Mr. Chairman,

Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,

1. I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

2. We thank the Secretary General for his report that will inform and guide our deliberation and aid preparations for our debate.

3. The Group takes this opportunity to record its emphatic support to the goals and objectives set out in the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action, as well as in other outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits. Debates and outcomes from such conferences, summits and from this year's special theme - 'The new trends in migration: the demographic aspects, should provide a comprehensive framework and input for issues pertaining to population and development in the second High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development to be held in the UN General Assembly this year; 2013.

4. The Group recognizes that despite progress in discussion, dialogue and cooperation at international level, migration remains inadequately reflected in development frameworks, development agendas and sectoral policies at both national and global levels. The slow pace taken to address migration policies with the reality of human mobility at these levels will continue to expose migrants to negative public perceptions and inadequate protection of their rights.

5. The Group again highlights that the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action is crucial for the eradication of poverty as well as the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The Group urges that population issues must continue to be addressed in a comprehensive manner as outlined in the ICPD Programme of Action and placed more securely into the development agenda beyond 2015 discussion. The Group believe that addressing global migration is supportive to the achievement of the international agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.

6. International migration and development mutually influence one another through a complex relationship. As recognized in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, orderly international migration can have a positive impact on both the communities of origin and the communities of destination. The Group greatly supports all discussions and debates during this session that would surely contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between international migration and development. In doing so, it will help improve the work of Member States, the international community and UN agencies towards ensuring that international migrations contribute to the development of both sending and receiving countries while protecting the human rights of all migrants

7. Under the current advancement in transport and communication technologies and connectivity, transnational workers are crossing borders in numbers larger than ever before. Such labour migration has brought opportunities in the form of remittances and the availability of human capital, as well as challenges for both the countries of origin and destination. Against this backdrop, the Group calls upon member states not only to factor migration into their development agenda, but also promote policy coherence and institutional development while ensuring respect for and protection of human rights of all migrants.

8. The Group restates that the increasing economic disparities, environmental challenges and demographic growth are factors that will continue to lead to growing migration flows into the future. Therefore, it is imperative to address these challenges through constructive dialogue and cooperation on the basis of common responsibility of all nations, genuine partnership and common understanding, in order to support the link between international migration contribution to the development of both origin and destination countries while minimizing the negative impacts.

9. The Group agrees that care should be taken by host countries to ensure that all migrants and refugees in need of protection are identified and assisted. To this end, the Group urge all member states to renew the political will to address the challenges and opportunities of international migration, both regular and irregular, in a balanced manner and to promote respect for and protection of human rights in the development and implementation of policies regarding migration.

Mr. Chairman

10. This session's special theme - 'New trends in migration: the demographic aspect', presents a good opportunity to review progress from all conferences and summits and address gaps for the purpose of improving the migration - development linkage, including knowledge, innovation, science and culture networks and enabling environment at national and global levels, while maintaining the rights and well-being of migrants and creation of its international support measures at the centre of the discussion. Further, this theme acknowledge and address misconceptions of migration through factual information on current demographic and other relevant trends of the contributions of migrants to host/destination and home/origin countries.

11. The Group urges member states, with the support of UN agencies and stakeholders, to strive for a comprehensive approach to international migration and development, in particular by building partnerships and ensuring coordinated action to build capacities, including for the management of migration, in particular in developing countries.

12. The Group calls upon member states to take appropriate measures, in accordance with their international commitments, to ensure the protection of the unity of family migrants in host countries.

13. As agreed in the Cairo agenda, government of countries of origin and of countries of destination should seek to make the option of remaining in one's country viable to all people. In this regard, the Group stresses the importance of Official Development Assistance and other sources of international resource mobilization, to support the efforts of developing countries to eradicate poverty and promote the right of peoples to development, as a key contribution to control migration flows, which are motivated, inter alia, by the search for better welfare and job opportunities.

14. The situation of migrants that become victims of exploitation or discrimination is of serious concern to the Group. Destination countries must refrain from enacting legislative or administrative means of discriminatory character against migrants, detrimental to family reunification or to the right to transfer remittances to their family in their country of origin. It is important that Parties of international legal instruments effectively implement their provisions, so as to allow regular migration flows between sending and receiving countries to take place in an orderly, legal and safe manner.

Mr. Chairman

15. The Group of 77 reaffirms that access of women to health care would dramatically contribute to reduce maternal, as well as child mortality rates. It would also contribute to increase their productivity. To fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases would be to improve the health of women and girls who are disproportionately affected by these challenges.

16. The Group calls upon the international community to give priority attention to the plight of people living under foreign occupation, forced displacement and armed conflict and put an end to their suffering, including by removing obstacles facing the development of their health system, and by ensuring protection of their human rights, access to health care and services, education and development.

17. The Group further reaffirms the call for the elimination of laws with political objectives that discriminate against migrants due to their nationality and stimulate the trafficking of persons, unsafe and unregulated migration causing the loss of people's lives.

Mr. Chairman,

18. Resource gaps are large in poor countries, and the least developed countries entirely depend on ODA. Unless new, additional and sustained resources are provided to developing countries, it is unlikely that most of the goals and targets of the Program of Action (POA) will be met. The Group of 77 and China reiterates that any financial contraction by donor countries under the pretext of the global financial crisis and continuing wavering on their earlier commitments would be detrimental to the achievement of the health-related targets set at Cairo and to those contained in the MDGs. The Group, therefore, urge developed countries to fulfill their historical commitments and responsibilities.

19. The Group recognizes that remittance flows constitute one of the important aspects of international migration and to that end calls on member states to encourage formal transfer of remittances by reducing costs through competitions and diversifications of financial sectors to adopt policies that would enhance the impact of remittances.

20. Finally, the G-77 and China calls upon the Commission and the international statistical community to consider assisting member states with production and analyzing their evidence based migration data for policy making, and guided by international agreed standards and principles of privacy and data protection.

I thank you.