Summit on Refugees and Migrants

UN Photo/Rick Bajornas 2016

The UN Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, which took place on Monday (19/09) in New York, created a singular opportunity for the global community to forge a greater consensus on managing the world’s movements of migrants and refugees. With representatives of nearly two hundred nation states looking on, DG Swing and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon signed a document formally linking IOM to the UN. It established IOM as a “related organization” of the UN, giving the UN for the first time, an explicit migration mandate. “We are gathered here today for an historic Summit – the first ever to assemble Heads of State from around the world to address the question of refugees and migrants,” said IOM Director General William Lacy Swing in his opening remarks to the Summit at the UN General Assembly.