Welcome to this week's Wednesday webinar. This week's webinar is on the Nebraska Virtual FieldTrips mini-grant program. These slides can be accessed at this shortened URL. It's a Google slideshow and remember that it's case sensitive. I'm Molly Ashoff and I'm the Digital Learning Coordinator at ESU 8 and I'm happy to present this week's Wednesday webinar. Recently, those who use technology in ways that expand their global connections are more likely to advance while those who do not will find themselves on the sidelines. I find this very interesting that it was in a 2009 horizon report and I believe it still rings true today. The National ISTI standards for students address this very feature. Enter number seven says students should be global collaborators and seven B that I highlighted here says that students will use collaborative technologies to work with others including peers, experts, community members to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints. I think this is right where virtual field trips fit in. What is it exactly? What's a virtual field trip? I'm talking about a virtual field trip. I'm talking about one where there's a live person on the other end talking to your students, asking them questions. Your students are asking the experts questions. They're communicating. This really ups the engagement in your classroom. What does this look like? I have a short clip from a Google Hangout virtual field trip that shows you how your students can interact with the presenter or the content provider. Today we did a virtual field trip. Schools from across the country were able to join us via a Google Hangout. It's really easy to connect us with the whole wide world. What's the first thing you see in color? Ah, very good question. Actually no colorblind. We are for the first time in history with this space station we're leaving Earth. And it is just too good an experience not to share. I'm going to say hello to Maxi. Hi Max. That just gives you a quick little picture of what it's like. And so many teachers ask about is there funding to help pay for these? Many of the virtual field trips do cost. And now through this program that is provided to you by NIDA, the Nebraska Educational Technology Association along with the Nebraska Distance Learning Association which is changing to the Nebraska Digital Learning Association and the ESUs, we have a mini-grant program available to help cover those costs. So that's very exciting to me. Who can apply? Well, the applicant must be a NIDA member. And if you're not sure if you are not, when you register and fill out the application for the mini-grant, that will automatically register you to become a NIDA member. It's a free membership. The applicant must also be a K-12 teacher from a Nebraska private or public school. And you get a maximum of five mini-grants or up to $500 per teacher. And the virtual field trips have to come from either be a Nebraska content provider, be off of the Nebraska Virtual Instruction Source website or the CILC website. And I'll show you those. Nebraska nonprofit content providers, these are like our Nebraska museums, the zoo, and most of them are already free to teachers, but those that are not will now be free. So the Durham Museum and Omaha, Homestead, Joslyn, Mona, those are currently free programs. Morrill Hall or Elephant Hall, there is a cost, but they have their own scholarship program. But Henry Doiley Zoo does cost, and now you can get that paid for through this mini-grant program. Agate fossil beds, Nebraska Extension are both free programs, and hopefully at this fall, Ashfall will be ready to go with their new program. The second place is the NVIS, or the Nebraska Virtual Instruction Source. This lists a lot of the same Nebraska content providers here, but also if there's something that we can't find on the CILC website, possibly we will review it and put it here so it is accessible for the mini-grant. When you come to this site, you don't have to create a login. If you're at the home page, just go to field trips, and they're listed here, you can click on them and get the information you need. The last place, CILC, this is a huge database of all of these programs. So the first thing you're going to want to do, let me sign out, is join. You can search without joining, but in order to request a program, you're going to eventually have to join. You'll have to put in your contact information, your school, and your billing information, and I'll talk a little bit about that later. But I'm going to just do a search here quick so you can see. I searched Halloween, and they have several. There's a Halloween dance party, Halloween slime time, scary art. Let's check out the slime time. So this produces a flyer. All of this information here is very valuable. You're going to need it when you fill out the mini-grant application form. So I would keep that available for when you fill out that form. So for reimbursement, as the school has to pay for the virtual field trip, then you submit proof of payment to NIDA, and they will send a check back. How do you apply for the grant? The grant looks like this. It comes from the NIDA site. Under resources, the bottom tab is virtual field trips mini-grant. They also are known as VFTs. It gives a little background. The eligibility, I already went through those. Where they have to come from. And then it says, go ahead and schedule your program. And after you've scheduled it, before it ever happens, then you can apply for the mini-grant. But they want you to have the date scheduled before you put in the application. So back here, when I was looking here, and I'm ready to request this program, that's when I'll have to have had a login built. So I log in. A couple things here. Video conference is if you're using the DL equipment. There's a drop-down menu here. So go ahead and click Zoom. Zoom is what you would do, because then you can do it from your desktop and just project it in your classroom. I look here, and I can look and view their calendar here, I can choose my top three desired times. I fill out all this information. And the billing information will have been established when you register. And all that stuff will go in here. And then I'll request the program. They'll then email you and say yes, your first time or second time worked. Or you'll email back and forth. So you get a desired time for both. Then you can go and fill out the application here. All of this information here is on the application. So you might want to check and see if you have that. And all that can be found on that program flyer, except you have to link it to a Nebraska State Standards. So that's nothing that we're not used to doing already. It does ask if there's matching funds, if any. And it's okay to put no. Always know that I'm here to help. If you need help in the registration process or filling out the application for the mini-grant, I'm happy to help you there. If you have established a time and you're going to have a virtual field trip, I am happy to help you set up a USB camera that makes the experience better for both the content provider and your students. I'm also happy to come and help you the first time. A lot of times I do a test call. I can be there for that. But just know that you are able to reach out to me at any time. And I'm happy to help you. With this program, I hope that all schools will try to do at least one per classroom in the coming year.


