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UNESCO contributes to new report on “Migration and Youth”
The Global Migration Group has released a bold new publication “Migration and Youth: Challenges and Opportunities” on 18 December, at the occasion of International Migrants Day. The book is available online on globalmigrationgroup.org.
The report presents cutting edge knowledge, lessons learned, good practices and innovative policy recommendations from a score of United Nations agencies, including UNESCO, other international organizations, academic experts, civil society and youth leaders.
Two years in the making, it is the first publication to comprehensively address the multi-dimensional issues facing millions of young people who have crossed or are crossing borders in today’s increasingly mobile world.
The key innovative message of the report is that youth migration can be transformed from challenge into opportunities. With the right policies in place, it is possible to achieve a triple win: benefit young migrants, the countries they depart from and their countries of destination.
Within this perspective, UNESCO, member of the GMG, contributed extensively to the chapter on “Migration and Tertiary Education” and provided substantive input to the one on “Strengthening Participation by Young Migrants”.
The chapter on Migration and Tertiary Education indicates that the number of youth studying abroad is growing rapidly, creating a need for international cooperation and regulatory agreements to oversee quality control of higher education and accreditation frameworks. It stresses dialogue and cooperation among countries to acknowledge educational qualifications obtained in other countries, improve quality and harmonise standards of cross-border tertiary and vocational education, particularly by regional frameworks on accreditation, qualifications and quality assurance.
The chapter on Strengthening Participation by Young Migrants outlines young migrants’ participation in the life and decision-making of the communities where they live and in the policies that affect them, urging migrant youth participation in civil society organisations, unions, and community groups, particularly migrant youth organisations.
The report on “Migration and Youth” is produced by the Global Migration Group (GMG), which is an inter-agency group of 17 United Nations agencies and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It strives for more coherent, comprehensive and better coordinated approaches to the issue of international migration. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is the current chair of the GMG.
