The year 2025 proved another successful year for ICMPD and its partners, remaining resolute more than ever, in connecting partners and empowering communities through better understanding of their needs.
Now with 138 projects across 109 countries, this Annual Report features ICMPD’s unique position in delivering impact-orientated results through its work in the following thematic areas:
- Labour mobility, skills development, talent attraction, and legal pathways for safe migration;
- Increasing regional thematic focus – including anti-trafficking programmes, safe return and sustainable reintegration, integrated border management and ensuring safe passage, and embedding human rights in the monitoring aspects;
- Producing timely, nuanced, and targeted policy and research tools for partner countries and institutions; as well as combatting the harmful misinformation about migration;
- Institutional capacity development, holistic whole-of-route approach in migration governance, and improved inter-agency cooperation among and within partner countries;
- Member States Programme in support of their full implementation of the EU Pact; and
- Streamlining migration dialogues and strengthening cooperation with countries of origin, transit, and destination that focus on valuable synergies towards a people-centred efforts.
The annual report opens with the reflections, assessments and outlook provided by Director-General Susanne Raab. She puts a focus on the organisation’s expanding work with Member States and partner countries, aligning strategic priorities with the European Union, operational response to the shifting geopolitics that reshape migration landscapes globally, the continued growth of the organisation, and, most importantly, scaling the outcomes of partnerships for communities.
We are developing solutions in cooperation with Member States and partner countries beyond the EU – working with them on equal footing – in response to the emerging migration trends. I believe the best and most sustainable ways forward are found when States connected along migration routes work closely together and make full use of the entire range of migration policy tools. At ICMPD, we pay close attention to partner countries’ domestic needs and priorities, local requirements, and unique contexts.Ms Raab says.
Ms Raab also highlights how ICMPD has solidified its response to the debates on migration in many European capitals, along with the changes in migration trends with the region.
Our work in these areas highlight ICMPD’s key role: to serve as a bridge-builder and enabler of deeper cooperation among countries of origin, transit, and destination; a role that is grounded in the firm conviction that better solutions can only be found by sustaining dialogue, developing joint agendas, and pursuing common goals.Ms Raab says.
Finally, it was a year of ensuing conflicts that triggered migratory movements, climate-induced forced displacement, declining humanitarian response, and a shake-down of multilateralism. In response, ICMPD has further strengthened its role as convenor of the Budapest Process, Khartoum Process, Prague Process, and Rabat Process, which span cross-continental migration dialogues. The Annual Report highlights ICMPD’s unique ability to rally support from donors and empower beneficiaries, facilitate significant migration discourses and trust-building among stakeholders, and harness these strengths to deliver practical solutions that match the realities on the ground.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but we know what is working and what may not. What we at ICMPD bring to the table is being a swift, agile organisation with a lot of creative power. Not a tanker, but a speedboat.Ms Raab concluded.
Read ICMPD’s annual report for 2025, including the full interview with Director General Susanne here.