You guys have so many questions about coaching which is fantastic. I realized that I'm answering them all ad hoc and it'd be much better for my life work balance if I created a video with the most common questions that I could point you all to so I hope that this is helpful. What is coaching? Life coaching is when you recognize that there is some aspect of your life that you would like to change and you work alongside a coach in order to enable that change to happen. Now this could be any aspect of your life if it might be one tiny bit or it might be everything as a big picture so there are loads of different kinds of life coaches working in different niches so you might have someone help you with your romantic relationships, you might have someone who helps you with your return to work, you might have someone who helps you through pregnancy, you might have someone who helps you through career change, you name it there'll be someone out there who will specialize in it. The area I specialize in is helping people to get the right life work balance to enable you to enjoy energy both at work and at home often at times of change so perhaps after a period of absence from work during a career change or if you've been promoted for example lots of different times when we might want to re-look at that life work balance. Now the key thing to understand about coaching and how it's a bit different from some other types of kind of mentoring or therapy for example is that you are working closely with a coach and the coach will provide some structure and guidance but actually this is about you recognizing what you'd like to change and then working with the coach for you to recognize how you can make this change happen so it's all about enabling and empowering you to be honest you have to do the hard work I'm afraid. Is it like therapy? Coaching and therapy are similar in that you form a close relationship often with your coach and actually the relationship with the coach is really important in just the same way that in therapy we say that that therapeutic alliance that bond between you and the therapist is almost more important than any other thing to do with therapy like what kind of therapy is and it's the same with coaching it's not exactly the exact process you go through that's important it's about you gelling with that coach and having someone you feel that you can trust and confide in and work with to be honest about different aspects of your life. Now coaching works really well when you're able to be really open and honest and like therapy then there is you know you'll make promises around confidentiality. It's not like therapy in that often in therapy we're looking backwards and we're trying to kind of heal past hurt whereas in life coaching generally we're looking forwards and we're trying to think what do I want my life to look like and what other steps I need to take in order to make that happen so it's quite different in that regard. Who is it for? It's probably easier to explain who life coaching isn't for so it's not for you if everything's peachy and you don't want anything to change in your life right now it's not for you if you're not prepared to work hard and it's not for you if you just want all the answers handed to you for someone else to do the work so otherwise as long as you recognise a need or a want for change in some aspect of your life whether that's a little bit or kind of the whole thing and if you're prepared to put in some groundwork and work hard with your life coach and you're prepared to kind of develop the skills to work out how you can make changes in your own life rather than someone else telling you what to do then life coaching can be for you so lots of people think that you know it's only for people who are working at a really high executive level or at very specific periods in their life but actually coaching can work for anyone it's just about recognising that you want change to happen and that you're ready to make this investment in yourself. What happens in the sessions? Okay so this varies hugely between different life coaches and it will also vary as you work through the process so it usually takes a little while to get to know one another and lots of life coaches will work through quite specific processes sometimes you will have done some homework filling out various forms and stuff but the basic premise is that you and your coach will work together to recognise where you are in your life right now where you want to get to and essentially you'll go through a process of recognising what the obstacles and the challenges in the way of that and what are the things that you can proactively do in order to try and make that change happen. Now ideally you work with your life coach over a period of time and you have the opportunity to actually go away and put into practice some of the things that you discuss in your sessions. In terms of the practicalities of the actual sessions themselves so some people do that face to face lots and lots of people do it via video link or on the phone so you can actually have a life coach on the other side of the world and that's really cool because it means you can find someone in the niche that you're really interested in and also someone who you get on really well with. The other nice thing about that is that you can work it around the rest of your life so you might be really really busy with stuff at home or stuff at work and actually you can work with your life coach to find a schedule that really works for you around all your other commitments. You'll often be asked to do work in between the sessions so some of that will be about implementing the changes