Lessons Learnt and Strategizing Workshop on Return and Reintegration of Migrant Workers 30-31st October 2014, Colombo

TILO provided technical support to the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, to conduct the Lessons Learnt and Strategizing Workshop to seek strategic input from key stakeholders in the migration sector with the overall objective of developing a National Plan of Action on Return and Reintegration.

ILO provided technical support to the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, to conduct the Lessons Learnt and Strategizing Workshop to seek strategic input from key stakeholders in the migration sector with the overall objective of developing a National Plan of Action on Return and Reintegration.

The workshop intended to:
1. Facilitate a forum for deliberation on successful return and reintegration of migrant workers.
2. Share country specific experiences and good practices on return and reintegration
3. Consensus building on strategic areas for a return and reintegration policy framework.

The workshop was attended by nearly 60 participants from different agencies: Government, International NGOs, local NGOs, trade unions and private sector. The representation of a multitude of development sectors such a migration, banking, skill development and promotion, academia, civil society movements, business development, policy development, labour, agriculture, made the workshop very resourceful and rich. The Asian countries were represented by Philippines and Nepal and they shared their experiences on return and reintegration of migrant workers from different perspective: Philippines from the government perspective and Nepal from the civil society perspective. Their lessons learnt and experiences were useful and appropriate for Sri Lanka and a number of inputs were received for the proposed policy framework on return and reintegration. The resulting policy framework has been presented to the National Advisory Committee on Labour Migration and the National Plan of Action is currently being developed.