The Steering Group is the highest authority, and the strategic decision-making body and a consultative platform of ICMPD constituted by the representatives of the ICMPD Member States. The competences and responsibilities of the governing board are defined in the ICMPD Agreement as follows: the Steering Group exercises general supervision of ICMPD, appoints the Director General, approves the annual report of the Director General, the budget and annual accounts, the working programme, the agreements with states and governmental bodies, supports ICMPD in its political contacts, advises the Director General on substantial matters, nominates the members of the Advisory Body and advises and decides on the admission of further parties. Furthermore, the Steering Group decided to regulate, among others, areas such as the Steering Group competences and responsibilities, composition, decision-making, meetings, committees, or tasks of the Chair in the Rules, which became effective on 1 January 2010.
The Steering Group and its meetings offer a prime occasion for dialogue on matters of strategy, priority and common concern. In this respect, the Steering Group represents a strategic consultative platform for information exchange, coordination, forecasting, risk preparedness and agenda setting of shared strategic approaches as well as operational assistance and actions for its members and the ICMPD Member States in general.
In early 2019, the incoming Chair of the ICMPD Steering Group, Switzerland, decided to convoke the Friend of the Chair Group as an informal group supporting the Chair on key aspects to be discussed and decided during the year of its Chairmanship in 2020. The Steering Group welcomed this new initiative. The Friends of the Chair format has been beneficial in several similar settings and contributes to a smooth handover of the chairmanships. The Steering Group has also acknowledged that timely preparations for the future strategic directions and priorities are crucial, in particular in relation to the distinct growth and transformation of ICMPD. The FoC Group’s overall objective is to support decision making at the level of the ICMPD Steering Group. The FoC Group does not duplicate ICMPD Steering Group’s discussions nor are any formal decisions to be taken in its format. The Group includes the Troika of Steering Group chairs as well as Austria as the seat state of the ICMPD Headquarters.
This section of the ICMPD website is only available for officially nominated representatives from ICMPD Member States and can only be accessed through logging in with an assigned user name and password. The email addresses of all members are also included in a common mailing group, the email address of which is ICMPDSteeringGroup@icmpd.org. ICMPD uses this email to share not only the Steering Group meeting-related communication, but also to provide information on various issues that the ICMPD Steering Group should be informed about.
