Civil society MADE
A Migration And DEvelopment Network to link civil society around the world
Report Coordination Call – MADE Thematic Working groups
(Wednesday, 2 April, 10am Brussels time: CEST/GMT +1)
Partners participants: Cordaid: Bob Dillen, Janine Kok
Migrant Forum in Asia: Tatcee Macabuag,
African Diaspora Policy Centre: Stephen Deul
ICMC participants: Wies Maas, Sophie Ngo-Diep, Sophie Van Haasen, John Bingham
1. Opening and introduction
- Welcome: Wies welcomed everyone to the call and reminded everyone of the purpose of the call: to coordinate the work of the coordinators of the MADE thematic working groups, and in participate to discuss the mandate and Terms of Reference for the working groups, cooperation mechanisms, and preparations for the thematic working group meetings, and other MADE meetings scheduled for May, in Stockholm. Before adopting the agenda, Wies responded to Bob’s question on who will chair and take notes during these meetings: ICMC will take this up this time, but Wies suggested that for the future it would be great if we could rotate this responsibility.
- Agenda: the agenda was approved as circulated.
- Tour de table: all participants briefly introduced themselves.
o ICMC was represented by John Bingham, head of policy in Geneva, and Wies Maas, Sophie van Haasen en Sophie Ngo-Diep of the Brussels ICMC-MADE team.
o Cordaid was represented by Bob van Dillen, MADE working group coordinator on the global governance of migration and development, and Jeanine Kok, assisting him as trainee the first montsh of the project
o The African Diaspora Policy Centre (ADPC) was presented by Stephen Deul, was has started working with ADPC since the first of March to coordinate the MADE-working group on Diaspora and Migrants for Development
o Tatcee Macabaug works for Migrant Forum in Asia secretariat, on the MADE program, in particular with regards to the coordination of the working group on labour migration and recruitment. She noted that William Gois, MFA’s regional coordination would unfortunately not be able to join for todays’ meeting!
- State of Play: Wies said that, albeit with some delay, almost all MoUs and accompanying Annexes have now been signed by the partners, and that most partners are now in the process of finalizing the detailed activity and budget forecasts for the first 6 months. State of play partners and introduction (new) team and staff
2. Terms of Reference
Most of the meeting was dedicated to discussing the template for the Terms of Reference that ICMC shared with the working group coordinators, a few weeks before the meetings. ICMC emphasized that the document is a first draft, and a template only.
Scope, mandate and objectives of the working group
Wies introduced the purpose of the ToRs as twofold: (1) to further define the groups’ mandate, modalities and membership, and to communicate this to “the world” i.e. those interested to be involved or stay informed. (2) the ToRs also become a useful output to share with the European Commission/ donors.
The partners on the call said that template is a very helpful start and suggested a few elements that should be included, or removed, and which ICMC will try to incorporate to the revised draft template:
- Add a section introducing why the working group was started, and who is the coordinator
- Add a section on monitoring and evaluation of the activities (midterm monitoring and end evaluation).
- Split section 5 into two separate section with one specifically on criteria for membership
- Remove section 10. on regular review of the ToR
Partners agreed that a first draft of the ToRs need to be discussed and validated with a core group of members before sharing with the wider group. This could be the purpose of part of the working group meeting on 10 May in Stockholm.
In addition Bob also suggest including a section on ‘theory of change’ – to be added to the section about communication, advocacy and outreach. Other partners cautioned that not everything has to be pre-defined and that some things might be left for discussing with working groups members of the course of the project. Sophie Ngo-Diep suggested to include in the above mentioned section some thinking about the ‘type of outcomes’ the working group foresees.
Time-frame
Partners agreed to work on a first draft ToR in the next two weeks, and send it to ICMC by the 15th of April. And to have the next call on the 17th of April.
Organizational structure and ownership; co-chairs and membership
Wies invited the partners to share their thought on how they were thinking to organize the working group. Wies and John reminded everyone that the purpose of MADE is to linking and connecting civil society actors and initiatives and ensuring wider ownership of MADE-processes, results and output, while at the same time the size of the working group needs to be workable, all the while ensuring geographical and sectoral diversity. Wies mentioned the idea of working with a system of co-chairs for each working groups to ensure wider ownership within civil society. Stephen from ADPC added the idea of a core group of a few organizations who will jointly decide on the structure and modus operandi of the working group. In response to some questions raised by the partners about how decisions are made in the working group, Wies said that we also need to be realistic on the roles of co-chairs, and core-group members: the partners are the only ones having staff time available for this coordinating role. But Wies suggested that the co-chairs or core group could be your first ‘go-to’ point e.g in formulating agenda’s, chairing meetings, draft documents, etc. It will be up to the partners to define the fine line of being realistic in terms of staff time, and at the same time creating a structure that allow wider ownership. Sophie ND added that one also does not need to over-formalize that working group and decision making procedures and suggested to talk about a ‘mini Steering group’ for the Thematic WG rather than co-chairs. Members of the ‘Steering group’ could be the connections between the Thematic WG and the regional networks and could also be a way to respond to certain gaps in terms of participation. For the Thematic WG on governance of M&D, Bob suggested for example to have a participant with a strong post-2015 background, as part of the WG’s ‘Steering Committee’.
