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Roundtable on Labour migration and mobility in Africa
A three-day forum from 23 – 25 March 2015 in Kigali, Rwanda under the theme ”Enhancing capacities of RECs and Member States to facilitate Intra-regional Migration & Labour Mobility for Regional Integration and Economic Cooperation in Africa.”
ADDIS ABABA/KIGALI (ILO News) – The strategic Roundtable is a joint initiative of the African Union (AU), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in collaboration with the Swiss government.
The main objective of this joint initiative is to encourage and facilitate free movement of persons within Africa with the potential to provide alternative legal channels of migration.
Some sixty senior representatives and experts from the AUC, RECs, AU member states, UN Agencies and International Organizations (AfDB, IOM, ILO, EU, World Bank, UNCTAD, UNHCR, WEF, UNECA, Swiss government, etc.) are attending the Roundtable together with delegates from the academia, civil society, employers’ and workers’ organisations.
The meeting aims to improve the awareness and understanding that migration and mobility do not just benefit migrants alone but are powerful drivers of sustainable economic and social development including boosting intra-Africa trade in countries of origin, transit and destination.
The Roundtable will devote a special session for the awareness and sensitization of selected government officials towards an operational roadmap for the Joint Labour Migration Programme (JLMP) spearheaded by the AUC with the support of the ILO, IOM and UNECA.
This will provide an opportunity to share experiences, good practices and lessons, empirical data and evidence-based information on the benefits, opportunities and challenges of intra-regional migration and labour mobility from other regions including Western Europe and South America and its potential to boost intra-regional trade and investment.
African countries are urged to recognize the need to ratify the protocols on free movement of persons, and existing international conventions on the protection of migrant workers and a migration governance framework for better migration management.
The outcomes and recommendations of the Roundtable will feed into the report of the AU Special Technical Committee (STC) on Labour and Social Development in April 2015 for consideration and endorsement by the Executive Council at the 27th Ordinary Session of the African Union.
