About the Forum

Recognition of the importance of including mayors in policy deliberations on international migration dates back to the UN General Assembly’s Second High-Level Dialogue on Migration and Development in October 2013, when the Mayoral Forum on Human Mobility, Migration and Development (“Mayoral Forum”) was launched.

The Mayoral Forum is supported by the United Nations, and brings together municipal and regional leaders. It promotes policy dialogue, fosters the exchange of knowledge and allows for joint strategising on how to govern migration, while promoting social inclusion and equitable local development. The Forum has also served as a mechanism to connect mayors and local leaders to global processes such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the consultations preceding the negotiations on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), allowing them to learn about migration and refugee policies globally, share local solutions to global policy conundrums, and to highlight obstacles, financial and material support needs at the local level.

To date, 6 editions of the Mayoral Forum have taken place: Barcelona in 2014, Quito in 2015, Quezon City in 2016, Berlin in 2017, Marrakech in 2018 and Quito in 2020. In 2017, the Mayoral Forum was held back to back with the GFMD taking place in Germany, which kickstarted the rapprochement between the Mayoral Forum and the GFMD, ultimately resulting in the launch of the GFMD Mayors Mechanism in the end of 2018.

To see the timeline, and access the background documents for each of the Mayoral Fora, please refer to the Resources section.