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Information Note
Expert Group Meeting on International
Migration and Development
in the Arab Region: Challenges and Opportunities
Beirut, 15-17 May 2006
As the issue of international migration gains more weight at the
international level, regional organizations and governments are
becoming more attentive to the challenges and opportunities it
presents. It has been globally agreed that international
migration affects and is affected by the development process;
hence, its economic, social and cultural benefits should be more
effectively captured and its negative costs better managed.
Taking note of the Secretary General’s advisement, the General
Assembly decided in its fifty-eighth session (A/RES/58/208) to
organize a high-level dialogue to discuss the multi-dimensional
aspects of international migration and development in New York on
14 and 15 September 2006.
To facilitate dialogue at the regional level, the Economic and
Social Commission for Western Asia, in collaboration with the
Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social
Affairs, organized an expert group meeting (EGM) on
“International Migration and Development in the Arab Region:
Challenges and Opportunities” in Beirut during the period 15-17
May 2006. The EGM provided a regional forum for the substantive
examination of international migration, in order to identify ways
and means to maximize its development benefits and minimize its
negative impact in Arab countries.
While analyzing examples of good practices and predicting viable
opportunities, the EGM placed strong focus on the contradictions
and weaknesses in current migration policies in the region, as
well as on the challenges of achieving the internationally agreed
development goals. In addition, the meeting addressed and
analyzed such prevailing factors of relevance as the coexistence
of labor immigration and youth unemployment in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) States, the ineffectiveness of national
capacity programs to formulate and implement coherent migration
policies, and the potential trade-off between population momentum
and the transitory demographic bonus. Within this framework, the
meeting aimed at:
a. Assessing the impact of international migration on
socio-economic development;
b. Evaluating policies responses and actions to improve the
implementation of regional and global agreements;
c. Enabling stocktaking of lessons learned and best practices of
both the sending and receiving countries; and
d. Defining a framework for a regional dialogue that would enable
these countries to capture the benefits while coping with the
challenges
Participants of the meeting included experts from academia and
research centers, government officials, representatives of
international organizations, civil society and the private sector.
The EGM agenda comprised seven thematic sessions, each one
covering three sub-regions: Arab Maghreb Experience, Arab Mashrek
Experience, and Gulf Cooperation Council States Experience.
• International migration trends and policies in the Arab region
• International migration and socio-economic development
• Temporary labor migration in the Arab region
• Highly-skilled migration: challenges and opportunities
• Transnational communities and return migration
• Remittances: development impact and policy responses
• Migration in the Arab world: governance, management, and
capacity building
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