PERMANENT MISSION OF INDIA
GENEVA
105th Session of International Organization for Migration
(25-28 November 2014)
Statement by India- General Debate
Mr. Chairman,
1. Allow me to convey our warm felicitations to you (His Excellency Mr. Sammie Eddici, Ghana) on your election as the Chairperson of the IOM Council, and also assure you of our fullest cooperation. We also wish to express our deepest gratitude to His Excellency Ambassador Luis Enrique Chavez Basagoitia of Peru for his valuable support and guidance during the last one year in furthering our collective efforts to strengthen IOM’s activities. We felicitate Belgium, Australia and Chile as they assume the first, second Vice Chairs and Rapporteur respectively to the Bureau. We also wish to take this opportunity to welcome Samoa as the 157th member of IOM.
2. My delegation conveys its deep appreciation to the Director General Ambassador Swing for his forward-looking approach on issues related to migration and for initiating innovative approaches within the Organization. This has helped the IOM to emerge as a dynamic and responsive international organization. We also welcome the recent management initiatives to enlarge the membership of IOM, enhancing IOM’s participation in activities of relevant UN agencies, acquisition of office property, academic network expansion, unified staff rules implementation, efforts of marketing and branding IOM to strengthen coherence and support.
3. We are deeply concerned by large number of humanitarian disasters and emergencies, which have displaced the largest number of people since Second World War, resulting in four Level-3 crisis. We believe that protracted crisis without durable solution may lead to unmanageable humanitarian crisis, which is bound to increase strain on IOM’s resources.
Mr. Chairman,
4. The continued plight of migrants at sea needs to be addressed in a holistic manner. We urge IOM to continue to work closely with major destination countries to adopt humanitarian border management practices. IOM should also focus on sensitising and creating awareness among potential migrants,who are putting their life at risk by adopting illegal means and dangerous routes of migration. We believe that the advocacy by IOM to potential migrants to follow legally prescribed procedures and working together with countries of origin would have meaningful impact in arresting this trend.
5. We support the call made in the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals through mention of international migration as a driver to sustainable development. The draft SDGs consider migration as an important aspect, and also reaffirms the commitment to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies.
Mr. Chairman,
7. Efforts made by IOM to reduce the cost of recruitment through launching public partnership alliance for fair and ethical recruitment though International Recruitment Integrated System; efforts to lower cost of remittance transfer in partnership with Union Postal Union (UPU) are praiseworthy. We encourage IOM to further enhance its engagement with migrants and their families, in consultation with the States, through innovative use of social media which has emerged as a powerful tool for dissemination of information and gathering of useful feedbacks on various issues including first-hand information from targeted users, in cost effective manner.
8. We would like to emphasise the importance of sound budget management practices including compliance to accounting and auditing procedures and practices. We welcome the establishment of Ethics and Conduct Office to further strengthen ethical awareness and standards of conduct, and streamlining of procedures for handling allegations of misconduct. We are encouraged by timely implementation of recommendations of the External Auditor, and are confident that this would be in the larger good of the Organization as a whole.
Mr. Chairman,
9. IOM’s vast experience and expertise, its geographical spread and knowledge on the issues of migration has potential to contribute in bringing value to management of international migration. IOM should continue to emphasize creating complementarities and win-win opportunities for all States and equally importantly with migrants and their families. India being a major country of origin, destination and transit of migrants wish to reiterate its commitment to IOM in its efforts towards in bringing humane approach and order to the international migration.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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