Regional Consultative Processes and International Regional Fora

This project is funded under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Stability addressing the root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa.

REFRAME will contribute to taking forward the ILO’s Fair Recruitment Initiative, which was launched in 2014 and is a global multi-stakeholder’s Fair Recruitment Initiative to prevent human trafficking and forced labour; protect the rights of workers, including migrant workers, from abusive and fraudulent recruitment and placement processes; and to reduce the cost of labour migration and enhance development outcomes for migrant workers and their families, as well as for countries of origin and destination.

In the Horn of Africa, the IGAD Secretariat, with support from Switzerland and the Platform on Disaster Displacement, has embarked on a multi-year project (2018-2021) on Improved Migration Governance for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.



It includes activities to:

1. Strengthen national and regional migration governance capacities;
2. Enhance cooperation on South-to-South mobility; and
3. Increase preparedness in preventing and responding to disaster and climate related displacement.  

The West Africa Network for the protection of children focuses on ensuring a continuum of services are delivered across the region within and eight-step procedure, ranging from the identification of a vulnerable child and provision of emergency care to their successful social re-integreation.

In May 2010, a joint ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand task force developed ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) as the mechanism to benchmark national qualifications frameworks into mutually comparable regional standards.

The Rabat Process is a migration dialogue that was founded in July 2006 in Rabat to bring together African and European countries to discuss and develop pragmatic and balanced approaches to dealing with migration and development issues. 

The concept of continental free movement is central for the African Union (AU). The preamble of the 1991 Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (Abuja Treaty) recognizes migrants regardless of their place of residence as an integral part of the national human resources.  

The promotion of employment, improvement of labour market and mobility of skills in ECOWAS region fall within the framework of the implementation of the Protocol on Free Movement of Persons in its three stages - entry, residence, and establishment - the details of which are set out in four additional protocols.

On 29 November 2017, COMMIT (an inter-governmental body of the Governments of Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with UNDP’s UN-ACT project serving as Secretariat), at the 12th COMMIT Senior Officials Meeting, finalized a preamble to support ILO’s General Principles and Operational Guidelines on Fair Recruitment.

The main function of the Employment and Labour Sector (ELS) within the SADC (Southern African Development Community) Secretariat  is to facilitate and coordinate the development, harmonisation, and monitoring of the implementation of policies and programmes on employment and labour matters within the context of the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan.

The specific Objectives of the Employment and Labour Sector Programme are to: