New York- U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and Director General of the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) William Lacy Swing signed an agreement to make the IOM a U.N.-related Organization.

The agreement was signed under the virtue of regulation 70/296 on June 25, 2016.

“The signature of this historic agreement brings the leading global migration agency, IOM – into the United Nations – the culmination of a 65-year relationship.”

“For the very first time in 71 years, the U.N. now has a ‘U.N. Migration Agency’,” Ambassador Swing said, adding, “This is a singular honor for our Organization – and a genuine success for migrants and Member States and indeed for this Summit.”

Ambassador Swing emphasized that the process reflects a growing recognition of the importance of migration and the need to better link human mobility with related policy agendas, including the development, human rights, climate change, and peace and security domains.

IOM considers migration to be a mega-trend of the 21st Century representing unprecedented human mobility with one of every seven persons worldwide living or working somewhere other than their place of birth.

Swing also noted that the timing of this Summit was critical.

“We’re facing, also, a series of unprecedented simultaneous, complex and protracted crises and humanitarian emergencies in an ‘arc of instability,’ that stretches from the Western bulge of Africa to the Himalayas, that I have not seen in my lifetime,” he added.

Newly installed President Peter Thomson, of the 71st session of the U.N. General Assembly, said: “I will take forward the commitment of the membership to begin a process leading to a global compact on migration as well as to support a global compact on refugees.”

“The fate of millions of refugees and migrants rests with us,” he said.