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Migration policy discussion is often future-focused. We look to how our future will be affected by changing migration routes, labour shortages, displacement, demographic change, integration, return, border management or the political debates surrounding migration. But an equally crucial question is: who will be dealing with these challenges tomorrow?

Like anywhere else, migration in Uzbekistan is not an abstract issue. It is a reality that affects families, individuals and communities, while also playing a vital role in the country’s labour market and economy. This is why, when we talk about protecting migrants, we must also address the risks associated with irregular migration, labour exploitation, migrant smuggling, and human trafficking. These, too, are not abstract issues.

Climate change has become one of the most severe and far-reaching challenges of our time, with existential consequences for ecosystems, biodiversity, and human populations – as pointed out by the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinion. Its impacts extend well beyond the environmental sphere, positioning it as a defining governance challenge with direct implications for human rights, economic resilience, geopolitical stability, and migration patterns. Across all regions, rising temperatures, droughts, floods, storms, and land degradation are already reshaping living conditions, undermining livelihoods, and transforming patterns of human mobility. 

In global development, civil society expertise and active community engagement are vital for the success of partnerships. This is evident how, in 2025 and only in just a few months, 29 civil society partners of the Migration and Mobility Dialogue (MMD) Grant Facility have organised and launched seven projects across 25 African countries and two in Europe. In cultivating local community development, these projects also showcase the work and expertise of civil society organisations (CSOs) at an international level through conferences and high-level meetings

Migrant smuggling and human trafficking are among the most complex and urgent challenges shaping mobility between Africa and Europe. Both crimes are highly adaptive, continuously evolving in response to political, economic, and technological shifts. They thrive on structural inequalities and systemic vulnerabilities fuelled by conflict, socio-economic disparities, discrimination, human rights violations, governance gaps, political instability, and climate shocks. As these conditions intensify globally, they expand both the number of people at risk and the geographic scope where victimization and exploitation can occur.

Of the 1.2 billion young people joining the global workforce by 2030, around 450 million of them are from Africa. With their dynamic strength, creativity, and skills, these young movers are not only stakeholders in migration and labour policies now – they would also be vital architects of the future. Meanwhile, Europe undergoes profound demographic changes marked by ageing populations and growing labour shortage in essential sectors.

Only days after Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union activated the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD). It effectively provided more than four million displaced Ukrainians protection from the war; legal rights to stay, work, and benefit from social services; as well as support for integration. As its name suggests however, it was always meant to be temporary.

Cabo Verde is situated about 570 kilometres off the coast of West Africa, and 1,500 km to Spain’s Canary Islands – the closest and first entry of potential migrants into Europe. That route along the Western Atlantic is treacherous. But given its geostrategic location between Africa, the Americas and Europe, Cabo Verde may have become a transit point for organised criminal groups and their activities and a transit route for migrants from West Africa en route to Europe.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, most displaced persons seeking protection in Europe initially expected to stay only temporarily. As the war persisted however, many reconsidered their plans and adapted to prolonged displacement.

Migration has become more central to political and policy discourse in Europe, particularly in recent years. Political parties that use migration as a rallying piece in their platforms have become more prominent, building on the narrative of increasing irregular migration. Often, such discourse draws on data in an inflammatory way, suggesting ever mounting numbers. But a new Policy Brief, which accompanies a more detailed working paper and a new public database, suggests there has been no definitive change in the number and share of irregular migrant population in the region since the estimates made in the Clandestino Project in 2008.

Three years since the Taliban took over, Afghans are now farther cut off from the rest of the world. While Afghanistan has been aid-dependent, post-Takeover sanctions slashed [aid] for the country practically overnight. Sanctions weakened the banking sector. With the de facto authorities unable to produce passports, people cannot travel – let alone seek refuge in and migrate to a different country. 

Addressing highly complex, often invisible crimes in a targeted way also requires a highly coordinated approach. As human trafficking and the online sexual exploitation of children increasingly become lucrative enterprises for the criminal syndicates globally and even more challenging to track, the best way to tackle them begins with having the right data.

Europe needs more workers. But as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia dominate the global labour market¹, the European Union is caught in a ‘bruising worldwide battle’ to attract and keep workers in the region². Even as some Member States remain in strong positions, the EU collectively falls behind in recruiting and retaining international talent.

A central challenge of a modern-day response to human trafficking, nationally and internationally, is putting in place co-operative frameworks to enable state actors to fulfil their obligations to protect and promote the human rights of trafficked persons and co-ordinate their efforts in a strategic partnership with civil society. On the occasion of the European Union (EU) Anti-Trafficking Day on 18 October 2023, the Anti-Trafficking Programme of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) stresses the importance of cross-border and multi-agency cooperation in combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims.

The creation of sophisticated encryption tools is closely connected to the efforts of the armed forces and state authorities to conceal their communications and strategic documents, which are important for the functioning of the state, security system and protection of citizens. Special encryption tools are also employed in the private sector, helping to protect corporate know-how from economic espionage. However, Cryptography in the hands of criminal entities makes it more difficult for law enforcement and border authorities to detect, document and investigate serious crime related to smuggling and trafficking in human beings.