The Abu Dhabi conference, “Labor Mobility – Enabler for Sustainable Development”, brought together national and international experts in a regional debate propitiously timed to complement the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) 2013 and offer practical multi-stakeholder inputs into the 2013 UN High Level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development. The conference yielded some important policy messages about foreign labor dynamics in the GCC region, including the need for governments and research institutions to create a coherent, regional research agenda and a collaborative framework to deal with the issue. GCC states have become major global players in labor mobility and could help advance a global development agenda based on better-informed, coherent and protective governance of labor mobility. This introductory section distills the key points raised in the conference and reflected in the papers reproduced in this volume, and the messages to be taken forward from the conference, both for regional policymakers and researchers and to the second UN High Level Dialogue.

Foreign Labor in the GCC benefits both Origin and Destination Countries

The employment of overseas contract labor is a critical policy issue for the GCC region. Foreign workers are required to meet the huge demand for labor in sectors such as construction and the services industry, and the scale of migration to the Gulf states makes the region a major player in the global migration and development field.