Mixed Migration and the Global Compacts – A Perspective from the Middle East

The arrival of more than one million refugees and other migrants to Europe in 2015 prompted the UN high level summit on addressing large movements of refugees and migrants in September 2016. With many of those arriving in Europe originating from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East – as a region of origin and transit – holds experiences critical to ensuring the successful adoption and implementation of both the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).

In this brief, MMP presents its ‘takeaways’ from the GCM consultations it has attended to date and its key recommendations. Ultimately, MMP maintains that states and stakeholders, particularly the facilitators of the two Compact processes, must work together in encouraging the adoption of a pair of complementary, not contradictory, Compacts.