New Observatory on Migration in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Regions Launched in Brussels
A new institution to harness more reliable data and research on
migration in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions to feed
into migration and development policies, will be officially
launched next week in the Belgian capital, Brussels.
The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Observatory on
Migration, an initiative of the Secretariat of the 79-member ACP
Group of States, will be run by IOM and a Consortium of 15 partners
and 4 associates with nearly 8 million € funding from the
European Union and with additional financial support from
Switzerland and IOM.
Although much of the global focus on migration centres on human
mobility from the South to the North, almost half of all emigration
from developing countries is to other developing countries –
South-South migration. Yet little is known about this phenomenon
which, for example, has traditionally been used in many African
countries as a livelihood strategy. Africa is also home to the
largest numbers of internally displaced people and refugees. The
Caribbean and Pacific regions too are marked by inter-regional
migration with 10-year-old census data showing that 50 per cent of
Pacific migrants remain within the region.
The greatest challenge, however, to governments, policy makers,
the private sector and civil society working on migration issues is
the lack of reliable and comparable data. Existing statistics are
often, in addition, out-of-date.
The ACP Observatory will create research networks in each of the
six regions of the ACP group of States – i.e., West Africa,
Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, the Caribbean and the
Pacific.
Initially, programmes involving research on a range of migration
subjects such as remittances and human development, data on and
profiles of diasporas, displacement tied to environmental or
climatic change, rural-urban migration and trafficking in persons
will begin in 12 pilot countries. These are Angola, Cameroon, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria,
Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Tanzania, Timor-Leste and Trinidad and
Tobago, with activities being extended to other interested ACP
countries progressively.
"Accurate and reliable data on migration has always been a major
weakness hampering the development of sound migration policies and
efforts to reduce poverty in the developing world," says IOM
Director General William Lacy Swing, who will participate at the
launch ceremony. "IOM's support to the ACP Observatory, a
powerhouse of ideas, innovations and much-needed research on
migration flows in ACP countries, signals our continued commitment
to this issue."
The launch on 25 October will be followed by a two-day
conference aimed at highlighting concrete challenges faced by ACP
countries and regions on migration research and migration
management with a view to defining the Observatory's research
priorities for 2011.
For further information, please contact:
Pablo Escribano
ACP Observatory on Migration
Tel: +32 (0)2 894 92 30
E-mail:
"mailto:pescribanomiralles@iom.int">pescribanomiralles@iom.int
or
Jean Philippe Chauzy
IOM Geneva
Tel: +41 79 285 4366
E-mail:
"mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int