support.unit@gfmd.org) in advance of the deadline. Chair’s support to side event organisers will include access to Summit technology, publication in the online Summit agenda, and the provision of interpretation support for one language pair.

3. Youth Leadership and Innovation Contest

Organised in cooperation with UNMGCY, the Youth Leadership and Innovation Contest will be the first time that youth has been given a central slot in the GFMD Summit programme. Details of the programme will be announced at a later stage.

4. Summit Roundtables

Summit Roundtables will be organised around the six 2020 themes selected by the Chair: The Governance of Labour Migration in the Context of a Changing Employment Landscape; Skilling Migrants for Employment; Leveraging New Technologies to Empower Migrants; Addressing Gaps in Migrant Protection; Discussing Approaches to Address Irregular Migration; and Fostering Partnerships to Realise Migration-Related Goals. Roundtables will be led by the Roundtable Chairs, with the assistance of the Thematic Leads and Rapporteurs, with format to be announced at a later stage.

5. Open Space Workshops

The Open Space Workshop slots have been scheduled should they be required by participants in the Open Space session.

6. Networking Meetings

EachMechanism has been allotted a morning and an afternoon to arrange Networking Meetings for their stakeholder to engage directly with government. The format for each Networking Meeting will vary slightly, depending on the desired outcomes of the Mechanisms. Details on the format of each meeting will be made available at a later stage.

7. Future of the Forum

The Future of the Forum will, as described above, be open only to Heads of Delegation from governments and the Mechanism coordinators. The session will discuss changes to the GFMD over the course of 2020 and anticipated further changes in 2021, including financial sustainability, Chairing arrangements and the respective mandates of the GFMD leadership structures (Chair-in-office, Troika and Steering Group).

8. Business and IOE Seedstars

Building on the success of the Seedstars event that took place in Quito, this event will highlight the innovations being brought migrants and migration by start-up enterprises from around the world. Further details will be made available in at a later stage.

9. Open Space

Open Space will replace Common Space and incorporate aspects of the Platform for Partnerships, focused on the launching and highlighting of new and innovative migration and development-related partnerships. It will be an opportunity to highlight the outcomes of the 2020 GFMD Migration Labs, in addition to other partnership-related aspects of the 2020 thematic programme.

10. Closing Ceremony

The Closing Ceremony will be a non-interactive session featuring a line-up of keynote speakers. It will reflect on the outcomes of the 13^th GFMD Summit and look ahead to 2021. Further details will be made available at a later stage.

11. GCM / IMRF Reporting

Following the format set by the Ecuadorean Chair, GCM Reporting will take place after the conclusion of the Summit. Further details will be made available at a later stage.

All times listed below are Central European Time. Please note that some times may change subsequent to further consultation.  

Day 1: 18 January

06:30: Opening Ceremony Available to View

10:00 – 12:00: Side Events 1 & 2

12:30 – 15:30: Youth Leadership & Innovation Contest

16:00 – 18:00: Side Events 3 & 4

Day 2: 19 January

10:00 – 12:00: Side Events 5 & 6

12:30 – 15:30: Roundtables 1 & 4

16:00 – 18:00: Side Events 7 & 8

Day 3: 20 January

08:00 – 09:30: Open Space Workshop (TBC)

10:00 – 12:00: Civil Society Networking Meetings

12:30 – 15:30: Roundtables 3 & 5

16:00 – 18:00: Civil Society Networking Meetings

Day 4: 21 January

10:00 – 12:00: Business Mechanism Networking Meetings

12:30: 15:30: Roundtables 2 & 6

16:00 – 18:00: Business Mechanism Networking Meetings

18:30 – 20:00 Open Space Workshop (TBC)

Day 5: 22 January

10:00 – 12:00: Mayoral Mechanism Networking Meetings

12:30 – 15:30: Future of the Forum; Business & IOE Seedstars

16:00 – 18:00 Mayoral Mechanism Networking Meetings

Day 6: 25 January

10:00 – 12:00: Side Events 9 & 10

12:30 – 15:30: Open Space

16:00 – 18:00: Side Events 11 & 12

Day 7: 26 January

12:30 – 15:30: Closing Ceremony

16:00 – 19:00: GCM / IMRF Reporting