Migration in the 21st Century

On May 18th, 2016, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo opened in the Egmont Palace the conference named “Migration in the 21st Century: reflections and prospects for 2050”. The participants included policy makers, governmental and non-governmental actors, academics and scholars. The conference aims at achieving a fair and balanced understanding of the phenomenon of migration, which nowadays appears to be even more multi-faceted and complex.

During the opening speech, Didier Reynders talked about the current Belgian Presidency of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which is 65 years old today. In addition, he stressed the fact that migration can have positive consequences for the society. Alexander De Croo highlighted that the refugee issue has been tough since the Second World War, due to the high number of refugees in Europe. The Belgian Development Cooperation is working together with the IOM in order to enable the long-term reception and integration of refugees in the neighboring countries. To use his words, “Our country was one on the founding members of the IOM in 1951.

For non-earmarked contributions (‘core funding’), the Belgian Development Cooperation is one of the main IOM donors.” Moreover, other speakers were present at the Conference, such as the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration Theo Francken, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on International Migration Peter Sutherland, the Director General of IOM William Lacy Swing, the Director of Myria François De Smet, and finally, the Ambassador Pierre Vimont. The refugees crisis is today’s issue and all the governments from all around the world need to deal with it.