The Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is a recent initiative of the United Nations Member States to address the migration and development interconnections in practical and action-oriented ways. It is an informal, non-binding, voluntary and government-led process that marks the culmination of more than a decade of international dialogue on the growing importance of the linkages between migration and development. It reflects the progressive acknowledgement of the limits of a strictly national approach to migration questions and implications at global level in an intergovernmental framework. In view of the societal implications of these issues, civil society representatives have also been involved from the outset in this process.

The objectives of the GFMD are:

The 9th meeting will be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 10-12 December 2016 under the overarching theme “Migration that works for Sustainable Development of all: Towards a Transformative Migration Agenda”. This year’s Forum is focused on three main pillars: economics, sociology and governance of migration and development. The overarching theme is based on a ‘SDG Plus’ approach, i.e. to incorporate and advance, in the context of deliverables, a range of migration specific issues, ideas and elements that have already been recognized inter alia in the two UN General Assembly High level Dialogues on International Migration and Development (2007, 2013) and in various other dialogues/platforms, global consultative processes and outcome documents over the past decade.

GFMD starts off formally through the UN High Level Dialogue held in 2006. Since 2007 the GFMD dialogue has been taking place in an individual country every year. It was organized at the Brussels of Belgium in 2007 for the first time, and with that consistency this year Bangladesh is going to host the 9th event of GFMD at Dhaka.

The past eight years of the GFMD have seen the organization of an annual meeting, following more or less the same format, although each meeting has included its own distinctive and innovative elements. Generally the annual GFMD meetings had two components:

Both the civil society and the government meetings produce a set of outcomes and recommendations each year. The CSD report is usually submitted at the opening of the government meeting, to signal the issues that civil society deem most important for the governments to discuss. Joint meetings (interface) between representatives of Civil Society and government delegates since Manila GFMD have also served as a means of converging both events. The purpose of the interface is to discuss the outcomes of the CSD meetings with government representatives

In July of 2007 Belgium undertook the organization of the 1st GFMD in Brussels.

2nd Meeting of the GFMD-Manila, Philippines

The second GFMD took place in Manila, Philippines in October 2008. The central theme was “Protecting and Empowering Migrants for Development”.

3rd Meeting of the GFMD

The third GFMD took place in Athens in November 2009.

4th Meeting of the GFMD

The 4th GFMD held in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in November 2010.

WARBE DF has been involved in the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) since GFMD’s creation in 2007. WARBE initiates National Network for Migration in Bangladesh and advocates at Global Forum on Migration & Development. Representatives of WARBE have participated in each forum, beginning with the inaugural forum in Belgium in 2007.

Since then WARBE has remained an active participant in the GFMD. Since its beginning, WARBE attends all GFMD meetings in abroad. Syed Saiful Haque, chairman of WARBE, is also participating in 9th GFMD meeting as a co- chair of the civil society coordination committee. Read more,http://www.gfmd.org/

Some of the GFMD recommendations that have been implemented by WARBE DF: