Africa – Arab States Tripartite Interregional Meeting on Labour Migration

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Agenda

In light of the increasing numbers of African migrant workers employed in the Arab States and the opportunities and challenges this creates, the consultative Interregional Meeting will be an opportunity for governments, trade unions and employers’ organizations, regional economic communities, and other labour migration stakeholders from Africa and the Arab States, to share knowledge and experiences on fair migration, with specific attention to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, the Interregional Meeting will be an opportunity to:

• Take stock of progress and good practices as well as remaining challenges in relation to key areas of labour migration governance, including skills, fair recruitment, social protection, bilateral labour agreements and internal labour market mobility;
• Jointly identify ways forward to achieve improved labour migration outcomes for all stakeholders through the exchange of experiences, lessons learnt, ideas and expertise;
• Build networks by connecting governments as well as social partner and other stakeholders to join efforts in ensuring people-centered and rights-based approaches to labour migration;
• Strengthen policy dialogue across the Africa-Arab States labour migration corridor to pave the way for further interregional collaboration and coordination.

The meeting will be on invitation only, and open to senior technical staff from Ministries of Labour and representatives from workers’ and employers’ organizations from African Union Member States, Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), Lebanon and Jordan, with a specific focus on countries with significant labour migration flows across the Africa-Arab States corridor.

Representatives from regional economic communities including COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD, UMA and the League of Arab States, and regional workers’ and employers’ organizations will also be invited, including ITUC Africa, OATUU, SATUCC, ETUCS, OTUWA and OSTAC as well as representatives from several regional civil society organizations and private recruitment agency associations.

Relevant UN agencies, donor representatives, researchers and academics will provide technical inputs as observers.