that you talked about and sometimes it will be more practical like filling out a worksheet doing a brainstorm around a topic and the work that you do in between the sessions is kind of really important because the harder that you work between the sessions whether it's implementing ideas or kind of filling out sheets and stuff the more that you put into that then the more that you'll get out of the actual coaching sessions themselves. It's a bit like anything else if you do your homework then you're going to get more out of the sessions and given that you're investing your time and or your money then you want to make sure you get the most from the sessions so do your homework. How do I know if it's working? This is different for absolutely everybody but you and your life coach will work together to have a think about what your aspirations are what your aims are for this process and what successful look like essentially. So you might have some really small achievable goals that you will try and achieve early on but equally you might have some really big goals that might take months, years to achieve and some of those might be beyond the coaching process. You might be still working to those beyond the process but essentially you work with your coach to set out and map out some goals, some aims and you'll you'll revisit regularly those to see whether you're making progress towards them. Sometimes you'll find you're making really fast progress and that's fantastic. Other times you might find things plateau and actually recognizing when things plateau or maybe even go backwards is really important because that can help us to recognize some of the barriers that are standing in the way of you achieving the things that you'd like to change in your life and often we can learn a huge amount from those moments when things aren't going forwards in such such quick momentum and it's learning to kind of overcome those more difficult times that can often be the key to helping you to kind of keep moving forward to longer term. Is it expensive? It can be. So life coaching can cost anything from about 50 pounds an hour up to like 1500 pounds an hour depending on who's doing the coaching and in what format and so on and so forth. But it is always expensive in terms of your time. So you need to see this as an investment in yourself because even if your employer may be paying for this because perhaps you're returning to work after absence or you've had a promotion and they want to coach you through or something like that maybe someone else is paying for it.  You're having to do the hard work here. So you've got to really want to invest in the process. So it's an investment in yourself both in terms of time and money too. So don't undertake it lightly. But at the same time if you're wondering about whether or not you can afford it it's worth thinking about this as a genuine investment in yourself taking time out to really look at your life and have a think about how you can help to make your life something that you're more happy living essentially and working with someone to help you achieve those goals. Lots and lots of people who go through life coaching do find that actually at the other end of it they are in a better position to earn better or work more effectively or enjoy their kind of life work balance more. So there are often great benefits to be reaped. But yeah, don't underestimate the amount of time and effort it might take. And it can sometimes if you work with a more expensive life coach or over a longer period of time then it can be a significant financial investment. But one that many, many people would say was incredibly worthwhile. What if I don't like my coach? Right. Let's be clear from the offset here. Your relationship with your coach is the most important part of this whole process. The thing that will guarantee success in the life coaching process above anything else, above any methods that you use, is you having a good relationship with your coach. Now that doesn't mean to say that they are going to be relentlessly kind of positivity and light because sometimes maybe you won't have done the things that you set out to do. Perhaps you didn't do your homework last week. You didn't do the things you said you would do and your coach will hold you to account. A good coach will do that. They will be your critical friend as well as your champion. However, it should be someone that you feel you can be open and honest with. It should be someone who is celebrating your successes with you and who you feel you're making progress with. You should gel with them and feel that they're someone that you enjoy working with. So yeah, they'll hold you to account sometimes and have some difficult conversations with you but on the whole they should feel someone that you really like working with, that you respect and who you feel respects you too. Now you can quickly get a feel for whether you're going to get on with someone. Just book in a 10-15 minute discovery call before you commit to the process and you'll very rapidly know whether this is someone who you're likely to get along with or not. Allow your gut instinct to tell you a bit here and don't be afraid to ask searching questions during that first 10-15 minutes that you have on the phone with someone. If you don't feel that this is the right person for you then don't waste your time or your money working with them. Instead keep on looking because there are plenty of people out there and there will be someone who's the right fit for you. Is it hard work? Yes. Next question? No, I'm joking. But yeah it is hard work. You shouldn't commit to life coaching unless you're willing to put in some