July 26, 2023 (JUBA, South Sudan): The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has conducted a two-day consultation meeting, in Juba city, to initiative its Regional Migration Fund intervention in Nimule cross border location in South Sudan.
The IGAD Regional Migration Fund is aimed at supporting migrants, refugees, and host communities in the region.
On the consultation meeting, Lieutenant General Atem Marol Biar, the Director General for Immigration expressed his appreciation to IGAD for selecting Nimule cross border location for RMF intervention, which is a direct response to the request made by the government of South Sudan during the 3rd Steering Committee Meeting held in Djibouti in September 2022.
“Nimule is one of the busiest border locations in South Sudan with immense economic potential for communities, migrant’s returnee refugees from Uganda.” He added
Moreover, the Lieutenant General expressed that the government of South Sudan very much welcomes the decision and ready to provide all the necessary support including allocation of plot of land for the infrastructure development envisaged under the Regional Migration Fund.
Representative of the Communities also welcomed the plan to initiate Regional Migration Fund at Nimule cross border location and underlined the strong need of the community for such projects to be implemented in their area. He expressed commitment of his community to provide the necessary support for the implementation.
To facilitate the consultation process, from IGAD Secretariat two Migration Project Coordinators from IGAD’s Health and Social Development Division have presented the objectives of Regional Migration Fund initiative and discuss on the suitability and accessibility of the proposed Nimule Cross-border location with South Sudan Senior Government Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, representative of Communities, Director for Immigration and Commissioner for Refugee Affairs.
The Regional Migration Fund has two Investment Windows which aims to increase employment for host communities and migrants in transit locations in cross-border areas along major migration routes and to promote social and economic development in protracted displacement situations that are in close proximity to host communities.
At the end of consultation meeting Nimule cross-border location is endorsed by the Governments of the Republic South-Sudan as one of the locations for investment window 1 that envisaged benefiting local communities and migrants in transit situation.
IGAD’s Regional Migration Fund (RMF) was set up 2019 as the nucleus to the IGAD Migration Fund and financed by BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) via KFW (German Development Bank).
