Addis Ababa – Leading officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the African Union Commission (AUC) agreed to strengthen their engagement and streamline ongoing collaboration to help African Member States and Regional Economic Communities with migration governance.

This follows extensive discussions held last week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to assess progress in implementing the AU-IOM Cooperation Agreement, which the two organisations signed in early 2022 to revitalise partnership in priority areas such as migration governance, migration data and research, migration and climate change, labour mobility, migration and health, among others.

The first two days of the three-day meeting included IOM officials from African Regional Offices, the IOM headquarters in Geneva, and the IOM Regional office in Brussels, as well as specialised entities such as the Global Migration Data Center (GMDAC), the African Capacity Building Center (ACBC), and the UN Network on Migration Secretariat.

They addressed ongoing projects and how to establish synergy around the Cooperation Agreement's aims, the IOM Continental Strategy for Africa (2020-2024), and the African Union's (AU) updated Migration Policy Framework (MPFA 2018-2030) and Plan of Action, which was adopted in 2018.

The 2022 Agreement establishes a framework for IOM to engage with the AU in the context of the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, as well as to collaborate with AUC organs and agencies to advance understanding of migration opportunities and challenges, as well as to develop solutions to harness the benefits of migration and mitigate its negative impacts, based on evidence-based policies and timely, high-quality, disaggregated data.

It also allows for the implementation of the key pillars of the AU's revised Migration Policy Framework (MPFA 2018-2030) and Plan of Action, which provides guidelines to help African Member States (MSs) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) formulate and implement national and regional migration policies in accordance with their priorities and resources.

"We must continue to advocate with African institutions and Member States about the need to streamline migration in their national development plans, and those national development plans should be reasonably aligned with the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) because it is a genuine tool with a set of objectives that can be easily aligned with the African Union's Agenda 2063," said IOM Director General António Vitorino speaking online.

“Given our reach of 52 AU Member States, IOM is better placed to support the AU Commission and relevant AU organs on mobility and human development issues. The revised Cooperation Agreement signed last year, as well as its three-year implementation plan, were a result of our collaboration and evidence of the trust and close partnership IOM and AU have established," said Cisse Mariama Mohamed, Director of IOM's Special Liaison Office to the AU and UNECA.

On the final day, representatives from AUC departments and directorates joined the dialogue and shared information about projects the Commission is working on under its migration portfolio, with a focus on how migration can be viewed through a development lens and how partnerships on human mobility issues can be strengthened, within the context of the IOM-AU Joint Implementation Plan.

Political Affairs, Peace and Security (PAPS), Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development (HHS), Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO), Economic Development, Trade, Tourism, Industry, Mining (ETTIM), Women, Gender, Development and Youth Directorate (WGDY), African Union Institute for Statistics (STATAFRIC), and Legal Affairs were all represented at the meeting.

Delegates from African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) such as the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), as well as the Directors of Africa's three Migration Centres in Bamako, Khartoum, and Tunis, also spoke.

For more information contact: Eric Mazango, IOM Ethiopia, emazango@iom.int