News

On 1 December 2021, the 3rd Coordination Meeting for the Socio-Economic Development Component took place in Ankara, Türkiye. The meeting takes place within the Vice-Presidcency Facility for Refugees in Türkiye (FRiT). ICMPD in Türkiye facilitated the meeting, provided logistical support and gathered the relevant authorities, actors and beneficiaries of the programme. Implemented by ICMPD Türkiye and as the beneficiary of the FRiT II Programme, the ICMPD ENHANCER project team provided secretarial support in the organisation of this important event.

Within the framework of the AU-EU Continent-to-Continent Migration and Mobility Dialogue (C2CMMD), the African Institute for Remittances (AIR) and the European Commission (EC) organised a webinar on 25 November 2021, supported by ICMPD. Reiterating their commitment for continued joint efforts both parties highlighted the importance of looking beyond cost reduction to leverage the potential for inclusive and sustainable development, while harnessing opportunities in innovation and digitalisation.

On 22 November 2021, the annual Prague Process Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) took place in an online format. Formally hosted by the Czech Republic in its capacity of Prague Process Chair, the SOM gathered officials from the Prague Process countries, the European Commission, the EU Council, EASO, Frontex, IOM and ICMPD. Participating states were invited to comment on the first drafts of the Ministerial Declaration and Action Plan, as well as to reflect on current migration challenges at national, regional and international levels.

On 25 - 26 November 2021, ICMPD and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) organised the final events of the Forced Return Monitoring III project (FReM III)` online. Since December 2018, ICMPD and Frontex were implementing the FReM III project jointly with the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights and 22 partner countries. The objective was to increase the operational and procedural effectiveness of the Frontex pool of forced-return monitors (Pool) and to support the national forced-return monitoring systems in Member States.

On 1 December 2021, ICMPD and the Republic of Malta, in its capacity as 2021 Chair of the ICMPD Steering Group, organised a webinar to explore possible ways of strengthening international cooperation to combat migrant smuggling. The aim of the meeting, which brought together senior experts from ICMPD, the Malta Police Force, EU institutions (Europol, European Commission), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and academia, was to discuss cooperation within the context of a renewed EU Action Plan against Migrant Smuggling (2021-2025). 

From 1 to 3 March, ICMPD in Azerbaijan organised a 3-day training on Monitoring and Evaluation Methodology. It took place in the framework of Component 1 “Migration Management: Policy Agenda and its Implementation” of the EU-funded Support to the Implementation of the Mobility Partnership with Azerbaijan (MOBILAZE 2) project. 

Representatives from the Jordanian Authorities, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development as implementing organisation and partner organisation the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) gathered on February 22^nd 2022 for the Inauguration of the Borders and Residency (BRD) Document Laboratory in the Forensic Laboratory Department.

On Monday 22 February 2022, In the framework of the ERRIN Government-to-Government project in Ghana, a Migration Information Centre for Returnees (MICR) was established at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

Vienna, 24 January 2022: Last year saw a rebound to pre-pandemic levels of irregular migration to Europe, with almost 200,000 illegal crossings recorded at EU borders, a 57% rise compared to 2020 and 38% rise compared to 2019. The ICMPD Migration Outlook report 2022 charts what drove these spikes and predicts how and why they will continue into 2022.

The Federal Investigation Agency Pakistan, the Anti-Narcotics Force, the Pakistan Customs and the Police united on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2022. They highlighted the role of gender equality and awareness in national border management agencies in Pakistan. On 7-9 March 2022, an inter-agency workshop was held in Islamabad for female officers exclusively by the involved services aimed at raising gender awareness as well as collecting feedback on their working experiences and challenges at Pakistan’s borders.

On 01 March 2022, ICMPD and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) officially launched the Inspire project in an online event gathering key German, European and regional stakeholders as well as potential partners. The event aimed at familiarising prospective partners with the project objectives and approach while stimulating exchanges on promising practices and challenges related to private sector engagement in development-oriented skills partnerships.

