UNITED NATIONS, July 12 (Xinhua) -- United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday underlined the objectives in coping with migration globally, including reorienting national policies, combating smuggling and trafficking, as well as creating opportunities.
Guterres said he expects the three objectives to be addressed in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which is currently under negotiation at the UN and will be finalized by member states on Friday.
At a press conference, Guterres said migrants are a remarkable engine for growth as they, totaling 250 million, make up 3 percent of global population and contribute 10 percent of global gross domestic production.
According to the UN chief, since 2000 more than 60,000 people have died on journeys -- either at sea or on land -- seeking better lives, and over 68 million have been forcibly displaced by armed conflict and persecution, the most since World War II.
To solve the migration issue, Guterres proposed three objectives.
First, he suggested reorienting national development policies and international development cooperation to take migration into account, as well as creating opportunities for people to work and live in dignity in their own countries.
Second, he underscored strengthening international cooperation against smugglers and human traffickers and protecting the victims of those crimes.
Third, he called for increasing opportunities for legal migration.
"If migration is inevitable, it needs to be better organized through effective international cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination, so that we do not leave control of movements of people in the hands of smugglers and traffickers," Guterres said.
UN member states have been in the sixth and final round of negotiations on the compact for days, with a final text expected to be agreed on Friday. It will be adopted at an intergovernmental conference in Morocco on Dec. 10-11.
The compact is the first intergovernmental agreement to cover wide-ranging dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner, including factors that compel people to move, legal channels for migration, combating trafficking and smuggling, harnessing the economic benefits of migration and return of the migrants.
Louise Arbour, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration, expects further actions at national and sub-national levels to be taken for the adoption of the document, which is not legally binding.
The process of drafting the compact started in April 2017. Consultations on the document concluded last week, awaiting consideration by the General Assembly at the end of the year.
