Supporting the Development and Implementation of a New National Strategy on Migration and Action Plan in Albania

  • Start Date
    2022
  • End Date
    2024
  • Project Status
    Active
  • Project Type
    Migration Policy Activities
  • Budget Amount (USD)
    300000.00
  • Coverage
    National
  • Year
    2022
  • IDF Region
    Europe
  • Prima ID
    AL10P0520
  • Projects ID
    PO.0195
  • Benefiting Member States
    Albania
Albania remains predominantly a country of emigration, driven primarily by economic reasons, with one third of the country’s population living outside of its territory. Albanian citizens abroad include also persons whose asylum claims were rejected or who otherwise reside irregularly in EU countries, with Germany and France having the highest number of requests. However, Albania is also increasingly becoming a country of destination for foreigners (including migrants in search of employment, students, asylum seekers and refugees), which comprise 1.7 % of the total population. The main priorities on migration governance for the Government of Albania (GoA) are stated in its National Strategy on Migration (NSM) (2019-2022) and the corresponding Action Plan (AP), which was developed with IOM support through the IOM Development Fund in 2018 and approved in June 2019 by the Government of Albania. As the current Strategy enters in the last year of implementation, the work will start for the development of the new NSM and AP, in order to avoid policy gap as experienced in the past. In pursuit of this objective, IOM will initiate two parallel processes. Through the first process the project will support the Inter-Institutional Working Group (IIWG) for the development of the NSM and AP, in line with the international frameworks. This process will also engage other stakeholders such as diaspora, migrants, local communities, development partners, civil society, private sector and academia in a series of consultations for the new strategy. Alignment with the GCM will be ensured both through undertaking the Migration Governance Indicators (MGI) assessment and GCM prioritization. The capacities of the officials engaged in the development of the NSM and AP will be increased through a two-day training on the GCM and interlinkages with other global frameworks. The training will also include a briefing and exchange of ideas with other stakeholders, local governance, CSOs, private businesses, academia, migrants and diaspora, etc. The second process will support the functioning of the coordination and monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the NSM and AP, along the lines of the support being provided for the current strategy and further expanding. This will include the deployment of expertise in support of the Technical Secretariat for Migration in the Ministry of Interior (MoI), as well as in other institutions that hold a significant share of the implementation of the NSM and AP. Ultimately, the proposed project aims to support the implementation of the GCM in the country, as well as will contribute to the advancement of the Agenda 2030.