Kathmandu, November 3

International Organisation for Migration and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development have renewed an agreement to collaborate in the areas of labour migration, remittances and climate change, and expanded their collaboration to include disaster risk reduction in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.

The six-year memorandum of understanding signed today by IOM Nepal Chief of Mission Paul Norton and ICIMOD Director General David Molden in Kathmandu follows an earlier agreement signed in November 2014.

It ensures that IOM and ICIMOD will continue to work together through capacity building and awareness-raising to share information and develop migration management tools. The agreement highlights the importance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the efforts that the two organisations will make to complement and promote the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, while forging a closer partnership in areas of shared interest, read a press release issued by IOM.

“One billion people are on the move today, which is more than at any other time in recorded history. Forces driving such large scale of migration include climate change, natural and man-made catastrophes, conflict, demographic trends of an ageing industrialised population, jobless youth population in developing world and widening economic disparities,” said Norton.

“IOM will continue to work towards mainstreaming human mobility, disaster risk reduction and climate change in diverse areas, building collaboration and breaking down silos,” he added.

Molden said, “Policymakers in Hindu Kush Himalayan countries should seek ways to mainstream human mobility into national processes associated with the SDGs, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the UNFCCC. ICIMOD will continue to work closely with its regional member countries to facilitate exchange of good practices to govern mobility and help countries to harness opportunities arising out of human mobility.”

In Nepal, over half of all households now have at least one migrant family member currently abroad or living in Nepal as a returnee. Nepal ranks 23rd among all remittance-receiving countries in the world. In terms of the contribution of remittances to GDP, it ranks third after Tajikistan and Kyrgyz Republic, stated the release.