IOM and with the Ministry of Employment of Madagascar, supported this week a two and a half day capacity building workshop on the development of a blueprint for labour migration management upgrades.

During the workshop, 25 participants from the Ministry of Employment, key ministries and public institutions with sectoral responsibilities on migration, and private sector and civil society representatives involved in labour migration management in Madagascar, had the opportunity to level knowledge of key concepts and principles of labour migration management; take stock of results and recommendations from previous activities conducted under the “Strengthening Labour Migration Management in Madagascar" project, such as the National Labour Migration Assessment; and to agree on a way forward for upgrades to labour migration management in the country.

The blueprint includes targeted commitments and deliverables over the coming 30 months in the fields of research, policy reforms, institutional strengthening, capacity building and training, operational responses, and bilateral engagements on labour migration.

During his closing remarks, the Director General for Employment Promotion, Mr Rabearivelo Noelison Augustin, said that “there is now a concrete path forward for improving labour migration management and to ensure that our nationals accessing work opportunities abroad are able to do so in the best conditions”.

Today, Madagascar continues to face a difficult socio-economic situation. The United Nations estimates that nearly 336,000 jobs, or 30 % of employment in the formal sector, were lost in the last five years, primarily as the result of the political crisis that gridlocked and sidelined the country between 2009 and 2014. This led a growing number of Malagasy nationals to look for opportunities abroad, and international labour migration is increasingly recognized as an effective short and medium-term solution that can bring beneficial effects for both migrants and their communities of origin.

This workshop was part of the wider IOM Development Fund (IDF) supported project "Strengthening labour migration management in Madagascar", which aims at ensuring the implementation of labour migration policies and labour mobility programmes that incorporate the principles of protection of migrant workers; and at strengthening the capacity of Madagascar in the engagement of bilateral commitments on labour migration.

For more information, please contact Daniel Silva y Poveda, IOM Madagascar, T: +261.32 56 54 954, E: dsilva@iom.int