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News & Events Event Reports

Fifth Global Summit: Mayoral Conversation — Refugees, Migration and Urbanisation

Publication Date:
21/12/2024
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Cape TownFifth Global SummitMayoral ConversationMigrationRefugeesUrbanisation

— 8 minutes reading time

Introduction

On 3 – 5 December 2024, the Strong Cities Network held its Fifth Global Summit in Cape Town (South Africa), bringing together more than 140 participants, including 60 mayors and governors, as well as city officials, practitioners and partners from more than 90 cities and 40 countries around the world. The Summit included mayoral conversations, thematic parallel sessions and tabletop exercises – providing city officials from diverse contexts with opportunities to share and learn from city-led innovations and approaches to prevent and respond to hate, extremism and polarisation, and maintain social cohesion amid global crises.

The Summit agenda included a plenary mayoral conversation on Refugees, Migration and Urbanisation, responding to requests from cities across Strong Cities’ global network and beyond for guidance and peer-learning on how to safeguard social cohesion amidst unprecedented levels of migration caused by global crises such as regional and international conflicts, climate change, resource scarcity and rising costs-of-living. The mayoral conversation was informed by a new Strong Cities policy brief on this topic, which consolidates learnings from existing city-led efforts for migration management into ten considerations for mayors and local governments as they seek to accommodate rapidly changing demographics.

Featured Speakers

Key Takeaways

The Threat Landscape

Panellists shared how global crises – whether the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and elsewhere, climate change, economic crises or other challenges – are causing unprecedented levels of migration and other demographic shifts. Local governments often do not receive the necessary support from their national counterparts to manage the strains this places on cities, particularly where cities need to expand public service provision to meet the needs of all residents, existing and new arrivals.   

In Koboko Municipality (Uganda), the municipality has had to ensure that all programmes initially designed for migrants and refugees are also open to long-term residents in part to mitigate narratives positing migrants as threats to local resources, as shared by Mayor Sanya Wilson. In Toronto (Ontario, Canada) and Los Angeles (California, USA)anti-migrant sentiment is similarly driven by the perception that migrants and refugees are taking away jobs and housing from other residents.

Panellists additionally shared that migrants are often the primary scapegoat for local crises more broadly and this is largely due to a ‘normalising’ of anti-migrant sentiment globally, which has emboldened local actors to spread anti-migrant narratives in their communities. Konstantinos Exakoustos, Chairman, Development Organisation Board, Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (Greece), shared that the efforts of local officials and community-based partners to “isolate harmful narratives” and debunk anti-migrant conspiracies were important to mitigate the long-term impact of the spike in anti-migrant sentiment that followed the July and August 2023 wildfires in Greece. Migrants were quickly blamed for the wildfires without any evidence to suggest the wildfires were manmade. Councillor Rajiv Chaudhary, shared a similar experience from Delhi (India), where migrants were scapegoated for the spread of COVID-19.

Shifting the Narrative through Careful Language and Framing

Panellists emphasised the importance of changing the narrative around migration through the careful use of language. For example, Sanya Wilson, Mayor of Koboko Municipality (Uganda), shared that he makes a concerted effort to always refer to his city’s significant South Sudanese and Congolese refugee populations as key to the city’s identity and as an opportunity to diversity the city’s available skill sets and experiences, which are key to Koboko’s future growth and prosperity. He also shared that in all his public messaging, he is careful to avoid language that posits refugees as the ‘other’, instead referring to Koboko’s entire population as a collective, rather than distinguishing between long-term residents and new arrivals.

I am consistently trying to send a message that we can live together as human beings.

Sanya Wilson, Mayor, Koboko Municipality (Uganda)

Similarly, Clara Ganemtoré, Manager, SafeTO and Community Risk Intervention, City of Toronto (Ontario, Canada), shared how her city addresses anti-migrant sentiment by “dissecting and changing the narrative”. For example, recognising that one of the primary drivers of such sentiment in the city is that these new arrivals are seen as a threat to housing availability, Toronto worked with community partners to refocus community concerns around the root cause of housing scarcity. This ultimately reframed the narrative from one that centres on a “migrant crisis” to one that focuses instead on a “housing crisis”, whereby city officials then consulted communities on how they can improve housing availability and accessibility.

Community-Based Partnerships to Support Migration Management

Panellists further emphasised the importance of civil society organisations and other community-based actors in supporting cities with migration management. In Los Angeles (California, USA), for example, the city works with community-based actors on, among other things:

Councillor Chaudhary shared that in Delhi (India), when local officials were made aware of xenophobic messages being spread via WhatsApp, primarily in large chat groups, the municipality worked with local influencers, embedding them in the chat groups to “disrupt” the echo chamber of xenophobia by inserting positive messages about migrants and the skills and benefits they bring to local communities. The Municipal Corporation also worked with community-based actors to establish Peace Committees, which include representation from migrant communities and have a mandate to bring communities together, whether in dialogues, through film screenings or other creative activities.

Further, in Koboko (Uganda), migration is largely caused by conflict in neighbouring South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the municipality is faced with a constant influx of refugees from both countries, many of whom carry considerable traumas from having endured and then fled violence. To support their integration, the Municipality has partnered with the South Sudanese Refugee Association to establish and operate a trauma healing centre for refugees. The centre hires local refugees as counsellors ensuring those seeking support can get psychosocial assistance from individuals that speak the same language as them and have a similar background and thus understand the complexities and traumas that can come with being a refugee or asylum seeker.

Next Steps

The session underscored the importance of sharing city-led efforts to support migrant integration and address anti-migrant sentiment, with panellists recognising that migration levels are only expected to continue increasing and that local governments must be equipped to accommodate changing demographics as part of their commitment to the well-being and safety of their communities. Given this, Strong Cities will continue to provide opportunities for city-to-city learning and exchange and national-local dialogue on this topic and will build on its existing policy brief by identifying and disseminating innovative city-led efforts to support both long-term residents and new arrivals, while upholding the rule of law.

Further Resources

See our new policy brief on this topic:

Other recent Strong Cities policy briefs and resources:

Additional reading:

Donors & Partners

The Fifth Global Summit was made possible with generous support from the European Union, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Public Safety Canada, the US Department of State and the City of Cape Town. 

The views expressed in this session report do not necessarily reflect those of all Strong Cities Network members, the Management Unit or Summit sponsors and partners. 

Contact Information 

For more information about the Fifth Global Summit or the Strong Cities Network, please contact [email protected].

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