Accra, Ghana – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) joined stakeholders in Ghana to advance the agenda of the implementation of the Labour Migration Policy and the establishment of the Ghana National Commission on Migration (GNCM).

Organized jointly by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MELR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MINTER) of Ghana, in partnership with IOM and GIZ, the four-day workshop (in Ada, Ghana, 16-19 March 2021) allowed to review and validate the annual institutional workplan to implement the National Labour Migration Policy (2020-2024). The priority areas include the promotion of good labour migration governance, strengthening systems for the protection and empowerment of labour migrants and their families, and enhancing mechanisms for maximizing the developmental impacts of labour migration as well as improving labour market and migration information systems.  

Since 2017, IOM has prioritized support to the MELR to draft Ghana’s first Labour Migration Policy which was validated in 2018. IOM Ghana Chief of Mission, Abibatou Wane-Fall, commended the Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME) Directorate for its leadership in the validation of the 2021 institutional workplan.

“This is a key step to ensure that the policy moves from paper to practice, allowing Ghana to harness the benefits of migration for development,” said Mrs Wane-Fall.

The workshop has also discussed and validated – subject to agreed revision – the report to establish the GNCM. Once established, the Commission will be the institutional body mandated to coordinate all migration-related interventions in the country, promoting policy coherence at national and local level, humane and orderly migration, and creating the right conditions for migrants to contribute to development.

The GNCM role will essentially be to provide a platform for the coordination of the implementation of all migration-related actions in Ghana. Since 2019, IOM has been supporting the Migration Unit of the MINTER to spearhead the establishment of GNCM. 

Dominic Afriyie Agyemang, Head of the Migration Unit at the Ministry of the Interior, stated that going forward, “the Inter Agency Technical Working Group (IATWG) will finalise a justification paper to inform the drafting of a cabinet memo and a bill for the creation of the GNCM.” He said, a series of stakeholder engagements on the drafting process would be organised to ensure buy-in and ownership by all parties involved in migration governance.

Previously, at the beginning of 2020, the interagency working group tasked to support the establishment of the GNCM met to discuss the model for such a Commission, as well as the way forward towards its establishment. Learnings from two study visits to Nigeria and Kenya in 2019 and 2020, where successful models are already in place, have informed the discussion on the developments of a similar body in Ghana.

Naomi Shiferaw, IOM Regional Thematic Specialist for Labour Mobility and Human Development, based at the IOM Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal, highlighted that a national migration governance platform would ensure policy coherence; facilitate timely response in case of unexpected migration challenges; provide a platform to engage all sectoral ministries in the national migration discourse; and, serve as a vehicle for the implementation of global, continental and regional migration commitments.

Over 30 stakeholders from relevant ministries, academia, civil society and development partners attended the hybrid workshop, ensuring a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach in discussing migration governance in Ghana.

The event was made possible with funding from the European Union and ECOWAS through the “Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa” (FMM project), implemented by the IOM and other partners, and support from the GIZ through the Migration for Development (PMD) programme.

For further information, please contact Eric Akomanyi, IOM Labour Mobility and Human Development Project Assistant, at eakomanyi@iom.int, +233 30 274 2930.