The Global Migration Group (GMG) has released its new report dubbed: “Migration and Youth: Challenges and Opportunities,” which offers an unprecedented overview of how the youth are affected by migration and agenda to achieve triple win.
Two years in the making, the report presents cutting edge knowledge, lessons learned, good practices and innovative policies from a score of United Nations agencies, other international organisations, academic experts, civil society and youth leaders.
The report that was released on the occasion of International Migrants Day was made available by the International Labour Organisation to Ghana News Agency on Wednesday.
The key innovative message of the publication is that, with the right policies in place, youth migration could be transformed from a challenge into an opportunity and achieve a triple-win, benefiting young migrants, the countries they depart from and their countries of destination.
The GMG report offers a first-time ever comprehensive overview of the many facets of youth migration.
It explores the contexts of rural marginalisation and environmental degradation from where many young migrants originate - to the challenges they face in realising their rights, accessing decent work, and social protection in destination countries.
Covering human rights, employment, gender, health, education and participation, the report offers an action-oriented contribution to the global migration policy debate and the post-2015 UN Development Agenda.
The report’s analysis is both critical and timely as demographic and structural changes result in ageing populations and declining workforces in many countries.
It provides a full agenda of policy and practical responses on a range of issues facing governments and societies.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon commended the GMG report for its “practical focus on how to transform youth migration from a challenge to an opportunity” adding: “Together, we can empower today’s youth – tomorrow’s students, workers, entrepreneurs, parents and leaders – to achieve their full human potential in a more peaceful, equitable, inclusive and sustainable world.”
The report says GMG agencies recognise that migration is not a panacea for achieving development, or could promote migration substitute for appropriate public policies on development or on governing migration.
According to the report, GMG members agree that the migration experience could be beneficial to adolescents and youth if – and only if – migration policies are anchored in a system that protects young migrants’ human and labour rights.
The innovative product of international collaboration on migration, the report is produced by the GMG, an inter-agency group of 17 United Nations agencies and the International Organisation for Migration, striving for more coherent, comprehensive and coordinated approaches on international migration.
The GMG is an inter-agency group to promote the wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and to encourage the adoption of more coherent, comprehensive and better coordinated approaches to the issue of international migration.
The GMG is particularly concerned with improving the overall effectiveness of its members and other stakeholders in capitalising upon the opportunities and responding to the challenges presented by international migration. The ILO is the current chair of the GMG.
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