The 12th summit of the Global Forum on Migration and Development due in November has been rescheduled for January 20-24, it was announced on Friday.

The venue, Quito, the capital city of the Republic Ecuador, would remain unchanged, said 2019 GFMD chair Ambassador Santiago Chavez.

At the summit, Bangladesh would raise the migration policy issues recently adopted by the government for implementation of the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, said officials.

The 11th GFMD was held in Marrakesh in December.

Created in 2007, the GFMD, is an inter-state informal and non-binding process for shaping the global debate on migration and development for addressing the challenges facing multi-dimensional opportunities of migration.

The GFMD process allows the governments to analyse and discuss sensitive issues, create consensus and share policy and practices for innovative solutions in partnership with the civil society, the private sector, the UN system and the other stakeholders.

In a statement, the Ambassador Santiago Chavez, also Vice Minister for Human Mobility of Ecuador, invited the member states, observers of the United Nations and other GFMD observers to take part in the summit.

He regretted that the summit was postponed by the GFMD Troika.

The GFMD Ten-Year Review Report recommended a number of improvements to the GFMD Summit format in order to deepen the policy dialogue, knowledge-sharing and networking, as well as to facilitate the formation of partnerships.

For the first time in the history of the GFMD, all GFMD stakeholders, governments, international organizations, the civil society, business and local authorities would meet during the summit at the same venue.

Belgium hosted the first GFMD summit in 2007.

Bangladesh hosted the ninth summit in 2016.

Written by: Md Owasim Uddin Bhuyan