Morocco: Country Mainstreams Migration into National Development Strategies

By NewsfromAfrica

IOM and UNDP have on November 4 launched a programme in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, on mainstreaming migration into the country’s national development strategies.

Over 4.5 million Moroccans currently live abroad and the remittances that they send home represent 8 per cent of the country’s GDP. Morocco also adopted a new migration policy on 1 January 2014 to address the growing challenge of irregular migration and the regularization of irregular migrants.

The programme to integrate migration into Morocco’s development strategies aims to optimize migration’s contribution to development and to create sustainable mechanisms for consultation and coordination between relevant stakeholders, including the government, the private sector, civil society and academia.

The 4-year programme, which will run through 2018, will bring together some 20 national institutions several times a year to discuss implementation of the programme and how to move forward.

It is part of a broader joint IOM/UNDP initiative funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation implemented over the same period in eight target countries: Bangladesh, Ecuador, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Moldova, Morocco, Serbia and Tunisia.

Today’s launch will be attended by some 100 representatives of ministries, the diplomatic corps, UN agencies, civil society and academia. Speakers will include Minister for Moroccans Living Abroad and Migration Affairs Anis Birrou, Swiss Ambassador to Morocco Bertrand Louis, UNDP Resident Coordinator Bruno Pouezat, and IOM Chief of Mission Anke Strauss.