Jansson speech at 28 BSPC

BSPC, Oslo 27 Aug 2019Annika Annerby Jansson, President Skåne Regional CouncilSkåne Multilevel Best Practice on IntegrationThank you very much,for giving us the opportunity to contribute from Skåne to the BSPC Working Group on Migration –Integration. ... a challenge with great growth potential for our society not least in Skåne with more than 170 nationalities ...Forced migration is a great risks to both physical and mental health.Our general integration system does not take this into account sufficiently, which is highlighted by the Swedish Association of Regional andLocal Authorities and the Swedish Public Health Authority.It’s crucial for us all to deal with this at all levels, for the European Union,for Sweden, the regions and municipalities and we need to do it together in a complimentary way ... as migration is not going to decline, quite the opposite. In addition to war and conflicts ... - poverty and climate change are becoming increasingly significant causes of migration.Our multilevel platform, Partnership Skåne, has proven to be successful giving migrant’s opportunities for empowerment, health and social participation.The project started already in 2008 and was adopted as a model for cross sectorial collaboration and holistic development, in order to support the integration process. The aim is to facilitate and speed up the process for the newly arrived to become an active part of the community life, development and growth.Some of you know about the development of migration to Sweden in recent years. Up till the early spring of 2015 Sweden had received a rather steady number of asylum seekers 30 000- 40 000 per year. Higher numbers of course than most of our neighbours but something we felt that we could handle.During late spring and fall of 2015 Sweden - because of a number of circumstances - became one of the main goals for refugees particularly coming through the Balkan Route. We think that the total amount of refugees for 2015 was round 160 000 - I say “We think”, because of the chaotic situation many were not registered at all.During a couple of months Sweden received more than 10 000 refugees per week and most of them came through the region of Skåne.We were then, together with Germany, the country that received the largest number per capita.In this chaotic situation in Skåne - probably resembling situations in the Mediterranean countries - there was an enormous effort to solve the acute emergency situation and not least to assess the situation as a whole. It could not have been done without all levels of society and NGOs, but also a large number of ordinary people not being part of groups or NGOs that simply cared, worked and made an enormous difference.This is just the background picture because when the reception faze is over and the immigrants have been allotted a place to stay during the asylum process, that’s when our project can start to work ...Partnership Skåne was really put into test in the extreme situation 2015/16.The whole point of PS is the multi-level way of working!Together we have designed a joint strategy – Region Skåne, the County Administrative Board and the Skåne Association of Local Authorities. We share responsibility, national, regional and local authorities together with civil society and academia. A common strategy is of course mandatory but even more important is that it also translates into concrete practice with our different and complementary roles ...Parts of the method have been transferred to large parts of Sweden and we are now conducting a process to support national capacity development in migration, health and participation in the MILSA education platform.All of Sweden's counties are involved, together with more than150 municipalities, five universities and a large number of NGOs.WHO maintains that there is basically very few other places in the world ... where models and methods to improve migrants’ opportunities for health, well-being and social inclusion work as well as in Skåne and that it therefore ought to work as inspiration for others to create their own models.Still ... it is sometimes easier said than done and of course we continuously need to develop and fine-tune methods and communication regarding for instance options within EU and internationalization.Our membership in the CPMR – Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions, is therefore indeed helpful, both in a BSR- and EU-context. Through the CPMR we are influencing policy and programming in Migration-Integration and we just recently received the positive news that our proposal to the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) has been accepted. This means that Sweden and Skåne will now also be able to share best practice on European level.I am looking forward to continuing the discussion with BSPC, finding synergies this autumn as we will also be present at the European Forum on Integration of Migrants and Refugees in Hamburg 24-25 October, where we plan to arrange a work-shop on transnational Best Practice development.Even if the number of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden has diminished and is back to previous numbers - we are still the country that receive the largest number per capita in Europe. So there is a lot of work to be done for many many years ...Katarina, what is it all about?