The International Migration Policy (IMP) Conference for East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes Region took place in Nairobi in May 2002. The IMP was a cooperative effort including IOM, relevant United Nations and other agencies and, for this workshop, included the involvement of the Organization for African Unity, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the European Commission and other parties. Representatives from several IOM Member States and Observer States, as well as other countries, were invited to participate in the five-day workshop.
Following the model used in the IMP Caribbean workshop in 2001, IOM conducted a one-day informal IOM/government meeting after the IMP workshop, to focus on specific programmatic planning leading from the workshop discussions. This meeting addressed the many practical areas of cooperation suggested in the discussions, and identified the focal points for follow-up on specific initiatives. The funding allowed for the additional day in Nairobi for representatives from the participating countries and their IOM counterparts, and for follow-up programming support from IOM.