The main objective of the activities of the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO New Delhi Office is to support Member States in their efforts towards creating more inclusive, just and sustainable societies. Our strategy involves strengthening the link between research and policy making, contributing to advocacy and policy dialogue and stimulating innovative thinking towards ensuring protection of the most vulnerable groups of population, social inclusion and cultural diversity. We especially seek to advance knowledge and policy in the area of   social protection, urban inclusion, and internal migration in India.  

The Internal Migration in India Initiative (IMII), launched in 2011, aims to support the social inclusion of migrants in the economic, social, political and cultural life of India, using a multi-track approach combining research, policy and advocacy. The IMII combines policy dialogues, policy briefs in several languages, and research networking, which resulted in several outputs that had a strong media impact and great potential for scaling up the project practices in the rest of South Asia and Asia, including the Maldives, Bangladesh and China (see the publication “Social Inclusion of Internal Migrants in India” (2013) which documents 40 innovative practices). 

The informal network created under the Internal Migration in India Initiative (IMII) has been recently transformed into a new web-portal titled which functions s as a sub-community of practice of the United Nations Solution Exchange Gender Community. The GYM initiative hopes to bridge the gap and link researchers, practitioners and decision makers working on gender, youth and migration in India (http://solutionexchange-un-gen-gym.net).

Sub-themes: 

Learning to Live Together

Internal Migration (Research and Policy)

Gender, Youth & Migration (Online Knowledge Exchange)

Right to the City (Research & Policy)

Social Protection (Policy & Advocacy)

One Planet, One Ocean

Migration and Climate Change (Research & Policy)

Protecting Our Heritage and Fostering Creativity

Historic Districts for All - A Social Approach to Sustainable Revitalization (Pilot Projects)