Preliminary findings and proposals by Task Force 10 on Migration
Developing social protection strategies for asylum-seekers and migrants
- Ensuring that refugees have access to health care, income support, and suitable working and living conditions. In the short-term integrated approaches should be developed to include refugees in national protection systems to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and support a swift recovery. In the medium-to-long term, refugees should be granted full access to institutional service delivery structures;
- Making income support for migrants predictable and regular as an effective tool to increase access to essential social services, such as education and health. Welfare systems should also be gradually transformed and expanded to ensure full coverage of migrant populations. Policy interventions should also focus on the use of digital technology to address financial inclusion of migrant workers;
- Developing early childhood education and care (ECEC) services as an effective measure to address the health, nutrition and education needs of migrants’ children. Well-designed investments in ECEC services can have major economic and social benefits for families, individuals and societies at large since they facilitate women’s participation in the labour force, enhance children’s capabilities and create decent jobs in the paid care sector.
Devising policy solutions to improve integration of refugees in labour markets
- Promoting labour market integration for resettled refugees by placing people in locations where they are more likely to succeed. Wider and more effective use of technology, including matching algorithms, would help match labour market supply and demand;
- Developing active labour market programs for refugees, including language training and work first schemes, entrepreneurship programs, and the expansion of labour laws to protect refugees’ rights.
Coping with the interaction between migration and the environment
- Supporting upscaling access to affordable, safer, reliable and sustainable modern energy and transport so as to mitigate the impact of migration on the environment. This requires anticipatory and sustainable urban development planning that accounts for potential future migration flows;
- Fostering resilience, sustainability and adaptive capacity in rural communities and in cities, taking into account the negative and positive aspects of the interaction between the environment, migration and urbanisation. This requires multi-stakeholder partnerships and participatory approaches, involving actors from the public and private sector, which can serve as catalysts to develop climate-compatible policy.
Addressing female migrants’ vulnerability
- Promoting measures to reduce the vulnerability of women migrants, which has been magnified by Covid-19 and will likely remain a key challenge in the coming years. One priority should be to seek regional and multilateral solutions in support of short-term female migrating workers;
- Tackling vulnerabilities both in countries of origin and in receiving countries through improved training of first-time, short-term migrants. This is a crucial measure to reduce precarity and the risk of forced labor and trafficking. The development and implementation of standard employment contracts is also key to ensuring decent living and work conditions for female migrants.
Improving vaccination coverage for migrants and refugees communities
- Ensuring an inclusive, free of charge and proactive COVID19 vaccination offer to migrants and refugees, irrespective of their legal status; extending this approach beyond the current pandemic as a key component of the strategy aimed at enhancing preparedness to present and future health threats;
- Supporting inclusive COVID19 vaccination plans outside the G20 countries, by financially supporting Covax, and by endorsing WHO SAGE prioritization roadmap, which identifies migrants and refugees as priority groups for phase II immunization.
Introducing good practices ensuring access to education for migrant students
- Beyond the recognition of the legal status of migrants, defining a coherent legal system to ensure that every migrant can fulfill their right to education;
- In order to facilitate access to education, fostering specific programs and support for migrants who do not speak the official language as well as collaborative programs between the private sector, NGOs and local authorities to improve the provision of education for migrant students. Targeted interventions to fight xenophobia and racism should also be promoted.
Fostering the role of diaspora organizations and remittances
- Stressing in the final communiqué the importance of diasporas for development and humanitarian action, also highlighting the importance of migrant integration in host countries, and the facilitation of circular migration as a way of transferring skills and experiences. The G20 should underline the importance of initiatives that engage and connect diasporas and their organizations to policymakers, the business community, and other private actors;
- Deepening the collaboration of the G20 with the G7, relevant international organizations and other stakeholders to further reduce the cost of sending remittances, better regulate the remittances markets, and ensure more competition among service providers. The G20 may also undertake new initiatives in collaboration with origin countries to further mobilize diasporas’ savings (for instance through “diaspora bonds”).
Supporting return migration networks as key elements of post-pandemic development strategies
- Supporting the role of return migrants’ networks and making them a building bloc of the post-pandemic development strategy in origin countries, in light of the increasing return migration and the challenges posed by the disruption of supply chains due to the pandemic. Institutions should help mobilize the financial capital accumulated through remittances flows, the human capital developed through experience and training abroad; and the social capital through kin networks in the origin countries.
