Despite the tensions on this file with the Europeans, Joe Biden and his administration have succeeded in their bet: to recover the direction of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The American Amy Pope became Monday at 49 the first woman elected to head this organization which is part of the UN system.
Until then deputy director of the IOM, Amy Pope was in the running against the current director general, the Portuguese Antonio Vitorino. In office since 2018, he was seeking a second term but he finally withdrew his candidacy after a first round of secret ballot giving a large advantage to his rival. She will take office on October 1 for a five-year term.
Amy Pope wants a “much more holistic” approach
IOM is the main international actor on migration at a time when the world has more than 280 million migrants. In March, Amy Pope felt that the stakes were too high to simply stick to the status quo and she noted that while the IOM was “very, very good” at providing immediate assistance, there remained “vast room for improvement”. ‘improvement “.
Monday she insisted again in this sense: “With the effects of conflict, poverty and climate change, there will be even more work that we can do. She called for a “much more comprehensive” approach to the migration issue. She also insisted on an idea close to her heart: to do more to establish migratory routes that allow people to move legally and safely.
A former Obama adviser
Amy Pope, a lawyer who has spent most of her career on migration issues, including in the administration of US President Barack Obama, only started working at IOM a year ago and half. When she announced her candidacy in October, it created a shock and was not seen as a friendly decision, recently underlined a European diplomat on condition of anonymity.
If a second term is the custom, the United States wanted to uphold the “long-standing tradition of having their candidate for the post of director general”, explained Megan Bradley, professor at McGill University in Montreal and specialist of IOM. For her, the growing importance of the IOM “makes it all the more important for the United States to try to reassert its traditional hold at the helm of the organization”.
However, in front of the press, Amy Pope emphasized that she “never saw this (her candidacy) as a battle between the United States and Europe”, emphasizing that she was delighted to “work in a global manner with all our partners. The Europeans have also indicated that they want to move forward. IOM now has nearly 19,000 staff and has seen its budget nearly double since 2018 to nearly $3 billion last year.