HIGH-LEVEL TALK

On September 20, at 9:30 am, the Third meeting of senior officials of the Almaty process will be held at the Library of the Leader of the Nation. The event will be attended by Birzhan Nurymbetov, Vice Minister of Health and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Chairman of the Almaty Process, Kuanysh Sultanov, Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Deyan Keserovich, Coordinator for Central Asia - Head of IOM Missions in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Almaz Asanbaev, Deputy Chairman of the State Migration Service (Republic of Kyrgyzstan), Yasuko Oda, Regional Representative and Regional Coordinator of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee Protection (UNHCR) in Central Asia.

The Almaty process for the protection of refugees and international migration was launched in 2011 by the Government of Kazakhstan with the participation of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR. In the same year, at the first Regional Conference in Almaty, the Almaty Declaration was unanimously adopted, in which the participating states recognized the need to cooperate in solving a wide range of problems caused by the complex dynamics of migration and mixed migration flows in Central Asia and the region as a whole.

On June 5, 2013, the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan was elected as the first Chairman of the Almaty process. The first Senior Officials' Meeting (SEO) of the Almaty Process on mixed migration was held on November 21, 2014 in Almaty. September 22, 2015 inAlmaty hosted the Second Meeting of Senior Officials (SMEs) of the Almaty Process on the topic “Opportunities and Challenges of Labor Migration in Central Asia”.

During the Third meeting, representatives of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan and observer states will make presentations on the problems of human mobility in Central Asia, the rights of vulnerable categories of migrants, migration trends and their development prospects.

Migration trends in the context of the UN Sustainable Development and Socio-Economic Development Goals will be reported by Tatiana Hadjiemmanuel, Deputy Coordinator for Central Asia/Senior Adviser (IOM Sub-Regional Coordinating Office for Central Asia and Munkhtuya Altangerel, Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP in Kazakhstan, Astana, Republic of Kazakhstan.

The speakers of the conference will also make presentations on the problem of ensuring the rights of refugees and asylum seekers through profiling and redirection at the borders, made proposals and recommendations for the further development of regional cooperation in the field of responding to mixed migration flows in Central Asia.

The event will be attended by representatives of central government bodies and leading experts from Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries, representatives of international organizations and foreign embassies, employees of analytical structures and departments, practitioners and researchers on migration issues, students, undergraduates and doctoral students.