Cities Alliance Assembly: Migration - Pathways for Successful Integration and Social Cohesion

This session is part of the Cities Alliance Assembly 2024. It will explore the importance of successful integration and social cohesion of migrants and displaced people into a city's daily management and life.

Migration and displacement, ever-increasing in complexity and scale, profoundly impact urban dynamics, particularly in low-income countries, exacerbating massive and unplanned urban expansion. Cities Alliance supports national and local governments and communities to respond to, manage, and capitalise on the opportunities and contributions arising from migration. With the changing dynamics of migration, it is key to empower cities to improve local migration management and to include migrants and refugees in city planning, budgeting, and access to essential services. 

Cities Alliance, with support from the Swiss Agency for Cooperation (SDC) and the European Commission, has been at the forefront of addressing urban migration challenges since 2018. Our initiatives include:

• Providing direct support to municipalities and changemakers.
• Integrating migrants, displaced persons and host communities into urban planning and budgeting.
• Encouraging social cohesion and integration.
• Facilitating regional collaboration for effective migration management.
• Promoting economic inclusion of migrants and refugees through leveraging diaspora connections and remittances. 

Building on successful initiatives such as the SDC-funded programme on Resilient Secondary Cities and Migration Dynamics and the EU Trust Fund pilot project CRRF Inclusive Urban Development and Mobility, Cities Alliance scales up its migration work through the EU-funded initiative Sustainable Integration of Displacement Affected Communities (SUIDAC). The new 30 million EUR programme will focus on the social and economic inclusion of migrants and refugees in secondary cities across Somalia, Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia and Uganda.

The session will be organised around two-panel discussions on the relevance of social integration and cohesion of migrants and refugees and the pathways for their successful integration into secondary cities.

Panel 1: Pathways for Successful Integration and Social Cohesion - What have we learned? 

Moderator: Florence Lozet, Urban Forced Displacement Lead, Cities Alliance.

Speakers:

• Gabriele Tardivo, Global Focal Point for Sustainable Cities, AVSI
• Boel McAteer, Researcher, IIED
• Tsigereda Tafesse, Country Urban Adviser - Ethiopia, Cities Alliance
• Charles Obila, Coordinator, Support Platform on Forced Displacement, IGAD

Panel 2: Pathways for Successful Integration and Social Cohesion - How do we scale up these lessons learned? 

Moderator: Sam Mabala, Country Urban Adviser - Uganda, Cities Alliance.

Speakers: 

• Alber Llado, Partnerships Officer, UCLG
• Renate Bucher, Programme Manager, Global Programme Migration and Forced Displacement, SDC
• Filiep Decorte, Chief Programme Developmemt Branch, UN Habitat