Tatcee concretely added that for the working group on labour migration and recruitment, MFA would like to optimally activities with the working group on migration and recruitment coordinated by GCM, and some other organizations
Linking and connecting between MADE working groups, MADE regional networks and other existing initiatives
Sophie vH mentioned that the interlinkages between MADE thematic working groups and the regional networks, will also be central to the agenda for the Partner meeting on the 9th of May. In general, most partners felt that it would be useful, if representatives from the regions would be part of the three working groups, and would also participate in the meetings on the 10th of May, and vice versa to ensure
‘cross fertilization’ of all MADE activities. In addition Sophie invited all the partners to think about specific processes and initiatives the activities of the working group might want to link to.
Concluding on ToR’s
Concluding the discussions on the ToR, Bob suggested to also work on a glossary of terms for the working groups. Wies suggested to make this a MADE wide exercise. In addition ICMC added that they will be sending an overview of consolidated recommendation out of the GFMD on the relevant themes for the working group. Wies mentioned that they have not have time to make this consolidated overview, but that as a start ICMC will share the consolidation up until 2012, as well as the 5-year 8 point plan. Tatcee, also added the report that was prepared in the run up to the HLD from the civil society regional meetings, which might be a useful resource for the working groups
3. MADE Activities in Sweden
MADE Partner Meeting – Friday 09/05, 12.00 – 17.00 hrs
Given the limited time left, Wies suggested to spend the remainder of the time on the working group meetings. On the MADE partner meetings Wies only mentioned that the meeting will be with all the partners in MADE on Friday afternoon from 12.00 – 17.00 hrs, finishing just before the opening of the PGA. ICMC will send around a draft agenda for your consultation in the next week.
First working group meeting – Saturday 10/05, times tbd
- Relating back to a question raised earlier in the call, Wies said that working groups meeting, following a model used in preparation to the GFMD CSD 2012, are foresee to be rather small session of 10-15 working group member/ key participants (out of which 5 can be funded), to talk about the mandate and focus areas of the working group, as well as recommendations to put forward. However, for as long as this works within the budget, part of the working group meetings could also be open to a larger constituency/audience.
- Tatcee said that MFA is indeed thinking about co-organizing a migration and recruitment workshop during the PGA, together with the coordinators of the global recruitment working group that came out of the PGA last year.
- Bob responded that Cordaid, was indeed thinking to organize a smaller meeting, with a core group with max 15 participants and to spend most of the day on strategizing. Cordaid suggested to organize a moment at the end of the day with all working groups together, for report back, shared strategies and connections.
- Stephen had to leave the call, but had sent an e-mail with some first ideas: ADPC is considering to give the working group meeting already a specific thematic focus, and suggested the focus of migrant/diaspora Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and their role in creating jobs and opportunities. ADPC is thinking to invite diaspora organizations who are dealing with diaspora entrepreneurship, and representatives of Swedish SME companies to the thematic session.
- ICMC added, that for all three working groups, in particular for MFA and ADPC, the question would be whether it would be possible to do a smaller “closed” working group meeting with core member, and a bigger “open” meeting with a larger participations. This would be ICMC’s suggestion. With regards to Cordaid, this option could also be explored, as one of the focus areas of the PGA will be the post-2015 process in particular.
- Wies added that in terms of logistics for the day, ICMC is trying to coordinate with the organizers of the PGA, which will take place in a school, whether some classroom could be used for the working group meetings.
- ICMC will send the working group coordinators an e-mail about logistics a.s.a.p. In the meantime all working group coordinators are requested to send us a preliminary outline of the thematic working group meeting, we could take this into account in our communication with them.
- Lastly on this item, Wies reminded everyone that we have funding available to fund 5 people for each of the working groups. Because it is only funding for one (extra) night, ideally these 5 should come from the list of those that are already receiving funding. ICMC will send the most recent list to the working group coordinators, with the request to suggest 5 names, a.s.a.p. If there is anyone missing on the list, who the working group coordinators think is absolutely essential to invite, they should also let us know.
Thematic report – first draft
Sophie vH said that ICMC will be working on a template in the coming weeks and send you this draft before the next call. She invited partners to already send any ideas about essential elements for the report, or examples of effective other reports, to her. Wies asked the partners what they think would be feasible for them to put together before the meeting on 10 May. Tatcee said that it seems rather difficult to already have a solid draft ready then, but she suggested that a clear outline including background information on past recommendations and guiding questions for each section, would be great as a starting point for the meeting. Bob said that they were aiming to already have a draft paper of 5 - 10 pages with a preliminary analysis, but with several guiding questions serving the discussion during the gathering in Stockholm. Sophie ND suggested to include a short baseline study to the thematic report which would give an idea of the starting point for each one of the themes and would also serve as a tool to evaluate progress at the end of the project.
4. Concrete follow up
· ICMC will make revised draft template for ToR.
· Partners are requested to send a first draft ToR by the 14th of April COB.
· ICMC will make and send template for thematic report by the 11th of April.
· Second coordination call MADE thematic working groups: 17th of April, 10am Brussels’ time.
· ICMC will send draft agenda for the MADE partner meeting in Stockholm by the 11th of April
· ICMC will send around the updated list of selected and funded participants to the civil society days of the GFMD.
· Partners will think about 5 people to be funded for their participation in the working group meeting, based on the abovementioned list (ICMC will coordinate per email)
· Partners will send ICMC a preliminary outline of the thematic working group meeting, based on key questions provided by ICMC.
· ICMC will follow up with PGA on logistical cooperation, and will let partners know about logistics.
· ICMC will send the consolidated recommendations from previous GFMDs and the HLD, and other relevant background documentation a.s.a.p.
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