IOM is organising a two-day conference in Rwanda to discuss the
role IT can play in facilitating the transfer of skills and
expertise from qualified expatriates from the Great Lakes region.

The meeting, which begins on 31 January in Butare, is part of
IOM’s MIDA Great Lakes programme, which seeks to encourage
expatriates from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and
Rwanda living in Belgium with a legal status to take a more active
role in the development of their home country.

It will bring together some 65 rectors, deans, professors and
experts from 15 public and private African universities alongside
international, regional and national organizations and institutions
such as the World Bank, UNESCO, the International Institute for
Capacity Building in Africa, the Agence universitaire de la
Francophonie and the Université Virtuelle Africaine in
Nairobi (UVA).

The meeting, which is organised with the National University of
Rwanda and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, will discuss
ways to promote virtual learning with the support of
expatriates.

The overall objective of IOM’s MIDA programme is to
strengthen the institutional capacities of beneficiary governments
to achieve their development goals through the transfer of skills,
financial and other resources from expatriates.

This one-year programme was launched on 1 February 2005 and is
fully funded by the Belgium government. To date, the programme has
allowed 46 expatriates including IT specialists, doctors,
veterinarians and architects to complete missions in the DRC,
Rwanda and Burundi. One hundred and fifteen expatriates had taken
part in a MIDA Great Lakes pilot project, which ran between 2002
and 2004.

IOM’s MIDA Great Lakes Programme is online at "paragraph-link-underlined" href="http://www.midagrandslacs.org"
target="_blank" title="">www.midagrandslacs.org

For further information, please contact:

Laurent De Boeck

Tel (+250) 08 40 94 86

Email: "mailto:Ldeboeck@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">Ldeboeck@iom.int