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OFID – the OPEC Fund for International Development – yesterday hosted a roundtable at its Vienna headquarters to discuss policy options to address the interrelated challenges of development and displacement.

On 13-14 September 2018 the Austrian Ministry of Interior hosts a conference in Vienna under the auspices of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The conference is dedicated to cooperation with third countries and is titled “Security and Migration – Promoting Partnership and Resilience”. It brings together home affairs ministers of EU member states and third countries as well as representatives of the relevant EU agencies and international organisations. 

When Nigerian migration is discussed in the European context – for example, at policy forums and research conferences, or in the media - a number of key issues are usually mentioned. These include: the experiences of Nigerian people transiting through Libya in order to reach Europe by sea; sex trafficking of Nigerian women by means of juju oaths; and the assumption of a widespread desire to migrate to Europe among the young and growing populations of the region. 

Afghanistan is second only to Syria in the number of refugees originating from within its borders in recent years. Officially, about 2.5 million refugees have left Afghanistan in the almost four decades of this country being marked by hostilities and terror. The unofficial figure for the number of people who have fled exceeds six million. The majority of them are currently in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran as well as in Turkey. It is in this context that the first information centre for potential migrants was opened in Kabul, the Afghan capital, this week. 

In 2018, the Joint EU-ICMPD “Migration EU Expertise” (MIEUX) Initiative celebrates its 10th anniversary. MIEUX, as a veritable pioneering capacity development global Initiative, has tremendously evolved since its inception, becoming a remarkable EU peer-to-peer expert facility with worldwide recognition. MIEUX’s transformation resonates with the opportunities and challenges that the EU and its partner countries share and corresponds to the shifts in migration governance, discourses, policies and institutions all over the globe. The 2017 Annual Report reflects this evolution by illustrating how the programme contributes to enhancing migration governance, furthering EU strategic priorities, and acting as a catalyst for knowledge exchange between migration experts. To mark the launch of the 2017 Annual Report, Oleg Chirita, Programme Coordinator of Global Initiatives, shares ten lessons learnt and their significance for the future of capacity building in the field of migration. 

The approach of states to managing immigration and asylum relies to a significant extent on the assignment of categories to people entering from abroad. Yet many adults and children travelling along migration routes do not fit neatly into just one of these categories. A new ICMPD Working Paper examines the challenges, and some possible ways forward, in dealing with the nexus between asylum, migrant smuggling and human trafficking in mixed migration contexts.

The number of member states of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) has increased by one as of May 2018. Turkey has become the 17th state to join ICMPD, an international migration policy organisation founded 25 years ago with Headquarters in Vienna, Austria. ICMPD already enjoys long-lasting cooperation with Turkey and runs several projects and activities from its office in Ankara. 

Malta has been at the forefront of migration challenges in the Mediterranean for many years. As a country at the crossroads of Mediterranean cultures Malta has a unique and long-standing history related to the many aspects of migration. It has used this experience to bring the European Union and its African partners together to discuss migration issues at the Valletta Summit of 2015 and the Senior Officials’ Meeting that followed in Malta last year.

Trafficking in human beings (THB) is a complex issue. At the heart of trafficking is the exploitation of one human being against their will by another, yet a large number of legal and social issues are linked with this process. As a result, trafficking can simultaneously be considered an organised crime challenge, a human rights violation, an issue linked with migration, labour market dynamics, gender or economic development. Each of these perspectives applies a different “narrative” to explain what human trafficking is and why it occurs. These different narratives sometimes present challenges for media professionals and journalists reporting on THB, and can lead to inaccurate or damaging representations of trafficking in the media.

On 27th March the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) released the 2017 Vienna Migration Conference report. The Vienna Migration Conference (VMC) is ICMPD’s flagship event to discuss critical migration issues and to drive policy development across Member States. The 2017 VMC was held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences on 23–24 October. The publication summarises discussions, findings and conclusions presented at the VMC, and outlines a couple of recommendations to strengthen migration partnerships as frameworks for “safe, orderly and regular migration”.

ICMPD presents five Migration Partnership Priorities

Speaking about the increasing numbers of people identified as victims of modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK, the British National Crime Agency (NCA)’s Vulnerabilities Director Will Kerr stated that “the more we look, the more we find" (BBC News, “Modern Slavery and trafficking ‘in every UK town and city’”, 10 August 2017). This statement highlights both the extent of the problem and the limitations of relying on law enforcement alone to combat it. 

One of the most significant political summits on migration took place in Valletta, Malta in November 2015, bringing together leaders from a wide range of European and African States and international organisations. Faced with the dramatic increase in irregular migration with all its downsides, the time was ripe to take concrete measures to tackle its root causes. The Rabat- and Khartoum Processes, both implemented by ICMPD, had been assigned the role of monitoring these measures. At the follow-up Senior Officials’ Meeting in February 2017, ICMPD presented the findings of the Rabat and Khartoum Process, providing ground for discussion. The central question now is, if the taken measures have and will continue to have the desired impact. In this article, we’ve summarised the steps taken up until now.

Since 2009, Mobility Partnerships between the EU and partner countries have not only brought concrete benefits to people but also enabled result-driven cooperation and dialogue between states. The Mobility Partnership Facility (MPF) is a programme that started in 2016 aimed at supporting the implementation of Mobility Partnerships (MPs). This article provides, in a nutshell, practical examples for MPs and summarizes the actions available to further realize the full potential of this framework.

On 10 November the Vienna Migration Conference opened in the presence of more than 100 invited senior and high-level representatives from politics, international- and intergovernmental organisations, academia and media. The Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sebastian Kurz, delivered the opening statement to the conference’s high-level political panel entitled "European Migration and Refugee Policies – The Way Ahead". The ICMPD Director General then led the panel discussion on "the progress, gaps and visions for better solutions…".