The eight benefiting countries all expressed interest in developing or enhancing their strategies for better managing return and reintegration of their nationals. While some of the noted countries do have systems in place, others do not, and all would have benefited from exposure to operating models and cross-fertilisation of their ideas.
To meet this need this project enabled two officials from each of the selected countries to participate in the course “Migration and Integration for Development – From Policy to Practice” at the JDC-Aharon Ofri International Training Center (Jerusalem, 12 March-1 April 2003) where, sharing Israel’s models of integration of new immigrants and returning nationals, models of integration were developed to apply to their countries of origin.
The course enabled the participants to share the best practices and key issues from their own countries' experiences in this area, and to better shape forward planning. An IOM official participated as well, to promote follow-up project planning.