Masvingo – On 24–27 October, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Home Affairs of Zimbabwe, the African Capacity Building Centre (ACBC) and the IOM Regional Office in Pretoria, organized a three-day national sensitization and pilot capacity building workshop on integrated border management (IBM) in Masvingo, Zimbabwe.

The workshop brought together government officials from various border management agencies, and provided participants with methods, tools and approaches to roll out the Integrated Border Management training package. This package was developed in 2017 by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Regional Immigration officers of Zimbabwe.

In addition to empowering the trainers to share knowledge and skills on border management in the country, the workshops also sought to achieve other objectives, including to increase the capacity of border management officers to facilitate IBM concepts in migration management and to further their knowledge of international border management and improve the understanding of immigration officers’ functions in an IBM structure.

The workshops were facilitated by Marcellino Ramkishun, Senior Migration Management Specialist at the ACBC; Elizabeth Warn, IOM Regional Thematic Specialist (IBM) in Pretoria; and Memory Mwale, IOM Zimbabwe Project Officer.

“The IBM Training Package is a culmination of processes and initiatives which included the scoping mission and border assessments which were conducted in 2016,” said Melusi Matshiya, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. “The module alone cannot bring desired IBM results, it needs a collective and integrated approach by all border management stakeholders,” added Matshiya.

“IOM focuses on various aspects of technical assistance, including capacity building in migration and border management, policy and procedural development to ensure inter-agency and cross-border harmonization of procedure, as well as facilitation of inter-agency and cross-border working groups to enhance sharing of information,” said Lily Sanya, IOM Zimbabwe Chief of Mission who confirmed IOM’s firm commitment to support government on integrated border management.

“With IBM in place, migrants should cross borders easily and quickly. There is need for collaboration among countries to monitor the movements of goods and people at the borders. Countries need to (eventually) provide a rapid joint response to the massive flow of migrants due to natural disasters or economic and political crises that lead to migration,” said Ramkishun.

The outcome of the workshop was increased overall capacity of the department of immigration and other ministries on the dynamics of modern migration management. The workshop also embedded IBM’s integrated approach within the induction training of all border agencies.

The three-day workshop is part of the Promoting Migration Governance in Zimbabwe (PMGZ) project which is funded by the European Union under the 11th European Development Fund and the IOM Development Fund.

For more information, please contact: Memory Mwale at IOM Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 704285, Email: mmwale@iom.int; Marcellino Ramkishun at the IOM African Capacity Building Centre,Tel: +255272753488, Email: mramkishun@iom.int; or Elizabeth Warn, IOM Regional Office in Pretoria, Tel: +27123422789, Email: ewarn@iom.int