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Expert group meeting on international migration and development in Asia and the Pacific

Bangkok, Thailand

Date: 
20 September 2008 to 21 September 2008

Overview

The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs organized an expert group meeting on international migration and development in Asia and the Pacific. The meeting was held at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand from 20 to 21 September 2008.

The meeting brought together representatives from Governments, international organizations and civil society to discuss the following topics: (1) international migration trends in Asia and the Pacific, (2) regional migration policies and regional cooperation mechanisms on migration; (3) patterns and trends in regional labour migration, and (4) the impact of international migration on regional development.
 

Documents

Organization of work 

Saturday, 20 September 2008

13.00 – 17.00

Opening

  • Director, Social Development Division, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Opening statement

  • Assistant Director, Population Division, United Nations/Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Opening statement

I. International migration trends in Asia and the Pacific in the global context

  • Population Division, United Nations/DESA. Levels and trends of international migration in Asia and the Pacific

  • Social Development Division, United Nations/ESCAP. Key issues on international migration and development in Asia and the Pacific

  • Jean-Louis Rallu, INED, France. Population, migration and development in Asia and the Pacific

Special presentation

  • Geoffrey Ducanes, International Labour Organization (ILO) Regional Office, Thailand. Recent experiences in collecting migration data through labour surveys in the Philippines and Thailand

II. Regional migration policies and cooperation mechanisms

  • Manolo Abella, International Labour Organization (ILO), Thailand. Governance of migration in Asia 

  • Richard Bedford, University of Waikato, New Zealand. Migration policies, practices and cooperation mechanisms in the Pacific 

  • Mohammed Ibrahim Dito, Bahrain Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Governance of migration in GCC countries 

  • Thomas Vargas, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Malaysia.  Refugee and asylum flows in Asia and the Pacific 

 

Sunday, 21 September 2008

9.00 – 12.00

III. Labour migration

  • Philip Martin, University of California at Davis, United States of America. Asian labour migration in a global context 

  • Maruja Asis, Scalabrini Migration Centre, Philippines. Transnational solidarity: Migration-homeland cooperation for development in Asia 

IV. International migration and development

  • Ronald Skeldon, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. Migration and development in Asia and the Pacific

  • Richard Brown, University of Queensland, Australia. Remittances and development in the Pacific

  • Tasneem Siddiqui, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Migration and gender in Asia

13.30 – 15.00

Special presentation

  • Population Division, United Nations/DESA. The global migration research database 

V. Closing

  • Summary and conclusions

  • Closing

Background paper

Presentations

 

Contributed papers