ICMPD has a long-standing cooperation with Ukraine dating back to 1995. Numerous joint projects were implemented, cooperation is ongoing on multilateral and bilateral levels and in 2021 the ICMPD Kyiv Office was established. ICMPD is thus closely monitoring the developments in Ukraine. Due to the security situation, the ICMPD office has been temporarily closed. The project teams continue their work from other duty stations whenever possible. Below, we are gathering our policy, research, and capacity-building activities to reflect ICMPD's ongoing engagement in Ukraine.

The Ministry of Justice of Cabo Verde held an extended meeting of the National Anti-Trafficking Observatory to discuss future actions. They want to enhance the institutional coordination mechanism in order to prevent and combat trafficking in persons as well as the national policy response.

On 17 March 2022, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Moldova Ana Revenco met with ICMPD and its Member States. They discussed the challenges and needs related to the current unprecedented influx to the Republic of Moldova of Ukrainians and third country nationals from Ukraine in reaction to the Russian invasion.

The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in collaboration with the Presidency of Migration Management (PMM) of Türkiye and the financial support of the governments of Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway launched a three-year project titled “Supporting the implementation and further strengthening of Türkiye's National Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration System (NAVRR Project)” on 28 March 2022.

The Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana) project, funded by European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), organised a reception in Accra for three beneficiary organisations who received a three hundred thousand Euros grants, to implement activities that will support and contribute to innovative approaches on mobility issues and border management in Ghana.

In collaboration with the Strengthening Border Security in Ghana (SBS Ghana) project, the Management of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) organised a series of Gender Sensitisation Workshops to champion gender parity within the Service. The European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) funded SBS Ghana Project organised the first workshop in Accra for Management members in June while the second workshop was held in Aburi on August 23-24 for all eighteen (18) regional commanders of the Service.

The SBS Ghana project in collaboration with Alliance Francaise d ’Accra organised a two-week tailor made Functional French language course from November 29 – December 10 in Accra, for twelve (12) selected officers from the Ghana Immigration Service. The selected officers were from the International Relations desk at the GIS headquarters and from all the main border posts across Ghana.

On 26 January 2022, ICMPD held an online briefing for its Member States on the role of information (technology) in the context of irregular migration. The aim of this virtual exchange was to shed light on the growing importance of ICT as well as various technological solutions developed in cooperation with the private sector to support government efforts in the area of migration management.

Following the appointment of the new Libyan Focal Points for the Rabat and the Khartoum Processes, ICMPD organised a workshop in Tripoli, Libya to give the new Focal Points an introduction to the general functioning of the two migration dialogues. The workshop took place within the framework of the LIBMITAF project, co-funded by the EU and the Swiss Confederation.

On 14-16 and 16-18 February, the NAVRR Pillar 1 project held two trainings on effective pre-departure and post-arrival assistance delivery, aiming to strengthen Türkiye's National Assisted Voluntary Return & Reintegration (NAVRR) programme. The trainings were organised for the participants from the Presidency of Migration Management (PMM), its provincial departments and the Turkish Red Crescent.

17 February 2022, The Anti-Trafficking Programme of ICMPD presents the Non-paper “Beyond Joint Actions: Towards integrated anti-trafficking responses of European Union Member States and Western Balkans”. The document identifies avenues of collaboration between anti-trafficking stakeholders in the Western Balkans (WB) and the European Union (EU), including its institutions and agencies as well as its Member States (MS), with a view to enhancing the quality and effectiveness of interventions to combat trafficking in human beings (THB) across Europe.

The EU is witnessing an influx of refugees from Ukraine on a far greater scale than in 2015-2016. What will be the status of the new arrivals; what can be done for non-Ukrainians trying to escape the conflict; and what does it mean for EU asylum policy in the medium term?

A new report, created in the course of European Return and Reintegration Network’s Quality monitoring framework for reintegration assistance, explores the key dimensions of reintegration after voluntary return and offers recommendations to strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This work draws on four workshops co-organised by ERRIN and MPI Europe during which representatives of EU+ Member States, the European Commission and Frontex discussed the various dimensions of reintegration assistance and how its impact can be measured.

From 20-27 January 2021, 30 representatives of Central Asian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) completed an interactive course on project management cycle. The course was organised in the framework of ​​the BOMCA 10 Programme, within the Component 4 on improvement of cross-border cooperation.