The COVID-19 pandemic represented a major public health challenge and had serious economic and social impacts on origin, transit and destination countries, as well as on migrant workers and their families and on businesses and their operations. This informative note presents policy options in order to ensure comprehensive social protection for migrant workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
This policy brief provides information and identifies a number of key recommendations to assist governments and other stakeholders in designing COVID-19 policy responses that can help to ensure the protection of migrant workers, as well as to inform responses for the protection of refugees and those displaced working in countries other than their own, differentiated by gender as appropriate and based upon relevant international labour standards, and ILO guidance and good practices.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) designed a set of prevention practices including:
In February 2021, the Colombian government launched the Temporary Protection Status (Estatuto Temporal de Protección para Migrantes Venezolanos, or ETPV), a legal mechanism which facilitates the transition of migrants from an emergency migratory regime to a regularization status, granting access to formal employment, education, healthcare, and financial services for almost two million Venezuelan migrants and refugees.
Zimbabwe is destination, transit and largely sending country for labour migrants to countries in Southern Africa and further afield. Labour migration in Zimbabwe has been characterized by many challenges, including brain drain, irregular migration, lack of a mechanism for social protection of migrant workers and lack of up-to-date statistics on labour migration.
The Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, launched in September 2021 by the UN Secretary-General, signals the UN system’s collective response for addressing the multiple challenges that threaten to erase development progress.
The goal is to accelerate the global actions needed to promote a job-rich recovery and a just ecological, technological and social transition to more sustainable and inclusive economies.
The project PEM N'Zassa, which is deeply rooted in the two countries in which it is being implemented, Côte d'Ivoire and Belgium, aims to support the entrepreneurial ecosystems in each country. The project proposes a circular mobility model for 120 Ivorian entrepreneurs and SME employees who have developed an innovative entrepreneurial project, and for whom mobility to Belgium represents an opportunity to create value.
This circular mobility scheme makes knowledge and practical exchange possible between Belgian and Senegalese companies. With a view to building the capacities of Senegalese entrepreneurs and connecting them to their Belgian peers, the project aims to offer short-term migration opportunities for business purposes while contributing to the construction of a sustainable economic partnership between the two countries.
Migrants and diaspora communities play a vital role in agri-food systems. Diaspora organizations support food security and rural development in their countries of origin, through investments, transfer of knowledge and skills, and contribution to employment generation in rural areas.
The Diaspora Agro Business Award by the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), thus serves to recognize diaspora ”agripreneurs” contributing to agrifood employment opportunities in countries of origin.
This project intended to experiment and test the Global Skills Partnership (GSP) model between Morocco and Belgium, and thereby facilitate the cooperation between the two countries in the management of regular migration.