Nicaragua - IOM and the European Union (EU) this week delivered computers, scanners, cameras and other IT equipment to Nicaragua’s General Directorate for Migration (DGME) to strengthen its capacity to collect and analyze data on cross-border labor migration flows.

 

The equipment, to be installed at Peñas Blancas and San Carlos, the two major border crossing points for labor migrants, will allow authorities to collect, classify and process information on the movement of labor migrants to Costa Rica. 

 

The pilot project will focus on generating information on migrants traveling to Costa Rica under the Bilateral Agreement signed between the countries, which allows for orderly migration with a contract, mainly to work in agriculture, agro-industry and construction.

 

“This equipment will allow the authorities to obtain information, generate reports and to share this among relevant government entities for the development and monitoring of migration and labor policies,” said Paola Zepeda, Officer in Charge for IOM in Nicaragua.

 

As part of this initiative, IOM provided technical assistance, also with funding from the EU, for the design of an intranet portal labor migration information system, where the information will be uploaded and shared with the Ministry of External Relations (Directorate of Consular Affairs, and consulates in Costa Rica) and the Ministry of Labor. 

 

“For the EU it is very important to support capacity building measures to help governments to better manage migration flows with reliable, timely and comparable data.  This leads to the exchange of best practices and the design of clear migration policies,” said Ivo Gombala, Deputy Head of the EU Delegation for Central America and Panama.

 

A recent IOM report on labor migration flows confirmed that Costa Rica is the main country of destination for labor migration from the region, especially from Nicaragua and Panama.  Some 374,000 migrants account for 8.2 per cent of the country’s population. Roughly 75 per cent of them come from Nicaragua.  Since 2006, more than 15,000 Nicaraguans have migrated for temporary work in Costa Rica, through the Bilateral Agreement.

 

The initiative is part of an IOM project: Best Practices on Collecting and Sharing Labor Migration Data for the Improvement of the Labor Market Information Systems (LMIS) funded by the EU and carried out in six countries in Latin America, West Africa and the Maghreb. 

 

For more information about the project please visit: http://www.lmis-project.eu. 

 

For more information, please contact 

 

Alexandra Bonnie 

IOM Nicaragua

Tel: + 505.22.78.95.69

Email: abonnie@iom.int