Dakar – From 10 to 13 April 2019, a civil society capacity-building workshop on mixed migration, international recruitment, and migrant protection was jointly organized by the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), the NGO Diaspora Développement Education Migration (DIADEM), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

This workshop was an opportunity to discuss with the Government new challenges related to migrant protection and work with civil society actors for an effective advocacy to better address migrants’ and their families’ needs.

“The civil society has an essential role to play in raising awareness not only on migrants’ vulnerabilities along the routes, but also on concrete solutions to be adopted. The workshop also provides an opportunity to work together on joint solutions at the national and regional level”, explained Mrs Agnès Bertrand, MADE West Africa Project Officer (ICMC). “Sharing experiences and best practices is essential for an effective advocacy”, she added.

For IOM, to effectively address the challenges posed by migration, innovative partnerships should be built with both West African governments and civil society organizations. “Our objective is to jointly look into the complexity of mixed migration. The migrants’ profiles become increasingly diversified, and their status often change as quickly as their needs do. Therefore, working together with civil society actors is essential to effectively identify the actions to be taken, and provide the appropriate responses for an effective protection of migrants in the host, origin and transit countries”, explains Bakary Doumbia, Chief of mission of IOM Senegal.

Mr Badara Ndiaye, DIADEM Manager, who initiated this workshop, welcomed this collaboration which enables experts and practitioners from different countries to meet and share their experiences, and above all to dissect phenomena that are still inadequately addressed, such as the feminization of migration in West Africa or the risks pertaining to the irregular recruitment of migrant workers.

Since 2015, civil society organizations from Senegal, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Guinea, Mauritania and Côte d’Ivoire have partnered within the framework of the MIGRAFRIQUE platform, which seeks to provide civil society actors working in the field of migration, development and migrants’ rights, with a high-level forum for dialogue aimed at building their institutional capacity.

This workshop was funded by the European Union and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden under the project, Capacity Building on Mixed Migration (Renforcement des Capacités sur les Migrations Mixtes) implemented by IOM Senegal.

For more information, please contact:

• Agnès Bertrand, Project Manager, Migration and Development West Africa, ICMC, Email: bertrand@icmc.net
• Badara Ndiaye, DIADEM Manager, Email: banjaye@gmail.com
• Mr Yvain Bon, OIM Project Officer, Email: ybon@iom.int