MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT

Migration and Displacement

At last count, there were 34.2 million refugees, asylum-seekers and other forcibly displaced people worldwide, plus 50.8 million internally displaced people due to conflicts and disasters. Although a majority of the world’s international migrants live in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries host about 85% of all refugees and asylum seekers, with 27% being hosted by Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Independent of their motivation for leaving, the rights of uprooted people are inadequately protected, and those in need have insufficient access to justice. A major characteristic of large movements, especially in recent years, has been the mixed nature of forces driving people from their homes in an effort to escape persecution, violence, war and oppression, climate change, natural disasters, and desperate economic conditions.

ACT Alliance is faith and rights based, impact focused, committed to working ecumenically and interreligiously, with the communities we seek to serve and accompany at the centre of our work. Our members respond in areas where poverty and injustice occur, regardless of location.

Our goals

ACT members and ecumenical partners are committed to protecting and defending the rights and dignity of people to move, and to stay, by amplifying their voices and improving their access to rights and protection.
ACT Alliance and its members are engaged in global policy mechanisms and relevant regional and national processes that promote dialogue and rights-based solutions for people on the move.
Faith leaders and organisations, including ACT members, are involved in strengthening solidarity and welcome for migrants and refugees, and are actively countering xenophobic and racist narratives.
Migration and displacement issues are becoming more organically integrated into ACT’s and our members’ work on our other thematic priorities, i.e. Climate Justice, Gender Justice, Peace and Human Security, and Emergency Preparedness and Humanitarian Response.
People on the move, as well as those unable to move, and their concerns, are better represented at national, regional and global levels through ACT Alliance leadership and inclusion.

People on the move are not foreigners, they are rights-holder

ACT Alliance works to ensure that the rights and dignity of refugees and people on the move are upheld and their humanity is recognized and respected.

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Thematic areas

Local and national activity is at the core of effecting successful change. National members and ACT Forums are therefore central to achieving this. As with other programmes, activities are being integrated with advocacy at regional and global levels, leveraging the presence and experience of ACT members on the ground.

Specific components of this include the development of the technical capacity for assisting people on the move, for example through related service provision for migrants in countries of origin, transit and destination and combating xenophobia against migrants and refugees, as well as building specific advocacy capacity related to tracking government commitments to improve rights-based policies on migration and displacement, in follow-up to the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) (see below), and linking these commitments with other existing global frameworks, including the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.

In the migration space, ACT has been a leading voice for migrants’ rights at the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and with the newly established UN Network on Migration (UNNM), tasked with implementing the GCM. At the GFMD, our particular focus has been on furthering policy dialogue with member states and UN agencies on improving the protection of people in mixed movements, as well as on addressing the impacts of climate change on migration and displacement. With the UNNM, ACT was invited to co-lead the inaugural Thematic Workstream on Regular Migration Pathways, together with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN),and has been coordinating the development of guidance for member states to improve the availability and accessibility of pathways to enhance the protection of migrants. In addition, ACT has also been collaborating on several Core Workstreams of the Network aimed at supporting GCM implementation at country level.

An additional key focus has been on strengthening regional engagement of our members in the GCM review processes, which has been promoted through regional workshops at ACT level, as well as through facilitating participation and inputs from ACT members into the various Regional Migration Review Fora (RMRFs), in preparation for the first International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022.

An increasingly significant part of our work has been highlighting the complex linkages between climate change and human mobility, with a view towards engendering more constructive dialogue between climate and migration experts, and developing a common advocacy agenda.

This has been pursued both in-house, through collaboration between the Climate Justice and the Migration and Displacement Reference Groups, and by hosting external events and consultations with experts, UN agencies, and other civil society groups. ACT is also a steering group member of the Climate, Migration and Displacement Platform (CMDP) (formerly the Ad Hoc Group on Climate-Induced Migration and Displacement, which ACT had co-founded), and driving advocacy and operational dialogue in this space. An ACT policy brief on the issue will be published shortly.