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Lucia A Keegan  01/24/2007 09:43:29 AM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

Cable 
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UNCLAS        PARIS 00266

SIPDIS
cxparis:
    ACTION: UNESCO
    INFO:   ECON AMBU AMB AMBO DCM SCI POL

DISSEMINATION: UNESCOX
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: AMB:LVOLIVER
DRAFTED: POL:DROSTROFF
CLEARED: DCM:AKOSS

VZCZCFRI716
RR RUEHC
DE RUEHFR #0266 0231600
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 231600Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 4388

UNCLAS PARIS 000266 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
E.O. 12598: N/A 
TAGS: UNESCO SCUL SOCI SMIG
SUBJECT:  UNESCO: AFRICAN MIGRATION MEETING WITH ADG PIERRE SANE 
 
¶1. An informal consultative meeting was held Wednesday, 17 January 
2007 at UNESCO to discuss the issue of African Migration, in 
connection with the Executive Board resolution number 57, initially 
put forward by Senegal. 
 
¶2. The meeting chaired by Pierre Sane, UNESCO's Assistant Director 
General (ADG) for Social and Human Sciences, was well attended, 
despite many delegations, including the US, having been informed 
only the previous afternoon about the meeting.  There were, however, 
a surprisingly small number of African ambassadors present, despite 
the fact that the subject is of great importance to most of their 
countries. 
 
¶3. Sane said that the meeting's principal objective was to solicit 
the initial, non-binding views of member states on what UNESCO can 
do to meet the challenges of African migration and development, 
before he reports to the Director General by the end of January. 
His stated objective was quickly sent off track when various member 
states broadened the topic to include the wider subject of migration 
in general. 
 
¶4. Various representatives, including several European ambassadors, 
spoke at length describing the problems associated with illegal 
immigration in their countries, including vocational training and 
remittances.  One member state, India, asked for a study about the 
beneficial side of immigration. 
 
¶5. Several delegations also suggested various sorts of studies to 
determine who the potential migrants are, what their motivations are 
for seeking to leave their countries, and what kind of assistance 
(financial, training, education) would convince them to stay. 
 
¶6. The US delegation intervened to suggest that before the working 
group got too far ahead of itself, it would be extremely important 
to determine what other UN and non-UN international organizations 
are already doing regarding African migration issues.  The US urged 
that every effort be made to avoid duplication and to limit UNESCO's 
involvement to "value-added" that UNESCO could uniquely bring to the 
subject. 
 
¶7. Pierre Sane, made several remarks at the close of the meeting, 
which provided a very sobering and informative perspective of the 
realities of African migration today, shattering several widely-held 
assumptions that most African migrants are uneducated, illegal boat 
people seeking a new "El-Dorado".  Sane said that in fact, 90 
percent of immigrants today are legal immigrants.  Regarding African 
immigration in particular, Sane said that 60 percent of all 
immigration is intra-African migration, where people are moving to 
different countries but staying within a more comfortable cultural 
context.  He said that many are well educated, coming from large 
cities, and have very clear understandings of the difficult living 
conditions and economic realities they will encounter when and if 
they arrive in another country, as many have friends and family 
already in place who have provided them with detailed reports of 
what to expect. 
 
¶8. Sane said that despite the problems they know they will face, the 
economic realities of poverty and lack of opportunities in their own 
countries push many young people to risk the dangers of migration. 
 
¶9. Sane's comments would have been extremely useful, in retrospect, 
had they come at the start of the meeting so that delegations could 
have taken them into account in formulating their proposals, some of 
which now seem off-mark.  (Comment: For example, several 
representatives had suggested stronger communication campaigns and 
educational programs to let people know of that the roads are not 
paved with gold in other countries; of the serious problems of 
abuse, poor living conditions, etc. that they could encounter. End 
comment.) 
 
¶10. Comment:  It seemed that Sane was surprised that some of the 
African delegates, with the exception of the Senegalese ambassador, 
were not aware that the original topic had been enlarged to cover 
African migration in general, and was not limited to illegal 
migration.  Given the interventions of non-African delegates aimed 
at opening the discussions in a more general way on migration 
issues, Sane will likely need to consider next steps that will keep 
further discussion of this subject more tightly focused on the scope 
of the resolution adopted - African migration and development. End 
comment. 
OLIVER