"Bridge between Africa and Europe, crossroads of civilizations, country of emigration, immigration and transit, place of exchange, mixing, sharing or passage, Morocco is crossed by the migration phenomenon. Mobility is what we are," said Bourita at the opening of the first ministerial meeting of the champion countries of the implementation of the Marrakech Pact on Migration.

This conference is for the Kingdom of Morocco "the culmination of a long-standing process, conducted at three levels: at the national level, first, as a country of emigration, transit but also immigration that has put in place since 2013, a responsible and solidarity-based national strategy; at the African level, secondly, with the mandate of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, May God assist him, as leader on the issue of migration, which has enabled Africa to speak with one voice and to have, in Rabat, an African Migration Observatory; and at the international level, finally, as a country champion of the Pact," said the Minister.

MFA Bourita recalled that Morocco, 4 years after hosting in Marrakech the conference of adoption of the Pact, is pleased to organize this conference that brings together the champion countries of its implementation, noting that in the Royal Message addressed to the Conference of adoption of the Pact in December 2018, HM the King stressed that "The Global Compact is not an end in itself. It only makes sense through its effective implementation."

"Today, we are meeting precisely to measure the implementation that His Majesty the King called for, from the first moments of the Compact's life," he noted.

In this regard, he explained that since the adoption of the Compact in 2018, international migration has undergone major transformations, adding that with its share of dramas and upheavals, the pandemic has increased the precariousness of migrants, discrimination against them and their vulnerability to trafficking and dangerous smuggling by smugglers and other merchants of human misery.

On the pandemic context, he noted that the pandemic has generated paradoxes, noting that while migrants have been essential to both their host and home countries, they have often been marginalized during the pandemic.

He pointed out that the pandemic has, on the one hand, weakened the momentum on migration, relegating migration to the back burner of international priorities, slowing down the efforts of states to implement the objectives of the Compact and, more generally, weakening multilateralism.

On the other hand, he added, by reducing legal channels and making migration less safe, the pandemic has also, by a reverse effect, reinforced the relevance of the Compact. "Thus, the lessons learned from the pandemic are opportunities to reaffirm its relevance," he noted.

MFA Bourita said that despite the obstacles posed by the pandemic, many efforts have been made in the past 4 years. "Thus, the UN Secretary General published last month a first report on the implementation of the Global Compact, which we welcome," he said, adding that "States have met their commitments and have mobilized for the Compact, including through the submission of voluntary reports".

The UN Network on Migration has also expanded and is now 51 national networks, including 14 operating in champion countries, he said, recalling that several regional meetings have also been organized, including the intergovernmental meeting for the African Regional Review of the Compact, organized last September by Morocco, with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the IOM and the UN Network on Migration.

"Morocco's ambition is that we have ambition: Ambition to accelerate the implementation of the Compact at the national level but also regionally, and in this, I can say that Africa has fulfilled its part; and ambition to amplify and increase the financial mobilization in this direction," he insisted.

He also said that the objective of Morocco is also to "ensure the universal and singularly African scope of the Marrakech Compact", considering that it is not insignificant to note that more than one third of the champion countries are from the African continent, that 41% of projects submitted to the Multi-Stakeholder Trust Fund for Migration were by African countries and that the 2 data centers cited by the report of the Secretary General of the United Nations are in Africa, one of which is in Rabat.

MFA Bourita added that "Morocco's ambition is that the Rabat Declaration that we will adopt at the end of our work, will allow us to bring the Marrakech Compact to the New York consensus”.