Episode 16: "Messy but beautiful" - how civil society engages in global migration governance

The Migration & Diaspora Podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, with me your host, Loksan Harley. Today I've got Colin Rajah on the show to talk about, in his words, the "messy but beautiful" business of advocating for civil society in global migration governance.

Colin is the Coordinator of the Civil Society Action Committee (AC), the largest global platform of civil society organizations and networks engaging in global migration governance and policy advocacy, housed by the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC). He also serves as the Co-Coordinator of the Global Forum on Migration and Development’s Civil Society Coordinating Office, which coordinates the civil society mechanism for the GFMD summit. Colin was previously the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM’s) Civil Society Liaison (2017-2018) for the Global Compact for Migration negotiation process (GCM). Prior to that, he was a co-founder and International Coordinator of the Global Coalition on Migration (2011-2016), and held senior positions at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) (2003-2011) and Migrants Rights International (MRI) (2006-2016). He also co-founded the People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) (2006-2016) and co-chaired the Civil Society Forum during the 2013 United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development (UNHLD). And if that wasn't enough, he co-founded the largest Malaysian global diaspora network and has been involved in a number of grassroots social justice groups.

As you've just heard, Colin has long been at the forefront of civil society engagement in global migration governance. In fact, with the thirteenth Global Forum on Migration and Development currently ongoing at this episode's release in January 2021, Colin has been present at every single one of the previous 12 GFMDs. He was therefore the ideal person to tell us about the work of the Civil Society Action Committee and civil society engagement in global migration governance more broadly. We talk about the shared migration interests of global civil society and how the Action Committee manages to channel the views of such a diverse set of organisations into coherent advocacy work, including at the GFMDs. We learn what "global advocacy" actually means in practice and how Colin's work at the GFMDs and in processes like the Global Compact for Migration then filters down to concrete action that benefits migrants. And I ask Colin for his big lessons learned from his extensive experience as a civil society advocate.

So here's our interview and, as always, thank you and I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Useful links

• Connect with Colin on LinkedIn
• Civil Society Action Committee
• Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD)
• GFMD Civil Society
• Information on the 13th GFMD summit (18-26 January 2021)
• Short video of Colin talking about civil society engagement with states in the Global Compact for Migration
• Subscribe to the Migration & Diaspora Podcast