Permanent Mission of India
Geneva
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IOM’s 17th Standing Committee on Programmes and Finance (SCPF)
Statement of India on IOM’s Programme and Budget for 2016
[28 October 2015, Geneva]
Mr. Chairperson,
1. At the outset, we wish to place on record our sincere appreciation to the Distinguished Chair for successfully steering the proceedings of the meeting of the 17th Standing Committee on Programmes and Finance and to IOM for detailed documentation and arrangements for this session.
2. My delegation also wishes to commend the unwavering leadership of Director General Ambassador Swing and his forward looking and humane approach on the issue of migration. We also like to place on record the excellent work carried out by IOM’s field offices in unsafe and challenging environments.
3. Today, the world is facing unprecedented humanitarian challenge which has adversely affected the process of orderly and humane migration and has created several operational challenges to migration. We see important role for IOM to ensure that migration remains least affected due to present political & security situation around the world and continue to contribute for economic & social benefit of humanity.
4. We see ‘migration & development’, ‘regulating migration’, and ‘facilitating migration’ as the most important pillars of the migration management of IOM. Despite it’s importance and this being the core mandate of IOM, we see steep decline in budgetary allocation from $ 141.34 million in 2015 to $ 73.07 million in 2016 for ‘migration & development’, similarly under ‘regulating migration’ services the allocation has come down from $ 183.77 million to $ 147.98 million.
Mr. Chairperson,
5. For developing countries, migration & development services of IOM which deals with exchange of expertise, targeted assistance, diaspora services, micro-credit, remittances management etc. are extremely important. Similarly the issues like entry & stay, border management, technology applications, counter trafficking, assistance to stranded migrants etc. which are part of ‘regulating migration’ is important to differentiate migration from refugee related issues, and to ensure orderly and humane migration.
6. You will appreciate that paying greater focus towards these issues will ensure optimal benefit to all stakeholders from migration. Since, there is decline in the budgetary allocation under these heads; we call upon IOM to cover up this through better and most efficient use of the available resources. At the same time, we are happy to note that there is an increase in allocation under the head of ‘facilitating migration’ which broadly deals with issues like recruitment, documentation, cultural orientation, pre-departure training, consular services etc.
7. We see steep rise in allocation under ‘emergency and post crisis migration management’ which has increase to $ 416 million in 2016 from $ 357 million in 2015. Given the difficult security situation in many parts of the world and necessity for IOM to address mixed and irregular migration issues including emergencies, this seems justified for the time being, but in long run we would like IOM to focus on migration related issues and leave refugee management to the specialised UN agency.
I thank you Mr. Chairperson.
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