United Nations Headquarters, New York
The Evidence Base for October’s High-Level Dialogue: What We Know About Migration & Development

Introduction: Kathleen Newland, Director, Migrants, Migration & Development, and Refugee Policy Programs, Migration Policy Institute, and Rainer Münz, Senior Fellow, Hamburg Institute of International Economics; Head of Research and Development, Erste Group Bank AG
Session I Panelists: Dilip Ratha, Manager, Migration and Remittances Unit and CEO, Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development, World Bank; Kathleen Newland, Director, Migrants, Migration & Development, and Refugee Policy Programs, Migration Policy Institute; and Sonia Plaza, Senior Economist, Development Economics Prospects Group, World Bank
Session II Panelists: Michael Clemens, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; and Graeme Hugo, Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre, University of Adelaide
Session III Panelists: Dovelyn Agunias, Senior Policy Analyst, MPI; Don Kerwin, Executive Director, The Center for Migration Studies of New York; Susan Martin, Director, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University
Session IV Panelists: Minna Ljunggren, State Secretary for Migration and Asylum Policy, Ministry of Justice, Sweden; and Anne Richard, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State
Session I Moderator: Rita Claverie Díaz de Sciolli, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Republic of Guatemala
Session II Moderator: Imelda Nicolas, Chair, Commission on Filipinos Overseas
Session III Moderator: Michele Klein-Solomon, Permanent Observer to the UN, IOM
Session IV Moderator: Kathleen Newland, Director, Migrants, Migration & Development, and Refugee Policy Programs, Migration Policy Institute
The 2013 UN High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development offers a unique opportunity to advance evidenced-based international migration policy and clarify how migration fits into the post-2015 development agenda—but making progress on these fronts requires serious preparation. Policy action that proceeds without taking account of accumulated evidence runs the risk of wasting resources and cultivating disillusionment. This conference aims to fill this gap by providing a rigorous assessment of what we have learned about the relationship between migration and development in the past decade—including the gains made through six years of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD)—and identify key areas that are ripe for action in the next 5-10 years.
The discussions focus on what leaders around the world should be doing with the knowledge that has been gained, and what remaining gaps in knowledge may hinder informed decision-making. The convening gathered policymakers who are veterans to the migration and development debate and policymakers who are coming at this issue for the first time.
This high-level conference is jointly convened by the Government of Sweden, Chair-in-Office of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD); the Migration Policy Institute (MPI); and the Center for Migration Studies (CMS). This conference would not be possible without the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation, The Open Society Foundations, and the Government of Sweden.