Tbilisi –The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to reshape global migration, and how communities interact across tightened borders.
This is especially true in the Black Sea region, which has long been a fulcrum of migration in the Southern Caucasus and further afield. Fittingly, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Georgia hosted a high-level online conference on Diaspora engagement this week.

“The pandemic keeps pushing us to rethink the way we operate and do things. It also keeps offering new opportunities,” noted Sanja Celebic-Lukovac, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Georgia in her opening remarks.

“We – IOM and our partners – are using this particular moment to reflect on the new potential for migration management. Most of all, we are exploring how diaspora involvement can help us address not just the present consequences of this global crisis, but also in shaping our ‘new normal’ for the years to come,” said IOM’s Celebic-Lukovac.

The two-day conference, which IOM hosted alongside the Georgian Foreign Ministry and the State Commission for Migration, brought together senior officials from many of the countries bordering the Black Sea, as well as experts from Western Europe and Canada. 

“Migration in the South Caucasus and the Black Sea region is a complex and dynamic phenomenon,” noted IOM Regional Director Renate Held, joining the event by video-link from Vienna. 

She added: “The countries represented at this meeting today face a common set of opportunities and challenges regarding migration governance. They require evidence-based policies and programming to leverage the development potential of migration.”

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Vladimer Konstantinidi, affirmed “now more than ever we need our diaspora professionals to engage in social and economic recovery.  This is where we need to enhance linkages between our diaspora professionals and private sector representatives.”
The conference, entitled “Emigration and Diaspora Engagement to Promote Private Sector Development”, was funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway. It highlighted specific examples of diaspora engagement, as well as structures and networks established to manage migration policies and to ensure successful diaspora relations. 

The conference report will be disseminated in December and presented at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in early 2021.  
For further information please contact Joe Lowry at IOM's Regional Office for South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Tel: +436603776404, Email:jlowry@iom.int