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IOM to host high level conference on migrants, cities

Xinhua, October 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Friday announced that it will bring together ministers, mayors and high level officials to Geneva next week to hold a conference on migrants and cities.

The conference, planned on Oct. 26-27, will be the first time of its kind to debate in a global policy forum the complex dynamics of human mobility in cities as well as to assess how challenges can be managed and development opportunities maximized, IOM said in a statement issued Friday.

"With urban population expected to reach almost 70 percent of the world's population by 2050, migration is a significant component of cities," IOM said in the statement, adding that migrants play an important role in the global shift to cities and in driving cities' development agendas.

However, IOM noted, this role seems to be largely overlooked in the global debate on urbanization and development.

According to IOM, mayors are at the forefront of migration governance, as they are responsible for making and implementing policies and meeting migrants' needs in their cities, but their voice has been missing from the global debate on migration and urbanization, and barely present in international policy. Endit