June 13, 2023, (DJIBOUTI-VILLE, Djibouti): The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) with the technical support of the International Labour Organization (ILO) commenced the regional Knowledge and Experience Sharing workshop on Labour Migration and Mobility Governance, today, in Djibouti.
The main objective of the workshop is to take stock of the project’s five years journey with key stakeholders, to deliberate on key results, challenges, lessons and experience, to inform the drafting of the second phase of the project and further solicit inputs for the inception report of the second phase of the project.
Speaking on behalf of the Executive Secretary of IGAD, Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu, the Director for Health and Social Development Division, Mme. Fathia Alwan, welcomed the participants and emphasized that Over the past five years, the IGAD Secretariat in collaboration with its technical partner the UN-ILO have made substantial progresses since the declaration in the areas of developing Plan of Action and notable capacity building training for Labour attaches of IGAD Member States and Social partners.
“As we are concluding phase one of implementation of Free Movement Person and Transhumance Labour Migration project and preparations are underway for the second phase, it is necessary to organize such regional knowledge and experience sharing workshop to look back and take stock of the previous five years journey.” The Director added.
On behalf of Mr. Alexio Musindo, Director, ILO Country Office for Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan and Special Representative to the AU & ECA, Ndeye Coomba Diop regional Labour Migration specialist, regional office for Africa disclosed that over the last five years of implementation, the ILO, the IGAD and the EU have made significant strides and achieved concrete milestones to advance decent work for migrant workers and their families.
“The ILO and IGAD have successfully partnered to advance free movement of persons, improve labour migration and mobility governance in the region and beyond; for the purpose of extending decent work opportunities for migrant workers.” She mentioned.
The workshop brought together senior technical experts of IGAD Secretariat, IGAD Member States, social partners, ILO and other stakeholders involved in the implementation of the FMPT project over the last five years.
The Project on Free Movement of Persons and Transhumance in the IGAD region financed by the European union.
The expected output of the regional knowledge and experience sharing workshop is to take stock of what has worked well and what has not in the first phase of the project and identify set of recommendations and actionable points to be used in the designing and implementation of the second phase of the project.
The Protocol on Free Movement of Persons is enshrined in the 1996 Agreement Establishing the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). To this end, among other things, IGAD and its Member States have developed and adopted comprehensive migration policy framework, the IGAD Regional Migration Policy Framework in 2012 and further developed Migration Action plan 2015-2020.