time, effort and energy and unless you're willing to kind of go through the process of change which sometimes can be difficult. But it's really worthwhile. So yeah it's hard work and you will need to really think hard. You'll have to really dig deep and you will need to work harder implementing different strategies that you discuss with your coach in order to move your life forward in the ways that you're aiming to. But you know like many things in life you get out what you put in. So the harder you work on this process the more that you challenge and push yourself the more that you'll see change happen and the more productive the process will be. So yeah it's hard work but it's totally worth it. Does it take up a lot of time? So this is really something for you to negotiate with your life coach. So typically people will commit kind of once a week or up to three times a month for an initial period of three to six months and sessions each session would last maybe 45 minutes to an hour and then you're going to have some work to do between sessions. So some of that's going to be kind of simple things that you will integrate into your normal day-to-day life but sometimes you'll have like specific kind of homework to do as well where you'll kind of really stop and think about things. Now that homework can take as long or as little time as you want it to. It works best if you're able to really give yourself a bit of time and space to properly think and invest a bit of time into that and you'll get more out of the face-to-face or online sessions if you do genuinely invest that time and really do thinking between sessions. The other thing is that you'll find that the process is really fascinating and that as you begin to see change happen it's quite kind of addictive I guess and you will want to spend that time. So it doesn't feel like an onerous task. But yeah do try and ensure that you have got a bit of time to spend on the process. But you can work with your coach to make sure the sessions are at times to suit you if you need to take a break between sessions then your coach will often facilitate that to happen. But if possible it's good if you can commit you know at least semi-regularly in the first few months because it's quite difficult to make progress if you're not checking in with your life coach every couple of weeks or so. How many sessions do I need and when do I stop? So how long you embark on the life coaching process for is really up to you and you might have a very clear idea from the beginning because maybe your employer is paying for a certain number of sessions or perhaps you have a certain amount of budget or time that you can spend on this process in which case you might very clearly map out how long you want to spend from the beginning and you can prepare for that ending right from the start. Other times it might be a slightly more organic process and you might want to see where you're going and then reassess whether you feel you're getting value for money and time as to whether you commit to a chunk more sessions. Some people just have a few sessions and it's just enough to kind of get them going get them thinking give them some skills in order to begin to reevaluate their own life. Other people really appreciate having a bit of guidance and support as they navigate through things in the medium and the long term too. It's kind of up to you it depends on what you can commit in terms of time and finances and how much you feel that you're getting out of the process. I think it's really important to reevaluate where you are every few sessions and make sure that you feel you are still making progress make sure that you're still committed to the process and that you and your life coach both feel that this is still worthwhile for you and that you're still working towards your goals. In terms of when to stop that's kind of a bit of a how long is a piece of string really but it is important that you build skills so that you're able to go off and continue to challenge yourself and move things forward in your own life without always having the guidance of your life coach. That said many people will find that they go away and they take a few months or even a few years and every now and then something big will happen or a change will occur or they want a change to occur and they might then come back to their life coach and work with them again and that's fine too. So it's really really personal and your life coach will happily work with you so long as they feel that you're making progress but most life coaches are pretty ethical and they're not going to continue working with you if they feel that they're just taking your money and taking your time and you're not really making progress anymore. So the point at which it becomes a bit of an emotional crutch and you're not really moving forwards then that's definitely time to really think about bringing things to an end. Doesn't mean to say you can't come back again because we love working with clients again later on hearing how things have changed and helping you to make progress again at another point in your life. I hope that answered some of your questions and it gave you a bit of an idea about whether life coaching is something that you might like to invest some time, effort, energy and money into. Investing in yourself is something that we are often hesitant to do but it's one of the best investments that you can ever make and the journey is really incredible working with a coach and recognizing things in your life that you would like to change and realizing that you can make that change happen is so empowering and so exciting. It's hard work but it's totally worth it.


