On 6 March, the World Health Organisation (WHO) convened a global technical consultation aimed at establishing priorities for its global research agenda concerning health and migration. The Global Detention Project (GDP) was one of a handful of civil society organisations invited to participate in the event, which included stakeholders from UN agencies and other international organisations, universities and policy centres, and WHO headquarters and regional offices.
Although it is widely accepted that the experiences of displacement and migration are key determinants of health and wellbeing, there is a global lack of comprehensive, high-quality, and contextualised research on numerous key aspects of migration, including notably with respect to detention. The WHO’s Health and Migration Programme is currently in the process of developing its first global research agenda on health and migration, following up on its 2022 World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants (for which the GDP contributed a chapter on detention).
The objectives of the technical consultations are to assist the WHO to develop research targets that:
- Promote research on health and migration through setting global research priorities to serve as a platform for further regional, country, and migration context specific research priority setting and research activities;
- Strengthen knowledge production and effective development of research on health and migration;
- Build research capacity on health and migration and ensure translation of knowledge into policy and implementation.
Related Reading:
WHO: World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants
WHO: Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants – Experiences From Around the World
