Health issues surrounding immigration and economic migration have never been more relevant in today's world. At a parallel session themed "Refugees and migrants: Can social mobilization address the drivers of migration and the causes of large movements of refugees" during the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion, experts and government officials discussed on how to achieve the sustainable development goals related to immigration.

"Libya now has too many immigrants, many people want to enter other countries," Libya's Minister of Health Omar Basheer Altaher said.

The refugees and immigrants in Libya are mainly from Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, Chad, Morocco, Mali and The Gambia, and come from neighboring countries to seek refuge from political turmoil and poor economies.

After Libya, the main destinations many refugees and migrants there are European countries, including Germany, Italy and Norway.

At present, Libya is having difficulties in providing basic living conditions for those migrants and refugees so that it needs assistance from international community, medical organizations and other aid organizations.

Italy is a country of immigrants, said Ranieri Guerra, director-general of Preventive Health and ministry of Health in Italy. "Immigrants and refugees are not just numbers; each one of them is an individual," he said.

Due to an unstable society, poverty and climate change and other reasons, Italy now faces a tough situation, says Guerra. "So we will not take rejection attitude towards them."

Italy believes that health is a fundamental right and that immigrants and refugees can also enjoy the services provided by the national health system.

Italy is now promoting more agenda with the United Nations and cooperation in health field for immigrants and refugees, hoping that the EU and other leaders could recognize immigrants as a major force in the future development and work together to provide comprehensive coverage of support and services for them.

One of the four to five people in Lebanon is a refugee, most of which are from Syria.

But community can be motived to deal with the refugee challenges, noted Sawsan Abdulrahim, Chair of the Department of Health Promotion and Community Health in American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

She pointed out that currently people are becoming more and more independent on the United Nations refugee relief and international humanitarian aid.

Lebanon will put forward community mobilization, planning, infrastructure construction, through online education and training, to strengthen the health promotion capacity of refugees in the country.

Zanele Antoinette Ngwenya, program manager of Hoedspruit Training Trust in South Africa, introduced a pilot program of immigrant health passport to participants of the summit.

In the program, immigrants can apply for a passport and health service in hospital and receive medical services, whether or not they are recorded.

"We don't know which country they come from if someone comes up with a health passport in the hospital," she said.

But this does not only involve departments from domestic government but also from other countries.

As the moderator of the forum, Davide Mosca, the director of Migration Health Department of IOM said maintaining health is very important for positive development.