Enhancing Labour Mobility Governance in the Pacific

  • Start Date
    2023
  • End Date
    2024
  • Project Status
    Active
  • Project Type
    Labour Migration
  • Budget Amount (USD)
    400000.00
  • Coverage
    Regional
  • Year
    2022
  • IDF Region
    Asia and Oceania
  • Prima ID
    FJ10P0527
  • Projects ID
    LM.0485
  • Benefiting Member States
    Fiji Tuvalu Vanuatu
Over the past decade, labour mobility opportunities have gained momentum in the Pacific and are now playing a critical role in providing employment, income, and skill acquisition opportunities for Pacific Islanders. On one hand, a large and growing number of labour migrants from Pacific Island Countries (PICs) participate annually in temporary labour mobility schemes, particularly to New Zealand and Australia. On the other hand, intra-regional mobility in the Pacific is substantial, with the largest numbers of foreign workers from the PICs employed in Papua New Guinea and Fiji themselves. Vis-à-vis this dynamic and mobile labour environment, Forum Island Countries (FICs) and Smaller Island State (SIS) Members are increasingly recognising the importance of labour mobility in achieving economic development and nation building aspirations of people in the Pacific; this awareness is accompanied by the appreciation that a structured, functioning, and sustainable management of regional labour mobility is vital for the future of the region at large. PICs conducted a Comprehensive Assessment of the Pacific Labour Mobility Arrangements (2021), and have now requested IOM to further assist in implementing the recommendations, with a view to strengthen the regional labour mobility environment. The objective of this project responds precisely to this request, and particularly aims at strengthening labour mobility governance in the Pacific by: Outcome 1) developing an evidence-based, gender sensitive and age-sensitive Regional Labour Mobility Strategy to better govern labour mobility in the region; Outcome 2) improving women’ labour integration and capacity to make informed labour migration choices, piloting ad-hoc programmes in Vanuatu so to test the ground for replicability of similar initiatives across the region; Outcome 3) supporting effective coordination and mobilization of resources to implement Tuvalu’s Labour Migrants Reintegration Strategy, so as to provide a blueprint for developing reintegration strategies in other PICs as well.