International Organizations

Remittances from migrants are a major source of financing for the economies of developing countries and of the recipient populations. They are of great benefit to large segments of the population which, without these resources, would live in conditions of abject poverty. Consequently, remittance flows tend to remain stable even when the migrants’ countries of residence are beset by economic and financial crisis. They seem to be less volatile than official development assistance and foreign direct investment.

The Department of Employment of Thailand has started to send workers from the agricultural sector to Israel under the Thailand-Israel Employment Cooperation (TIC) secured via an Agreement with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This scheme benefits the workers and reduces the cost for all Thai workers overseas.

This project seeks to support Rwanda’s outreach to its diaspora in the EU and beyond and supports short-term individual teaching placements in the health sector.

This allowed for 13 specialist doctors from the Diaspora to participated in short-term programs treating Rwandans in hospitals located in remote areas of the country. 

The Africa Migration Project was undertaken to improve our understanding of migration and remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa, including their magnitude, causes, and impacts on poverty reduction, with a view to generating informed policy recommendations. 

For pre- departure orientation, the Bangladesh government has, with an international partner, introduced destination-specific, pocket-size handbooks containing key information about the law, culture, language, emergency contacts, remittance transfer method etc. of the destination country. 

The CPMRS project, launched by UNICEF in 2006 in association with key government and university partners, was intended to develop an integrated child protection system in the six tsunami-affected provinces in southern Thailand. The project was expected to: increase public awareness of children’s rights to protection; track the magnitude of child protection issues at local, provincial and national levels in Thailand; and provide adequate response mechanisms for identifying children in need of special protection and for delivering suitable child protection services as early as possible.

This project promotes the regular migration of Colombian workers to Spain and enhances the impact of migration on development, particularly in local communities.

Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, UAE and Yemen signed an agreement to start electronic money transfers using technology that has been developed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

According to the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the agreement will now allow the eight countries to exchange money orders on a multilateral basis. This is particularly valuable in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, where more than 80% of the population are foreigners, and millions of dollars are sent to home countries through remittances. 

CAMPO started as a project in the area of migration that promoted regular mobility between Cape Verde and the European Union (EU): Strengthening the capacity of Cape Verde to manage labour and return migration within the Framework of the Mobility Partnership EU/CV. It provides free counseling services to Cape-Verdean citizens willing to migrate to the EU. It also provided reintegration information to EU retuning Cape Verdean migrants.

The Governments of India, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates launched a pilot project to test and identify best practices in managing the temporary contractual employment cycle. The lessons learned from the pilot project will form the basis for developing a comprehensive regional framework that can be carried out on a much larger scale.