Nicaragua/Costa Rica - Representatives from government, the private sector and academia from Nicaragua and Costa Rica are meeting this week in Granada, Nicaragua to strengthen institutional capacities and increase cooperation between the two countries by collecting, sharing and providing accurate and up-to-date information on trends in labour migration flows and their impact on the labour market.

Costa Rican employers are in need of low skilled workers, especially in the agricultural and construction sectors, as well as to fill jobs in domestic service and private security. According to Costa Rica’s General Directorate for Migration and Foreigners, at the end of January 2011 there were 374,000 foreigners residing in the country. More than 280,000 were Nicaraguan nationals.

“IOM designed this event to bring together policy makers, employers and researchers so that we can turn around the lack of reliable statistics and objective information on the number of migrant workers.  The participants are already involved in managing labour migration flows, and in the compilation and analysis of data, so the intended outcome is increased cooperation and better managed labour migration which will benefit migrants, employers and officials,” explains Paola Zepeda, Head of the IOM Office in Nicaragua.

The 19 participants, meeting today and tomorrow, will also hear from labour migration experts from IOM, OAS, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte of Mexico, and the Institute of Social Studies and Population of the National University of Costa Rica, who will share information on strategic tools, including surveys of cross-border migration and the work of two regional migration information gathering systems: Statistical Information System on Migration in Mesoamerica (SIEMMES) and the Continuous Reporting System on International Migration in the Americas (SICREMI).

The workshop agenda has been designed to allow participants to discuss the prospects and challenges of the existing information systems relating to migration and labour market needs in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, which at present tend to be generally basic, dispersed and disconnected from each other, and are often unable to produce advanced statistics.

By bringing together relevant actors to exchange information and expertise, raise awareness and increase knowledge on the importance of having adequate labour market information systems (LMIS) for policy-making purposes, the workshop aims to foster greater bilateral dialogue and cooperation on the positive impact that migration flows may have on the economic development of both countries. 

Efforts to collect, process and share relevant data necessary for an adequate administration of migration are required both in the public and the private sector.

The workshop is part of IOM’s regional project Best Practices on Collecting and Sharing Labour Migration Data for the Improvement of Labour Market Information Systems, co-funded by the European Union.

The agenda and concept note are available online at:
http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/published_docs/Agenda-Preliminar-Taller-SIMEL-en-Nicaragua.pdf
http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/published_docs/Nota-Conceptual-Taller-SIMEL-en-Nicaragua.pdf

For more information please contact

Alexandra Bonnie
IOM Nicaragua
Tel. +505 2278 9569
Email: abonnie@iom.int  

or 

Sofía Salas
IOM Costa Rica
Tel. +506 2212-5338
Email: ssalas@iom.int