19 September 2013, Brussels – The individual well-being of migrants is the central theme of IOM’s new World Migration Report 2013: Migrant Well-being and Development which was presented in Brussels on the 18th of September.

The Brussels launch event, hosted and co-organized by the Permanent Representation of Lithuania to the EU, drew a diverse audience of representatives from EU Member States and non-EU governments, EU institutions, academia and civil society to hear IOM and Gallup present the main findings of the report.

Mr. Gintaras Valiulis, representing the Lithuanian Ministry of Interior and the Presidency of the Council of the EU, opened the event by expressing his wish that the report would provide a new platform for advancing discussion on migrants and migration.

“I am very pleased to participate in this event and I believe that the IOM presentation will be an additional step towards the common understanding of migration processes,” said Mr. Valiulis, who is the current Chair of the High-Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration at the Council of the EU.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Bernd Hemingway, IOM Regional Director for the EEA, EU and NATO, highlighted the relevance of the World Migration Report’s focus on the main premise of the EU’s Global Approach to Migration and Mobility that “migration governance is not about ‘flows’, ‘stocks’ and ‘routes’, it is about people. In order to be relevant, effective and sustainable, policies must be designed to respond to the aspirations and problems of the people concerned.”

IOM's Head of the Research and Publications Division, Dr. Frank Laczko, and Dr. Anita Pugliese, Gallup's Director of Research and Quality presented the report and its findings. IOM’s Laczko explained that the World Migration Report 2013 takes a distinctive approach to human development by focusing on six core dimensions of well-being to present for the first time a global picture of the gains and losses associated with migration and the implications for human development.  

In a panel discussion following the presentation, Ms. Hélène Bourgade, Directorate-General for Development and Cooperation, and Mr. Jeppe Kirkeskov Winkel, Directorate-General for Home Affairs welcomed the report and discussed the relevance of the report's findings for EU migration policy. 

IOM expects the World Migration Report 2013 to make a valuable contribution to global discussions on migration and development, especially at this year’s High Level Dialogue (HLD) and beyond as the global community moves past the Millennium Development Goals and towards the formulation of a post-2015 development agenda where the fate of migration’s place in the future framework is unknown.

The Brussels event follows the global launch of the World Migration Report 2013 last week in Geneva.