It's been over 110 days since Israel's genocidal war on Gaza began, and there continues to be no respite for the people of Gaza. Reports have emerged of Israel creating some kind of a barrier by destroying Palestinian houses and other structures in the region. Meanwhile, reports have also emerged of talks about a ceasefire. Although Israeli government officials have been lashing out against Qatar, which is reportedly the mediator of these talks. We go to Abdul for the latest on these developments. Thanks for joining us, Abdul. It's been over 110 days since the war began and the brutal Israeli offensive continues. So first, maybe could you take us through what is the nature of the offensive right now? The Israeli effort that is taking place also talk about, you know, constructing some or not constructing as much as destroying so much territory as to create some kind of a barrier as well. Let's start with the Israeli so called Israeli fence, which is which Israel has been creating for the last few days. In fact, for weeks, while destroying hundreds of Palestinian houses on the in the in the border reasons, the border when we're talking about is the border between 1948 Israel and Gaza. And now it is revealed that the Israel's Israel plans to make a one kilometer deep buffer inside the Palestinian territory, apparently for security purposes. Of course, this has a political and basically political and strategic ramifications, primarily because the so called buffer has not been accepted is not acceptable. In the international law not acceptable by the UN resolutions not acceptable by the Palestinians, of course, and even US Israel's closest ally has basically denied any, at least in public denied any Israeli claims to create any kind of land occupation inside the current Gaza. So yeah, that is happening. Apart from that, the Israeli attacks in Khan UN is continues. There was a strike on one of the UN shelters on Wednesday, which killed around nine people.  This has happened before several times Israeli forces have attacked UN shelters and killed people, including the humanitarian staff which is working to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians. And apparently Israel is claiming now after the global criticism of this attack that this this has nothing to do with the idea of and it is basically carried out by Hamas similar tactics, as it has used in the past, when the one of the hospitals in the initial days of war was attacked. Basically it accused Hamas not basically in order to kind of shift the responsibility. Apart from that, of course, if you see the in terms of the number of Palestinian casualties increasing every day close it is close to 26,000 now, and a number of wounded in particular has increased to 64,000 at this moment, when we are talking, and it is increasing every hour. Among all of this, there is a talk of kind of, which was basically in the last few days, it came is surfaced that there is an attempt to kind of achieve some kind of two months truce between Israel and Hamas in exchange of the hostages but it seems that as that has led to a major diplomatic kind of tussle between Qataris and Israeli government because Israel has refused to entertain Qataris proposals, in fact even accusing that it is basically sheltering Hamas. So this is the latest from the ground. Abdul also generally, since you mentioned Qatar also trying to let's take a look maybe at the regional situation, we do know that of course tensions remain high in the Red Sea region as well. So what has been happening in the region as a whole? And why is there, are there any more reports of what the ceasefire mediation attempts or are really heading towards have they collapsed entirely? Well the Qataris are claiming that they continue to pursue the talks despite Netanyahu completely accusing them of kind of sheltering as I said before Hamas. In fact, on Thursday itself, one of the ministers in Netanyahu government reiterated its accusation against Qatar about sheltering Hamas, funding it and so on and so forth. But at the same time one should not remember that the Israeli government is also under tremendous pressure from the pop people in the country, particularly the relatives of the hostages who have been protesting against Netanyahu government's policies of no negotiations, no attempts to kind of exchange the hostages and so on and so forth. And there are large scale demonstrations taking place inside Israel basically demanding a ceasefire and exchange of hostages. This one should remember was not the case in the very first three months of Israeli war in Gaza and this is basically also reflects the popular mode in Israel is basically gradually shifting towards some kind of peace, some kind of a ceasefire. So yeah, apart from that, of course, when it comes to Red Sea, the Houthis continue to attack the Israel-bound ships as they have claimed. In fact, on Wednesday they claimed that they're in fact they engaged there with the US naval forces and in fact attacked directly hit one of the US warships. One should remember that US and UK are jointly attacking Yemen for last almost a week, more than a week now and they have repeatedly carried out attacks inside Yemen and despite those attacks, Houthis have not stopped their attacks on the ships as they have claimed earlier. And in fact, on Thursday Yahya Shari, one of the spokesperson of Houthis have claimed that the attacks will continue in the future as well. Apart from that, there are increasing pressure on the US different US bases US assets seen as supporting the war Israeli war in Gaza. There is a repeated set of repeated attacks on its bases across Syria and Iraq. And in fact, US carried out another set of bombing inside Iraq despite Iraqi government repeatedly saying that such attacks leads to the violation of its sovereignty. Nevertheless, these attacks and counterattacks has created a possibility of the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Iraq as there are reports coming that US is under tremendous pressure to withdraw its forces from Syria at least for now. And there are talks beginning about US troops withdrawal from Iraq as well. So if you just see the regional aspect, despite US attempts to portray that it is working for the de-escalation and restricting of the war to Gaza itself, it is playing one of the most active roles in escalation of the war at the regional level. And because of that, there are greater involvement of the regional players, particularly the militias, what we call the axis of resistance against the US and Israeli war inside Gaza.


