The Republic of Djibouti lies at a strategic crossroad between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically, Djibouti has been part of the migratory route linking Africa to Eurasia; however the scale of such migration has increased markedly since 2009. Djibouti is now a major transit country for thousands of irregular migrants, asylum seekers, and trafficked and smuggled migrants attempting to make their way to the Arabian Peninsula. In the context of the Khartoum Process, the commitment of the Republic of Djibouti is to take concrete actions to improve the management of legal migration, to control interregional mobility and to fight irregular migration as well as reduce all forms of risks associated with unregulated migration. One of the main challenge encountered by the Government of Djibouti however is the lack of data management in the field of migration. Various entities are involved in the data collection and analysis and an Interministerial Committee on Migration has been set up. However, a process is required in order to collect and analyse data stock and flows in the country. Data on irregular migration dates back from the 2009 Census.
This project is fully in line with the recommendations made by the Government of Djibouti during the fifth meeting of the Regional Committee on Mixed Migration which was held in Djibouti (15-17 September 2015) and will also make it possible to implement the recommendations of the 6th meeting of the Regional Consultative Process on Migration of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). It is part of the IOM’s efforts to build national authorities’ and migration stakeholders’ capacities in decision-making on migration management in particular to (i) better collect, analyze and consolidate data on migration flows and stock for all categories of migrants through a comprehensive data assessment; and (ii) build the capacity of the Djiboutian border police and other national institutions collecting and analyzing data on migration. Such actions will support the regular publication of statistics on migration and the development of a migration profile in Phase 2.