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On 19 June, Michael Spindelegger, ICMPD Director General, attended the Antalya Diplomacy Forum and took part in the high-level panel “Humanitarian Approach towards Refugees and Migrants”. On the panel, he was joined by Mr Antonio Vitorino (IOM Director General), Dr. Kerem Kinik (Red Crescent/IFRC) and Dr. Savaş Ünlü (Director DGMM Turkey). Andrea Sanke moderated the panel.

Analysing survey data on recently settled refugees in Austria, two new studies by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) show that young people, women, and people with higher levels of qualification were strongly affected by the Corona crisis in the labour market.

On 24 January 2024, Greece and ICMPD jointly organised a high-level event titled “A holistic approach for balanced migration partnerships” in Brussels. The event marked the handover of the Chairmanship of ICMPD’s Steering Group from Türkiye to Greece with speeches by Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı, Permanent Delegate of Türkiye to the EU, and Ambassador Ioannis Vrailas, Permanent Representative of Greece to the EU. Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dimitrios Kairidis, Minister for Migration and Asylum of Greece, and ICMPD Director General Michael Spindelegger participated in the panel discussion moderated by ICMPD’s Brussels Mission Director Ralph Genetzke. Vice-President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas delivered closing remarks.

During 20-21 October, the Ombudsman Office, in coordination with the Moldovan Bureau for Migration and Asylum, carried out the first forced return monitoring mission in country’s history. Forced-return monitoring aims to ensure human rights compliance during the removal operations with a view to increase transparency and accountability.

On 20-23 February, the SCOP project organised a study visit on migration and digitalisation for the representatives of the Inspectorate General for Migration (IGM) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova, in Tallinn, Estonia.

In Amman, on November 18, ICMPD together with the Government of Jordan, the European Union (EU), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), launched the Integrated Border Management (IBM) project.

ICMPD DG Michael Spindelegger was a panellist at the High-Level Policy Forum on Migration and Integration, which took place on 16 January at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, France. The Forum was organised back to back with the first-ever OECD Ministerial Meeting on Migration and Integration, taking place the day after the Forum.

The Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana)  project, funded by European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), organised a welcome ceremony, for four beneficiary organisations. They received a four hundred thousand Euro (€400,000) grant to implement activities that will support and contribute to innovative approaches on mobility issues and border management, in Ghana. This grant follows the first grant of € 300,000 awarded to three Ghanaian CSOs in August 2021.

On 14-15 April 2024, a workshop on International Cooperation was convened in collaboration with the European Union Advisory Mission to Iraq (EUAM-I) and the National Security Advisory of Iraq within the framework of Iraq's National Integrated Border Management (IBM) Strategy in Baghdad. 

The "Migration.Communication.Schools" (MIKS) project partners from ICMPD, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the University of Education of Lower Austria met in Vienna on 17 September 2020 to record the interim status of the migration communication project within the initiative "MAKING A CHANGE.TOGETHER" after three years.

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 July, ICMPD organised a workshop for Moldovan stakeholders as part of the project “Development of a Forced-Return Monitoring System in the Republic of Moldova” (FReMM) to discuss the key elements of a management framework for the country’s emerging system of forced-return monitoring. The workshop gathered management-level representatives from the Moldovan Bureau for Migration and Asylum, People’s Advocates Office of Moldova, the NGO Law Centre of Advocates, as well as ICMPD project and expert team.

On 22 February 2023, the EU Support to Strengthening IBM in Ukraine (EU4IBM) project trained State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) officers on the use of mobile mini-scanners for the inspection of light vehicles in order to prevent smuggling of illicit objects, including small arms and drugs. 12 scanners for non-destructive inspection, worth EUR 420,000, were procured, and delivered to Ukraine a week earlier.

From 26 to 28 January 2021, ICMPD organised a workshop in Tripoli with four local networks of Libyan CSOs working on migration, focused on strengthening and operationalizing the networks. The activity took place under the framework of the EU-funded project "Strategic and Institutional Management of Migration in Libya".