The pandemic has had a severe and disproportionate impact on migrants, including through increased COVID-19 exposure, discrimination, violence, job losses, wage theft, protracted family separation, and restricted or lack of access to health and other basic services. This has facilitated unveiling the central part health takes in the migration governance debates and the importance of dealing with the public health aspects of the migratory phenomenon. Since the beginning of the pandemic, States have focused on keeping all people safe in their response and recovery efforts, including migrants. Whilst the pandemic stimulated almost 40% of Member States to implement a universalistic approach – in line with the principles and objectives of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) – to ensure the right to health for migrants, commitments to make those approaches permanent are still needed.
The UHC political declaration in 2019 saw countries to ensure that the particular needs and vulnerabilities of migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons were met in regards to health and psychological care. In the Progress Declaration of the International Migration Review Forum 2022, States committed to ensuring migrants are granted and enabled to gain access to health services and continuity of care, regardless of migration status, and in line with the principles of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). There is also a commitment to promoting the meaningful participation of migrants in policy discussions on issues affecting them, such as the upcoming high-level meeting on UHC.
In this regard, the UN Network workstream “Preparing for future health emergencies by mainstreaming public health considerations into migration policies and services, at national and local levels”, which was established to support the realization of the IMRF Progress Declaration’s commitments, is convening this GCM talk. This aims to convene a specific dialogue with relevant stakeholders to inform the negotiations of the political declaration of the UHC on the issues that concern the health of migrants, building on the outcomes of the multistakeholder hearing. After the event, the UN network will disseminate a report with the main messages to be shared widely.
The objectives of the event are to:
- Discuss how better protect the health of migrants and showcase the significant contribution that investing in UHC, with a primary healthcare approach, makes in reducing poverty and promoting equity and social cohesion;
- Debate on recent examples of action taken by States, regional and local governments to break down the institutional, administrative, and financial barriers that limit access to or entirely exclude migrants from accessing health services;
- Share ways to strengthen a UN system-wide and multi-stakeholder approach to fulfilling GCM’s objectives and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.
Organizers: UN Network on Migration Workstream 3 - Preparing for future health emergencies by mainstreaming public health considerations into migration policies and services, at national and local levels. WHO co-leads the Workstream 3, together with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY).