DHAKA, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The 9th Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) summit to be held in Dhaka early next month will begin intergovernmental negotiations leading to the adoption of two compacts for migrants and refugees, Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque said Wednesday.
"The negotiations on the global compacts for migrants and refugees will be continued in the next two years,"said Haque, also GFMD 2016 chair-in-office, at a press briefing.
However, Haque said some 500 delegates including 300 government officials from 73 countries already confirmed their participation in the three-day forum which Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will open in Dhaka's Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) also known as Bangladesh China Friendship Conference Center which China has recently renovated for the summit.
Under the overarching theme "Migration that works for sustainable development of all: a transformative migration agenda," Haque said the forthcoming GFMD will be structured around three Round tables: " Economics of migration and development", "Sociology of migration and development" and "Governance of migration and development".
As in the previous summits, he said the government meeting on Dec. 10-12 will be preceded by the GFMD Civil Society Days on Dec. 8-9.
"Some 250 civil society representatives have already confirmed their participation in the summit," he added.
In line with the September 2006 report from the UN-GA High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development (HLD) and the GFMD Operating Modalities endorsed in Brussels in 2007, the GFMD is a voluntary, informal, non-binding and government-led process open to all states members and observers of the United Nations, to advance understanding and cooperation on the mutually reinforcing relationship between migration and development and to foster practical and action-oriented outcomes.
At the end of the 9th GFMD summit, Haque said Bangladesh would hand over chairmanship of the forum to Germany.
