News

The MOBILAZE 2 project started in Azerbaijan in June 2021 to support the implementation of the Mobility Partnership with the EU. The project is funded by the EU and supports the implementation of an evidence-based migration and border management policy agenda in Azerbaijan, and will run for 36 months.

On 11 June 2021, ICMPD completed the delivery of two-day training sessions for the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) and the State Customs Service (SCS) of Ukraine on business process reengineering.

To celebrate the World’s Day against Child Labour (12 June) and the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour (2021), ICMPD joins the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Action Pledge 2021 to eliminate child labour. 

On 2 June 2021, ICMPD held a virtual senior expert roundtable to discuss means of addressing irregular migration along migration routes. The meeting brought together senior experts from EU and ICMPD Member States, international organisations, EU institutions and other relevant bodies. Participants zoomed in on ways that partnerships and policies can better address irregular migration by looking along entire migration routes and considering the perspectives of countries of origin, transit and destination.

On 26 May 2021, ICMPD, in the framework of the project Libya’s Migration Technical Assistance Facility (LIBMITAF), took part in a mission to the southern city of Sabha, Libya. The mission was organised by the World Food Programme (WFP) Libya in order to discuss the needs and priorities of the Municipality together with Libyan and international stakeholders, including the mayor of Sabha, the EU Ambassador to Libya, and several UN representatives.

On 20 May, ICMPD Turkey and Western Balkans Regional Coordination Office hosted an international webinar on “Cooperation with Civil Society and Municipalities in Migration Management in Turkey and the Netherlands”. The webinar brought together representatives of public authorities, civil society organisations (CSOs) and local administrations from the Netherlands and Turkey to discuss best practices in cooperation in the field of migration management.

On 23 – 27 May, representatives nominated by the Jordanian Borders and Residency  Department (BRD), the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands as donor and ICMPD  gathered for the first basic training on document security. The event was organised at the Forensic Science Training Center in Amman.

On 28 May 28 2021, ICMPD’s SUPREME project held an online conference on Turkey’s Priorities on Irregular Migration and Return. Constituting SUPREME’s final project activity, the conference brought together crucial national and international stakeholders in the field of irregular migration.

On 26 May, the EUROMED Migration V Programme (EMM5) organised an online Technical Briefing on the New EU Agenda for the Mediterranean. The event was attended by over 50 representatives of 22 EMM5 participating countries and by representatives of international organisations and European agencies.

As the pandemic reaches different stages in different countries, its longer-term impacts on the migration and employment landscape, as well as economic recovery, will become increasingly pressing priorities to address – and ones that will necessitate revisiting cooperation on labour migration schemes. In this context, the Republic of Malta and ICMPD, through its Member States Programme, organised an expert discussion on 27 May 2021 that explored the future of legal migration policies, with a focus on enhanced cooperation and partnerships that are responsive to the post-COVID-19 reality.

On 27 May, representatives of the European Union Delegation to Lebanon, Lebanese and international academics in the field of maritime governance, local practitioners in the shipping industry, and representatives of ICMPD held a 2-hour webinar as a first activity in a series of webinars on Lebanon’s maritime domain.

On 19 – 20 May, a meeting organised in Abuja under the auspices of the Working Group on Return and Reintegration (WGRR), chaired by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons of Nigeria (NCFRMI), gathered 33 participants from government institutions and civil society organisations from around the country, National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) as well as international organisations.

On 17 May 2021, ICMPD within the EU-funded project "EU Support to Strengthening Integrated Border Management in Ukraine (EU4IBM)" launched the pilot initiative on prevention of cross-border crime at the green border between Ukraine and Romania. The pilot includes elements of technical re-equipment as well as joint capacity building and anti-corruption trainings implemented on the basis of the new infrastructure.

On 13 May, the Ombudsman Office of the Republic of Moldova issued an order to appoint its Torture Prevention Directorate in charge of monitoring forced-returns. For the first time in the country’s history, it formally assigned a dedicated team of forced-return monitors. The act of appointment comes as a result of a series of earlier activities carried out within the framework of the project “Development of a Forced-Return Monitoring System in the Republic of Moldova” (FReMM). Those include a workshop with Moldovan stakeholders on sharing the EU good practices on forced-return monitoring and a meeting on agreeing the standard monitor’s profile for Moldova.

Michael Spindelegger, Director General of ICMPD, about the tremendous impact that COVID-19 has had on global migration, about how ICMPD has had to adapt and about how ICMPD can help to build a well-functioning European asylum system.