As part of our ongoing effort to reshape narratives on migration, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) renewed its support to the official take off of the the campaign It Takes a Community, soft-launched on the occasion of International Migrants Day, on December 18 2020. An initiative of the GFMD ad hoc Working Group on Public Narratives on Migration, co-chaired by the Government of Canada, the Government of Ecuador and the GFMD Mayors Mechanism, co-steered by UCLG, this global, multi-stakeholder, digital communications campaign brings together national governments, cities, businesses, civil society and international organizations to promote balanced narratives on all forms of human mobility by sharing inclusive stories about social cohesion and the positive impact that migration and diversity can have on communities.
Since the campaign launch and with its continuation into 2021, UCLG, through its Mediterranean City-to-City Migration (MC2CM) Project), in partnership with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and UN-Habitat, has been supporting the campaign, through the MC2CM #Cities4Migration campaign and various city-to-city initiatives and global advocacy interventions to improve migration governance at city level.
How to participate in the campaign?
This campaign is open to all sorts of stakeholders and citizens, with different options to participate:
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Sharing posts on social media to promote the campaign and direct people to the campaign website.
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Sharing pre-made campaign videos on your own social media channels. Don’t forget to add a #ItTakesACommunity hashtag, campaign website link and your own captions for your particular context and audience.
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Developing and sharing your own stories about the positive impact of migration and/or your country, city or organization’s commitment to supporting inclusive and welcoming communities.
- Reaching out to other organizations or partners in your network to inform them about the campaign and encourage them to join.
For further information about the campaign, kindly write to [email protected] and we will share with you the campaign resources - a guidance document and a digital toolkit for the abovementioned social media communication.
Balanced narratives and inclusive recovery
Beyond the global campaign, cities in the Mediterranean and beyond have been sharing experiences to reshape the narrative on migration against the background of the pandemic.
In this framework , the MC2CM project has issued the Thematic Learning Report ‘MC2CM Communication on Migration : Rebalancing the narrative to strengthen local governance’, highlighting the lessons learnt during a peer learning event hosted by the Municipality of Seville and the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity (FAMSI), in June 2020. Shedding light on the opportunities and challenges for rebalancing migration narratives in Mediterranean cities, amidst uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, this report proposes policy recommendations to enhance the role of cities in promoting balanced migration narratives and endorses strategic communication that enhances social cohesion and portrays cities as agents of migration.
Besides, as the global community responds to the COVID-19 pandemic and considers recovery strategies, the MC2CM project also released the policy study ‘Going the Social Distance: How migrant and refugee-sensitive urban COVID-19 responses contribute to the realization of the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees’. Building on the lessons from the UCLG Live Learning Experience #BeyondtheOutbreak on Migration and surveys and expert interviews with city representatives from the MC2CM network, the policy paper explores municipal COVID-19 crisis management and recovery responses sensitive to the needs and contributions of migrants and refugees in some Mediterranean cities. Furthermore, UCLG continues to advocate for local approaches to migration governance and inclusive citizenship and disseminate the lessons on these bottom-up approaches and how cities are reshaping the notion of citizenship through a new narrative on migration based on human rights, at global networking platforms such as the recent Digital Citymakers’ Summit: Just Cities – Urban Development and the Common Good and the MC2CM-UCLG CSIPDHR Peer Learning Event on ‘Inclusive Local Citizenship'.
The upcoming UCLG #CitiesAreListening Event ‘Towards the Lampedusa Charter: community-driven approaches to human mobility and diversity’, on May 4 2021, will follow up on Lampedusa’s proposal to co-create a local Charter will review the key contributions of local communities to make migration work for all, through a rights-based approach that sees migration as a natural phenomenon, a lever for peace and for the construction of an inclusive collective memory rooted in dignity.