Implementing organizations:
undp, iom, itc-ilo, unitar, unfpa, unhcr, un women
Type of Call for Action
This call serves to raise funds to continue the successful work of the JMDI in providing financial and technical support to local and regional authorities and other local actors to better manage migration for local development. This will serve to enhance policy coherence in migration and development between national and local levels and thus enhance effectiveness of national policies.
Target Group
The target group being addressed by the call are the national governments involved in the gfmd in benefit of the work of the JMDI with national, regional and local authorities.
Links to GFMD
The joint migration and development initiative (JMDI) is a global inter-agency programme led by undp and implemented jointly with iom, itc-ilo, un women, unhcr, unfpa and unitar, with funding from the european union and the swiss agency for development and cooperation and has been a long-standing observer and contributor to the gfmd process since 2008.
As decentralised levels of governance, local and regional authorities have de facto and de jure roles in managing migration and its impact at local level. Moreover, as first responders to migration and displacement dynamics, they are also best placed to engage with and respond to migrants’ and displaced persons’ needs given their proximity to their constituencies and also their expertise and competencies in service provision to the local population. many cities and local and regional authorities are successfully managing to harness the potential of migration for local development yet many others may not have the necessary human and fiscal resources, know-how or support they need to flourish in this role.
It is within this context the JMDI focuses on the local dimension of migrants’ contribution to development and aims to maximize the potential of migration for local development within national frameworks and priorities. to achieve this, the jmdi provides technical, financial and capacity building support to up-scale existing locally-led migration and development initiatives and is currently working in eight target countries: costa rica, ecuador, el salvador, morocco, nepal, philippines, senegal and tunisia.
The work of the JMDI is therefore very much in line with the priorities and approach of the gfmd, specifically in the following ways:
The JMDI works with local and regional authorities to support them to mainstream migration into their local development plans for enhanced horizontal policy coherence and effectiveness in migration management. In order to support vertical policy coherence with national priorities, this is then strategically linked to national development priorities.
The JMDI promotes connectivity among migrants, migrants’ associations and local, regional and national authorities. It does this at the local level through the set up of multi-stakeholder networks of actors to enhance migration management. At the international level, it does this through its online knowledge platform www.migration4development.org (which now boasts a community of over 4,000 migration and development actors from national authorities to local, civil society to academia) and through international events on migration and development such as the gfmd. Within this multistakeholder approach, the JMDI also endeavours to ensure the public participation of migrants in development planning processes for more effectiveness.
The JMDI does all of this from a human rights based approach were the protection of migrants’ rights and their access to services plays a central role in migration management dynamics.
The JMDI also supports local and regional authorities to engage with the diaspora and migrants’ associations for their investment and participation in development activities. This looks at areas such as how to reduce remittance transfer costs as well as ensure safer remittances as well as more productive use of the same.
Another important aspect of the JMDI’s work is to combat xenophobia and marginalisation by promoting the celebration of diversity for enhanced social inclusion to ensure that development plans really do ‘leave no-one behind’ and which are in line with the new sustainable development goals.
Based on its experience and through a strategic knowledge management strategy, good practices and lessons learnt through the implementation of the above, the JMDI has also created specific training tools and knowledge products that have been used to enhance capacities through tailored training and coaching in order to provide local and regional authorities with the principles, processes, tools and support to ensure orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration that is beneficial to all.
This is a call to get involved with the JMDI by providing funding support in order to build on the experience and tools of the JMDI to continue to provide technical, financial and capacity building assistance to local and regional authorities in maximising the potential of migration for local development calling on the expertise of the JMDI to provide support and training to the local and regional authorities of interested countries tapping into the abilities of the JMDI to support local and regional authorities to connect, create partnerships and link up to national and international dialogues and spaces on migration and development.
JMDI online platform: www.migration4development.org
Supporting Documents:
4 page brief on the main achievements of the jmdi to date
joint jmdi-iom white paper on mainstreaming migration into local development planning and beyond
my jmdi toolbox training materials on managing migration for local development
promotional video on the jmdi m4d net online platform
global civil society consultation on migration and local development - synthesis report
Ms. Riallant, Cecile
programme manager
joint migration and development initiative, undp
Belgium
e-mail address cecile.riallant@undp.org
phone number 0032 32 2 235 0552
fax number 0032 2 503 4729