Regional Experts Meeting on International Migration and Development in Africa

The ILO shared its technical expertise at a senior experts meeting on international migration and development in Africa. The recommendations of this regional consultation mechanism will be integrated into the Second High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development to be held in October 2013.

News | 03 July 2013
The International Labour Organization (ILO) attended a regional experts meeting on international migration and development in Africa. The meeting took place in the United Nations Conference Centre, Addis Ababa on 3-4 July, 2013.

The experts' meeting - organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the African Union Commission (AUC), provided regional recommendations to be considered at the Second High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development to be held in October 2013.

The regional consultation platform was set up in different interactive sessions covering the following themes: Mainstreaming Migration into Development Plans and Strategies, International and Regional Labour Mobility and its impacts on development, Strengthening Partnerships and cooperation on international migration, and Measures to ensure respect for and protection of the human rights of all migrants, with particular reference to woman and children.

The breadth of ILO’s expertise is well reflected in a range of labour mobility initiatives concerning, amongst others, skills recognition and development, social security and social dialogue, undertaken within sub-regional and regional economic integration processes.

In Africa, the ILO’s collaboration with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has ensured the inclusion of migration in the draft protocol on employment and labour. In the East African Community (EAC), the ILO is supporting the development of a legal instrument to coordinate social security arrangements between Member countries. The ILO has also recently embarked on a number of specific projects concerning migrant domestic workers at the global level, as well as in East Africa and the Arab States.

The ILO aims to actively contribute to the regional preparatory meetings for the High-level Dialogue that are being organized by the United Nations Regional Commissions, in collaboration with other relevant entities of the United Nations system including the ILO, as well as the IOM, with a view to also ensuring that these meetings involve the full participation of its tripartite constituents of ministries of labour, employers’ and workers’ organizations given the centrality of the world of work to international migration and development.