So, my name is Michelle Klein Solomon. I'm currently Senior Policy Advisor to IOM's Director General. Before that, and until very recently, I served as the Director of the Secretariat of the Initiative that Angela just spoke with you about, actually, over the course of the last two years. And before that, I was IOM's representative to the UN in New York. And going back even further, but I'll stop there, used to be the head of migration policy and research for IOM at headquarters. So that's my background of particular relevance of immediate background. As Jeff intimated, I've actually just arrived from New York last night where I was participating in the summit that took place, the very first head of state summit in the UN on large movements of refugees and migrants. And this was truly an historic occasion for many reasons. The summit looked at the large movements of refugees and migrants. It was certainly informed by the current movements from the Mediterranean to Europe that very deliberately not limited to that situation, using the momentum and the concern of the international community on that current crisis to call attention to the fact that there are longstanding refugee and migration crises in other parts of the world of greater numbers of longer duration of limited immediate resolution and really trying to bring the international community's collective attention to these issues in a political context where refugees and migrants are under threat and are often penalized and discriminated against at a time when in great need. So I'm going to talk about three things with my presentation and really then look forward to an interactive exchange. I'll spend a few minutes talking about the summit and specifically the migration related aspects of the summit, then turn to IOM in the UN as Jeff mentioned in connection with the summit IOM in the first time in 65 years of its history actually entered the UN system as a related organization. And then third talk about what will be a process that will take place over the course of the next two years to develop a global compact for safe, regular and orderly migration which is really meant to help improve the governance of migration generally. So those will be the three focuses of my remarks and let me turn first to the summit. I should mention actually that I also spent most of the first half of this year on a temporary assignment to the Secretary General's office in the UN helping to prepare the Secretary General's report for the summit. As I said, the summit came about largely precipitated by the European crisis but very much with a view toward not focusing on that and using that as an opportunity to highlight the challenges facing refugees and migrants around the world and the challenges that states face in assisting and protecting them. In the context of large movements, whether somebody is a refugee or a migrant is much less important than their immediate needs, their lifesaving immediate needs. And one of the key messages coming out of the summit and something IOM absolutely advocated for fearlessly was that we need to think about human beings first, much like with the MICA initiative, save lives, respect the rights and dignity of individuals and figure out legal status and additional protections and responsibilities afterwards. But in the context of large movements, all refugees and migrants will be facing vulnerability and they need to be received with dignity and respect for their rights and their needs. That's a key consideration. And with respect to migrants, much like as Sandra just talked about in the Migrants and Countries and Crisis Initiative, a recognition really very much for the first time at this level by the international community that migrants have human rights and those human rights need to be respected at all times and regardless of immigration status. That's a very fundamental notion, one that was not widely accepted before this summit and I believe is a singular achievement of the summit. Now of course, applying it in practice is going to be the real challenge, but that notion is now firmly established by the international community. Equally important, when it comes to the migration related aspects of the summit, there's a recognition that overall, and this is important in the context of this development discussion, overall, that migration can be a positive force for development for individuals and their families by creating opportunities beyond the opportunities that they have at home and also for the countries that they go to and dedicate their considerable human capital and talent to, but also for their countries of origin. Of course, we've heard about remittances, which is the most obvious form in which migrants contribute back to their home countries, but it's by no means the only form. It's sharing of knowledge, skills, networks, investment, exchanges that really allow migrants to enrich both their host and home countries. But for that to take place, it means having in place the right policies to make it possible and this is where the summit was all about on the migration side, looking toward creating a world in which migration takes place through safe, regular and orderly channels where people migrate as a matter of choice and not desperate necessity and where they're welcomed when they arrive. I'm afraid we're a long way from that right now, but that's the vision. That's the vision from the summit. That's also the vision that was articulated a year ago in the adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, which for the very first time recognized the links between migration and development and the importance of migration to inclusive growth and sustainable development if the right policies are in place. 10.7 of the Sustainable Development Agenda, which is in the chapter that deals with inequalities, uses a phrase that you're going to be hearing a lot more about in the coming years. In it, governments committed to cooperating internationally to facilitate safe, regular and orderly migration as well as the humane treatment of migrants. And they suggested that it was necessary to do so through planned and well managed migration policies. I'm going to come back to that in a moment. One of the other things that the September 19th Summit did made reference to the guidelines that Sandra just talked about, the guidelines on protecting migrants in countries experiencing conflict and natural disasters. They also made reference to another set of non-binding guidelines that were developed over the course of the last few years through what was called the Nansen Initiative. Very similar in outlook, meaning state-led, inclusive, consultative process, non-binding, but the particular focus of those guidelines and the Nansen Protection Agenda is the cross-border displacement of people as a result