Introduction
On 28 February and 1 March 2005, the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) organized a Hearing for Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Town Hearing was the fourth in a series of consultations that the Commission is holding in five different regions of the world in the course of 2004 and 2005.
The Regional Hearings provide the Commission with an important opportunity to hear the views of a wide range of stakeholders and to gain insight into those migration issues which are of specific relevance to each region. The findings of the Hearings will contribute to the Commission's Final Report, which will be presented to the United Nations Secretary-General and other stakeholders in the second half of 2005.
GCIM Co-chairs Mr. Jan Karlsson and Dr Mamphela Ramphele, presided over the event. The opening of the Hearing was addressed by H.E. Mrs. Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of South Africa, followed by Commission members Aicha
Bellarbi and Reda Shehata. GCIM Executive Director Dr Rolf K. Jenny provided a summary of the Hearing's proceedings during the closing plenary session.
Some 175 people attended the Hearing, including officials from 19 African countries, as well as representatives of 17 non-African members of the Core Group of States, which follows and supports the work of the Global Commission. A variety of international organizations, representatives of NGOs and human rights organizations, the private sector, the media, as
well as research and policy institutes, were also present at the Hearing.
The Hearing took place both in plenary and in working panels that involved three different stakeholder groups: (1) governments; (2) regional bodies, international organizations and experts; and (3) civil society organizations, including NGOs, the private sector and the media.
The agenda of the Hearing covered four principal topics:
- The economic dimensions of international migration
- Irregular migration;
- Migrants in society and the human rights of migrants; and,
- The governance of international migration.
This summary report reflects the general content of discussion in both working panels and plenary. No statements in the report are attributed to individual participants or delegations.
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