The first state-led meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development brought together representatives from 155 countries and international agencies in Brussels, Belgium, from 9-11 July 2007.

The Forum stressed the inevitability and potentially equalizing force of migration as well as its inherent risks. It sought to provide a space outside domestic political arenas to understand how policy makers can make migration work better for development, and was organized around roundtables on human capital development and labor mobility, remittances and other diaspora resources, and enhancing institutional and policy coherence and promoting partnerships. UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon urged immediate action to improve the plight of 200 million migrants worldwide. The conclusions and recommendations of the Chair, Ambassador Regine De Clerq, highlighted the cross-cutting themes of capacity building, policy coherence, human rights and gender equality.
Links to further information
Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD)
UN News Centre, 10 July 2007
Final Conclusions and recommendations of the Chair