of environmental degradation and climate change. And what can be done recognizing that, of course, in the world that we live in today, there's more and more environmental degradation, exacerbating risks and leading to natural disasters and many hazards, displacing people primarily internally within their own countries, but some across borders, and thinking about what can national governments and the international community do to provide better protection and assistance. I highlight those because in many ways those two initiatives, the MICAIC Initiative and the Nansen Initiative, really emanated because in contrast to refugees where you have a centralized international legal framework, the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 protocol, and regional instruments in Africa and the Americas, you don't have a central unified normative framework on international migration. There are, of course, many international standards that apply. The whole body of human rights law, labor law, as applied to migrant workers, transnational organized crime law, and particularly the protocols on trafficking and smuggling. The migrant workers convention that was adopted in 1990, which unfortunately has not been widely ratified and is even less well implemented, but I say this because there's not a central organizing normative framework with respect to protection of migrants or management or governance of the migration process. And for some important reasons, it's not appropriate to have one, or it's not surprising, let me put it that way, it's not surprising that we don't have one, because with respect to refugees, refugees exist as a result of failures of the state to protect their own citizens. So there is a need for international protection in the failure of state protection or the inability of the state to protect its own citizens. In the case of migrants, we're talking about something fundamentally different. In a perfect world, there would be no refugees. You only have refugees when there has been a failure, a failure of state protection, a failure of the ability to address citizens needs. In a perfect world, you actually would have migrants. You would have the ability of people to move to other countries, but as I said, to be able to do so as a matter of choice, not compulsion, to be able to do so safely and legally, not putting their lives at risk on unsafe boats or through abusive smugglers or traffickers, and they would be warmly welcomed where they come. So in a perfect world, we'd have migration, but it would be of a fundamentally different character from the migration that we have today. And that's really the challenge which brings me to my second point, which is about IOM in the UN. IOM was established in 1951, at the same time the High Commissioner for Refugees was established. It was originally intended to be a temporary organization addressing what was considered excess population in Europe after the Second World War and to facilitate orderly movement of people and their socioeconomic integration into new societies. Over the years, of course, that organization has changed greatly. It was originally made up of 16 member states. Today, IOM is made up of 165 member states and has offices in more than 150 countries around the world, more than 500 offices total and some 10,000 staff. And of course, its membership is no longer reduced, no longer limited to a small segment of countries focusing on a specific issue, rather more global, both in membership and in concern. And so the organization has evolved enormously because migration has evolved enormously. Migration is now a global phenomena for a whole host of reasons, transportation and communications, revolutions, the greater integration of economies where it's possible to move to different places, to perform different functions and skills, knowing about new societies and being able to access them, but also the push factors. I mean people are forced to leave their countries sometimes for lack of economic opportunity, lack of safety, in order to seek an education or training abroad, maybe to be reunited with family which may be spread all over. And there are a whole host of drivers of today's migration and we have absolutely no reason to believe that migration will stop nor do we think it would be a good idea for migration to stop. The goal should not be to stop migration, but as I said to change its character to one that is safe, regular and orderly. Well IOM's growth over the last 15 years in particular is very much related to the growing importance of migration as a major global issue. In and of itself, as Sanjula said, there are now 244 million international migrants in the world today and probably three times that in terms of people moving within their own countries, estimates are about a billion people total, although nobody knows for sure. So in and of itself the movement of people is a huge phenomena, but it's also intimately and very directly linked to other major policy agendas and you need to think about the impacts of human mobility on those other policy agendas as well as the impacts of those policy agendas on human mobility. Those agendas include human rights, development, environment and climate change, peace and security, so many things that are really at the heart of the global agenda and it would be an anomaly today not to have a dedicated institution of the global the global institution which is the United Nations that is dedicated to addressing them. So in June of this year IOM's 165 member states took the decision to affiliate IOM with the UN system and in July of this year the General Assembly of the UN validated that decision and reciprocated and this agreement to bring IOM into the UN system was signed on Monday of this week as part of this summit. A lot of questions about what that means, what it changes, we can certainly discuss that in the in the Q&A forum. I think in some ways this is filling a gap that has long been understood to exist in the UN system. Kofi Annan in 2000 when he did a review of the UN he said there are certain functions of the UN at that point that were outmoded and outdated and didn't make sense anymore for example many of the trusteeship arrangements given the independence movements that had taken place in Africa and elsewhere but there were also certain areas where the UN hadn't anticipated operating when it first set up that really needed to be addressed and two of the key areas he mentioned at that time were climate change and migration. So Kofi Annan's vision has now been realized with bringing IOM in to fill the gap on migration in the UN system but without prejudice in any way to the existing mandates and very important roles of other parts of the UN system that work on aspects of human mobility. Obviously UNHCR with respect to refugees, ILO with