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Cities are the destination areas for the majority of migrants and those forcibly displaced. Their role in creating pathways to integration for migrants has been recognized across various academic and policy fields. In recent years we have witnessed an increasing engagement of global city networks around the topic of migration. Such networks advocate for the important place that cities hold for harnessing opportunities and addressing the challenges associated with human mobility. Through these networks, cities exchange ideas, policy expertise and learn from each other's experiences. This panel will discuss global city networks and their importance in (re)shaping and reframing the migration debate focusing on the role of "infrastructures of reception", the kinds of programs, policies, and knowledge needed to strengthen the response to cities to increasing migratory flows.
This panel is part of the Migration, Displacement and Citizenship in an Urban World virtual conference.
Presented by the Cities and Human Mobility Research Collaborative, an initiative of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School.
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Michael Cohen (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Director of the PhD in Public and Urban Policy program at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, and professor of international affairs at the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs.
Before coming to The New School in 2001, he was a Visiting Fellow of the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University. From 1972 to 1999, he had a distinguished career at the World Bank. He was responsible for much of the urban policy development of the Bank over that period and, from 1994-1998, he served as the Senior Advisor to the Bank’s Vice-President for Environmentally Sustainable Development. He has worked in over fifty countries and was heavily involved in the Bank’s work on infrastructure, environment, and sustainable development. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Urban Dynamics.
He is the author or editor of several books, including most recently Preparing the Urban Future: Global Pressures and Local Forces (ed. with A. Garland, B. Ruble, and J. Tulchin), The Human Face of the Urban Environment (ed. with I. Serageldin), Urban Policy and Economic Development: An Agenda for the 1990s, and most recently, Argentina’s Economic Growth and Recovery: The Economy in a Time of Default (Routledge, 2012)and an edited volume, The Global Economic Crisis in Latin America: Impacts and Response, (Routledge, 2012). He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, The Johns Hopkins University, and the School of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning of the University of Buenos Aires.
Colleen Thouez is a Senior Fellow Zolberg Institute on Migratioon and Mobility. Previously, she was the Director of the inaugural Welcoming and Inclusive Cities Division at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the largest human rights philanthropy in the world. She is also senior advisor for ideation and development at the National Association of System Heads (NASH) in the United States. Dr. Thouez’s imprint includes the creation of the Mayors Migration Council in 2019, the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants in 2018, and the first global mayors’ advocacy group on immigration policy in 2013.
Dr. Thouez previously served for 17 years at the United Nations (UN) in leadership positions in the dual fields of adult education and international migration. As the Head of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the UN’s main training arm, she was responsible for the training of 3,000 government delegates annually on all aspects of international law and the UN.
She has also driven advances in migration governance serving as special advisor to the late Sir Peter Sutherland, the first director of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the UN Secretary-General’s representative on migration until 2018. More recently, her role in championing mayors as global leaders in advancing progressive agenda on diversity and inclusion, is featured in Reuters, BBC, BBC Africa, Associated Press, TED Ideas, and on WNYC.
She began her career at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, which published chapters of her doctoral dissertation as policy guidance for the European Union’s asylum regime. She was then appointed deputy policy director of the first migration commission created by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2003.
Dr. Thouez publishes and lectures widely. She is faculty at Bard College, adjunct professorial lecturer at American University’s School of International Service, and lecturer at the University of Geneva. Until recently, she was senior fellow at Columbia University’s Global Policy Initiative. She also regularly advises local and national governments, regional bodies, inter-regional commissions, inter-city networks, the UN system and the World Bank on cities’ greater global engagement, and on migration policy.
Dr. Thouez has overseen a portfolio of over $50M in grant-making; she has been PI on grants totaling $15M from the Governments of Belgium, Qatar, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and major foundations including the MacArthur Foundation, OSF, the Olof Palme Foundation, and the UN Population Fund. Since 2021, she advises the Open Society University Network (OSUN), a billion-dollar pledge by OSF’s founder, to strengthen the impact and reach of universities globally.
More than ever, the city is the locus of human mobility. The majority of the world’s migrants and forcibly displaced live in urban areas. Migration continues to be a fundamental process to the development and growth of cities. The role of cities in shaping mobility and that of migrants in shaping cities have been increasingly recognized in policy, academic, and media circles. Understanding this relationship and its implications for political and policy action requires us to gather new evidence from cities the world over and to possibly challenge past assumptions and theoretical concepts.
Key questions that emerge in this context are: What is the role of urban governance in addressing the challenges and in harnessing the opportunities that come with migration? How do cities negotiate contested views surrounding the topic of migration? How do new forms of mobility and technological advances affect membership and belonging? How do shifting narratives on migration and displacement shape political and media discourse?
This virtual conference is organized by the Cities and Human Mobility Research Collaborative, a consortium that aims to advance research on cities, mobility, and citizenship. The event will bring together leading scholars from across disciplines with the purpose of sharing recent research on the following themes: (a) Cities, Human Mobility and Digital Citizenship, (b) Cities and Environmental Mobility, (c) Mobility and Urban Governance, (d) Cities, Migration and Contentious Politics, (e) Refugees and Cities, (f) New Narratives on Cities and Mobility.
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