Migration benefits both receiver and sender countries - Annan

Launching the independent Global Commission on International Migration today in Geneva, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said migration provides enormous potential benefits to receiver countries as well as sender countries.

Mr. Annan said the new, non-UN panel would help promote greater public understanding about migration - a debate which has "generated more heat than light" in some countries, he added.

The Secretary-General said the world's approach to migration "will be an important test of our commitment to universal values, and our capacity, as an international community, to cooperate for mutual advantage."

He said migration is not just an economic issue, but one of human rights as well, pointing out that migration is as old as humanity.

The Commission will be co-chaired by Jan Karlsson, a former Migration Minister from Sweden, and Mamphela Ramphele of South Africa, a managing director of the World Bank. The panel - which will examine how international migration can be better managed - is expected to begin work next month and complete its final report by the middle of 2005.

Mr. Annan added: "The Commission, of course, is an independent body. But we at the UN are ready to help it in any way we can, including through consultations and the provision of data and information."

The Secretary-General attended several other events today in Geneva, where he also spoke at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum.

Mr. Annan participated in a high-level dialogue, "Taking Responsibility in the Information Age," co-chaired by Switzerland's President Pascal Couchepin and the World Economic Forum's President Klaus Schwab.

He visited the new headquarters of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and then gave end-of-the-year remarks to hundreds of UN staff gathered in the Assembly Hall at the Palais des Nations. During that speech he spoke about staff security, UN reform and the need to tackle "soft targets" such as poverty, unsafe drinking water, infectious diseases and environmental degradation.

Later he had a brief tête-à-tête with Switzerland's Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey before holding bilateral meetings with the presidents of Azerbaijan, Gabon and Rwanda.

His final engagement is the Official Welcome Ceremony of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), to be hosted by Mr. Couchepin.