Minister Coveney to announce launch of Global Migration Media Academy

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney T.D., will today announce the launch of the Global Migration Media Academy. This initiative, a unique collaboration between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is a contribution to a global conversation on migration rooted in facts rather than misinformation.

Minister Coveney said:

“I am delighted to announce Ireland’s support for the establishment by IOM of the Global Migration Media Academy, which will be partly based in Ireland.

"We are proud of our diaspora who for centuries have moved all over the world. On this International Day of Migration, it is also important to remember that Irish migrants, like others, at times faced hostility, mistrust and mistruths.

"That is why I look forward to the Global Migration Media Academy playing an important role in countering the misinformation and distortion that can surround the issue of migration. It will provide media professionals and students with the tools to understand the reality of migration and to counter misleading narratives.”

Colm Brophy, T.D., Minister of State for Overseas Development Aid and the Diaspora, added:

“In Ireland we know, from our own experience, that migration has the potential to contribute positively to development both at home and abroad, as well as to improve the lives of migrants themselves.

"This is why Irish Aid support for the Academy is important, particularly as it will initially focus on media professionals and students in a number of countries where migration attracts a strong public focus.”

ENDS

PRESS OFFICE

18 DECEMBER 2020

Notes for Editors

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is establishing, with the support of the Government of Ireland, a Global Migration Media Academy (GMMA) - to be based in Ireland and Geneva. The Academy aims to provide training to media professionals and students globally in order to prepare them better to counter misleading and false narratives on migration. The current Covid-19 pandemic, and the ‘infodemic’ associated with it, highlights further the need for engagement in this area.
The Global Migration Media Academy will offer a specialist media and migration learning platform and network, free of charge, for media professionals and students in a number of pilot countries (Morocco, Mexico, Serbia and The Phillipines), providing structured modules on a variety of related topics that will serve to fill a void on migration-specific media training.
The project will be overseen by the Media and Communications Division in IOM HQ (Geneva) in collaboration with IOM Ireland and will also draw on expertise and capacity present in Ireland, through the third-level sector and the digital companies - constituting a meaningful contribution by Ireland to a very global phenomenon. It is being jointly financed by Irish Aid (€400,000 for 2021 and 2022) and the IOM Development Fund.
The project is aligned with the commitments on integration, multi-culturalism, and media in the Programme for Government and with Ireland’s commitments under the Global Compact for Migration. It is also in line with the commitment in A Better World, Ireland's Policy for International Development, to "follow through on the global compacts on migration and refugees to reaffirm the importance of the international refugee regime and ensure that migration is more safe, orderly and regular".
On 4 December 2000, the UN General Assembly, taking into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world, proclaimed 18 December International Migrants Day