June 14, 2023 maHp News 0 Comments

Third Global Consultation on the Health of Refugees and Migrants

The 3rd Global Consultation on the Health of Refugees and Migrants opened in Rabat (Morocco) yesterday. The 3-day consultation, 13-15 June 2023, aims to assess progress and good practices in promoting the health and well-being of refugee and migrant populations; consider emerging and persistent challenges; foster implementation of key priorities; and build further political commitment on the way forward. Its purpose is to inform policy decisions and the implementation of appropriate interventions to improve, protect and preserve the health and well-being of refugees and migrants, as well as host communities.

This consultation builds upon previous forums and commitments, such as the WHO Global Action Plan on Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants 2019-2023, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and its first revision process, the International Migration Review Forum, and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). It is hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the Kingdom of Morocco.

Speaking at the opening event, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reported that over 100 million people worldwide are forced to move for a variety of reasons, including conflict, persecution and humanitarian crises. Morocco’s Minister of Health and Social Protection, Khalid Ait Taleb, stressed how the consultation provides an opportunity to shed light on his country’s efforts to consolidate the position of migrants and refugees, in addition to guaranteeing them access to healthcare and smoothing their membership of social protection systems and programs.

ACMS invited to 3rd Global Consultation
The Global Consultation on the Health of Refugees and Migrants is by invitation only, and African Centre for Migration & Society’s (ACMS) Professor Jo Vearey will be facilitating a session on the final day (15 June 2023) on ‘Harnessing the power of research and data to improve the health of refugees and migrants’, at 14:00 Rabat time (15:00 South African time), see the full consultation programme here.  Vearey recently published the Migration and Health in the WHO-Afro Region: A Scoping Review, which also contributed to the World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants. The panel that she will be facilitating will be reflecting on the challenges, solutions and recommendations for strengthening research and data to help improve the health of these populations.

The entire consultation is being streamed on the WHO website in multiple languages, so you can catch this session LIVE. Online participants can share questions and comments here.

About Jo Vearey

Jo Vearey is a Professor and the Director of the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. She holds an Honorary Fellowship with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2015, Jo was awarded a Humanities and Social Science Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. Jo holds a MSc in the Control of Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, 2003), a PhD in Public Health (Wits, 2010), and has been rated by the National Research Foundation as a Young Researcher. In 2014 and 2015, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers. She was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in 2013, at the UNESCO Chair on Social and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants, University of Venice (SSIM-IUAV), Venice, Italy.

With a commitment to social justice and the development of pro-poor policy responses, Jo’s research explores international, regional, national and local responses to migration, health, and urban vulnerabilities. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements and sex work. Jo is particularly interested in knowledge production, dissemination and utilisation including the use of visual and arts-based methodologies.

Jo has a range of international collaborations, including an ESRC-NRF funded project with the University of Edinburgh, a WOTRO funded project with the VU University, Amsterdam on migration and sex work, and partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Boston and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine‘s Faculty of Public Health and Policy and Gender, Violence and Health Unit.

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