Migration has been a part of life in Mozambique throughout the country’s history. According to the World Bank (2000), by 2000 approximately 11.7 million Mozambicans had migrated since Mozambique’s independence in 1975. As a result, Mozambican professionals have taken advantage of the global mobility of labour to work in other African economies or to seek work opportunities outside the continent. In response, this project has been developed based on extensive consultations with the Government of Mozambique (GoM), as well as in response to findings of a diaspora mapping, carried out by the GoM in 2013.
The overall objective of this project is to facilitate, enable and encourage meaningful communication between the GoM and the Mozambican diaspora, with the aim of promoting diaspora engagement in Mozambique’s national development agenda. This will be achieved through two outcome areas:
1) Through building the capacity of the GoM to enhance their engagement with the diaspora by convening sensitisation seminars for Mozambican diplomats and other key stakeholders; and
2) Through the creation and consolidation of a Mozambican diaspora network, and facilitating their access to information about opportunities to engage with Mozambique.
This project is in line with the government’s national Diaspora Engagement Strategy (2014), and with Mozambique’s new Five Year Plan (2015-2019).
Building on IOM’s global efforts to promote gender equality and to ensure gender is considered and incorporated as a cross-cutting issue throughout implementation of the project, IOM will mainstream a gender perspective throughout all activities and outputs.