Amy Pope defeats own boss to run UN migration agency

Former White House adviser Amy Pope was elected to head the UN migration agency, prevailing yesterday in a tense contest against a Portuguese incumbent who had the support of European countries. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said Pope would become the first woman to lead it when she begins her five-year term on October 1.
Pope, who served as Deputy Director General for Management and Reform at IOM, took leave to campaign against her boss António Vitorino, who has been in the position since 2018. “With the impacts of conflict, of poverty, of climate change, there will be even more work than we can do in order for us to be a successful organisation,” Pope said. “It’s important that we look at the issue of migration from a much more comprehensive point of view, that we use our data much more proactively.” Pope said she was eager for IOM to use data to analyse why people were moving and to better understand where people might be forced to move. More than 100mn people are forcibly displaced around the world and IOM seeks to ensure humane and orderly migration and intervenes where needed. In 2021, Pope served as senior adviser on migration to US President Joe Biden, who publicly backed her candidacy. “As IOM’s largest bilateral donor, the United States strongly supports Ms. Pope’s vision and looks forward to working with her to implement the critical reforms necessary to create a more effective, inclusive IOM,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Vitorino, a former European Commissioner who is close to his compatriot United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, did not comment as he left the International Conference Center in Geneva, where the voting took place. “It’s not about what he did or didn’t do,” Pope said about her campaign against Vitorino.
“It’s more about what we can do and what opportunities might exist for us that we have yet to take.”