respect to international labor standards and particularly those that applied to migrant workers, the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with respect to human rights protection for migrants, UNODC with respect to transnational organized crime elements and on and on and on. So IOM coming into the UN doesn't supplant any other organization or take away their mandates but the idea is to have more of a coherent and greater capacity in the UN system as a whole both to serve migrants and to help member states in developing more comprehensive balanced and effective policies which brings me to my third point and that's the process that's going to take place over the next two years and that is all about global governance of migration. So one of the key outcomes of the September 19 summit was to launch what will be a two-year process to develop a global compact for safe regular and orderly migration. Again those buzzwords from the Sustainable Development Agenda 10.7 with a view toward having that compact adopted in 2018 at the very first UN-sponsored International Conference on Migration. Well of course there have been endless conferences on migration but this one is different and it's historically significant and I'll explain why very briefly. For many years and this will come as no surprise to you migration has been seen historically as an issue for sovereign jurisdiction and something for governments to manage at the national level. No states have been willing to turn over questions of the sovereign ability to determine which non-nationals enter their countries under what conditions because those are fundamentally linked to national labor markets social security education etc. So there's been a real reticence by many states primarily the major receiving states of migrants to cede any authority and control to a super national authority to make those decisions. As early as 1994 in the context of the International Conference on Population and Development that took place in Cairo there was a call to convene a global conference or an inter-national conference on migration and every two years where that idea was brought up in the General Assembly the major developed states the major states that receive migrants said no no no no this is not an issue to be taken up at the global issue we want to address it bilaterally or maybe perhaps at the regional level and look at particular trends and every two years a coalition of governments primarily from the G77 led often by Mexico Philippines excuse me other countries that primarily were countries of origin or migrants said we need an international conference. What happened in the intervening years was the developed countries basically kept the idea of an international conference away from the UN and instead created a whole series of what are called regional consultative processes on migration there's some 20 of those around the world today which create which are useful because they create regional discussion for to address particular migration dynamics and and and trends. There as I said about 20 of them around the world but what has also happened in more recent years is a recognition that national and regional approaches on their own are not sufficient and so this historic outcome of the 19th of September summit is to say it's now time to have that international conference on migration and to really look at migration in all of its dimensions and to see if we can come up as an international community not with a new treaty not a binding convention but something that would really be an international cooperation framework on migration so over the next two years there will be effort to develop what those elements of a global compact should be comprised of. There's already an expression by states in the outcome document from the New York summit called the New York Declaration that it should be comprehensive it should be focused on cooperation it should look at both migration and migrants rights but also human mobility more generally so not simply protection of rights but how do we facilitate mobility in a way that benefits everybody and that it needs to address all aspects of migration its linkages in the humanitarian side migration and crises what we're talking about earlier here today but also how to foster the positive benefits of migration for development for individuals and societies ensure protection of rights linked to climate change and environmental degradation so seeing migration in all of its manifestations and to ground it in the 2030 development agenda looking at what are some of the drivers of migration that are non-refugee related drivers but nonetheless compel people to move serious poverty inequality lack of opportunity environmental degradation making certain parts of the world very difficult to lead safe and productive lives and look at ensuring full respect and the humane treatment of migrants regardless of status so states have already put out a list of about 20 things that they would like to see in that global compact but that's only the beginning over the next two years we need to engage an inclusive discussion process that that of course is led by states and ultimately will be adopted by states but that brings to the table civil society intergovernmental and private sector actors because they do all have an important role to play as Angela explained before and we need to look at how to facilitate creation of more legal channels for migration for labor migration at all skills levels not just for highly skilled educational opportunities through migration family unification opportunities through migration but also have to look at some of the negative sides as well and the real influence of smugglers and traffickers and the exploitation and abuse that are suffered by so many migrants in the process we have to work to address combat the the criminal organizations and protect the victims and the last point and it's really a fundamental one is really addressing the xenophobic racist and negative discourse and attitudes the terrible narrowing of the policy space for productive policies in this area migration has become a very cheap target of populist movements and very short term thinking by politicians when the longer term trends make it very clear that migration is here to stay migration will be needed to address the differences in demographics between different parts of the world the skills and gaps between countries and that we need not demonize migrants as somehow taking away jobs or being a security threat to countries we've got to change the narrative around migration and change the policies around it so that's our challenge over the next couple of years thank you very much for your time and really look forward to hearing your questions and comments and to working with you as we move forward thank you