On 10 November 2022, the ICMPD Director General, Michael Spindelegger, and the Ambassador Director General of the Kingdom of Morocco Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, H.E. Fouad Yazourh, signed the Seat Agreement between ICMPD and the Kingdom of Morocco.
The Seat Agreement between the Kingdom of Morocco and ICMPD was at the margins of the 2nd Euro-Mediterranean Migration Narratives Conference and 3rd EUROMED Migration Peer-to-Peer Conference on “Multilateral Migration Partnerships for Sustainable Development” hosted in Rabat. During the signing ceremony, H.E. Fouad Yazourh noted that the conclusion of this agreement marked a formalisation and intensification of years of close cooperation on migration governance between the Kingdom of Morocco and ICMPD, while Michael Spindelegger highlighted the conviction that all countries and regions linked by migration flows should work together in the principle of partnership.
To date, ICMPD has engaged in a number of actions in Morocco, coordinated through ICMPD’s Regional Office for the Mediterranean. Notable mentions include the Border Management Programme for the Maghreb (BMP-M), which saw a significant upscaling and modernisation of border management and procurement capacities, in the region. as a whole as well as within ICMPD .
Morocco has been a long-standing actively engaged partner in the technical migration dialogues hosted by the EUROMED Migration Programme and the Mediterranean City to City Migration project (MC2CM), at the national and local level respectively. Notwithstanding, Morocco also played a prominent role in the innovative North African Migration Academic Network (NAMAN), which culminated in the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between the evidence-driven Migration Governance Policy and Practice project (eMGPP) and the Moroccan High Commission for Planning in August 2021. Crucially, ICMPD’s cooperation with Morocco has been further solidified through the Rabat Process, which Morocco will Chair in 2023.
This Seat Agreement represents a milestone which will not only allow ICMPD and Morocco to continue this legacy of trust and partnership, but to further build on it in the principle of Joint Leadership and Shared Responsibility, which is championed by ICMPD’s Migration Capacity Partnerships framework for the Mediterranean (MCP Med). This Agreement, in synergy with the MCP Med framework, will further pave the way forward for the growth of ICMPD’s portfolio as well as presence in Morocco.
ICMPD welcomes the trust instilled by the Moroccan Government, and looks forward to strengthening the close collaboration with Moroccan authorities in the pursuit of making migration and mobility of people in the region orderly, safe and regular, including through the implementation of planned and well managed migration policies.