Tangiers, July 1st, 2021 (ECA) - The ECA Office for North Africa initiated on Thursday, July 1st in Tangiers (Kingdom of Morocco) a two-day, hybrid workshop on migration statistics and skills recognition in Africa.
The meeting took place as part of a series of ECA-led workshops on migration policies in Africa. Participants included representatives of Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, the UN System as well as the private sector, civil society and the media.
The workshop had several goals, including:
- facilitating the sharing of good practices between African countries taking part in the migration statistics and skills recognition programme (Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Zimbabwe);
- allowing the Moroccan ministerial departments involved in the project to share their experiences with regards to the National Immigration and Asylum Strategy, and take stock of progress made towards the implementation of the project in their country;
- providing representatives of Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal with an opportunity to share their experiences in managing migration issues and present the project’s progress in their own countries.
In the case of Morocco, participants examined the draft interface of the national platform for the collection of migration statistics as well as preliminary conclusions from the study on the recognition of migrants’ skills in Morocco, which indicate positive progress in favour of immigrant workers’ rights, but note the need for the country to clarify the definition of skills recognition, including in legal terms, and to set up a single procedure for all labour migrants.
Well managed migration can increase prosperity and innovation. Countries must therefore create a favourable environment where migrants can benefit both their birth and host countries, said UN Resident Coordinator for Morocco Sylvia Lopez-Ekra at the opening of the meeting. Lopez-Ekra invited African countries to join the Global Compact on Migration (GCM) migration champions’ network, stressing that "a strong network of GCM champion countries in Africa would allow us to unite our voices for a positive discourse on migration in Africa".
Morocco is currently the host country of the African Migration Observatory of the African Union Commission, and one of the African champions of the Global Compact for Migration in Africa, alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya and Senegal.
The Marrakech Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration held in December 2018 called upon the UN regional economic commissions, including the Economic Commission for Africa, to support member States as they strived to implement the agreement. Following that decision, ECA was tasked with helping strengthen Member States’ capacity to design evidence-based migration policies and programs in collaboration with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and in line with international, regional and African protocols and frameworks on migration.
المغرب وكوت ديفوار والسنغال تتبادل خبراتها من أجل تعزيز سياسات الهجرة
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: eca-info@un.org