Municipalities and People on the Move: Cities’ Development Policies for Successful Local Management of Migration and Displacement

Traditionally, programming and policy interventions related to human mobility have focused on the national and international levels. However, local governments, especially cities, have a key role to play when it comes to public policies and migration. The new Guidance Note on Municipalities and People on the Move draws on UNDP’s long-standing experience with local development processes, as well as with migration and displacement-related programming. It aims to enable UNDP country offices to support cities to adopt adequate public policy interventions to increase the positive and decrease the negative impacts of human mobility. The Guidance Note focuses on municipality-level initiatives to: 

1. Strengthen municipalities’ capacities to include human mobility in municipal development planning and to establish adequate institutions;
2. Strengthen municipalities’ abilities to adapt to challenges caused by gradual and sudden outflow, inflow, transit and return of migrants refugees or IDPs into municipalities;
3. Empower individuals in host and migrant communities to work together in addressing risks and to make the impact of migration safe and humane for both communities;
4. Harness the development potential of emigrant and diaspora populations to contribute to sustainable economic, social and ecological development of their municipalities of origin.

The Guidance Note complements existing UNDP guidance documents by offering a set of policies, programmes and institutional arrangements that enable municipal and other local governments to vigorously address migration phenomena in a tailored manner and to mainstream migration and displacement into municipal activities and development plans.