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.
As a model whereby member states, international organizations and stakeholders can come together for the shared vision for promotion of health of migrants, conditions that ensure decent work, as well as reduce vulnerabilities in migration, the Joint UN Initiative on Migration and Health in Asia (JUNIMA) ensures effective regional coordination to advocate for access to health for migrants in Asia.
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.
Since the G20 Summit of 2015, France has adopted a National Plan on Remittances which seeks to: (i) facilitate remittances by reducing their costs; (ii) maximizing the value of remittances by orientating them towards sustainable and growth-generating projects; (iii) improve its knowledge of remittances fluxes to develop a better understanding of migrants’ needs. The improvement of migrants’ access to financial products and services was already one of the axes of a law adopted in 2014.
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:
The ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) is a regional tripartite platform to discuss issues faced by women and men migrant workers from and within ASEAN.
The ILMS Database is the first of its kind in the region. It gathers together official government data from a number of statistical sources on international migrant workers’ stocks and flows within the region as well as on countries’ nationals living or working abroad. In doing so it fills an important knowledge gap, creating a powerful research tool through which policymakers and others can profile and monitor the international migrant labour force within the region.
In July 2007, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers established the ASEAN Committee to Implement the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Part of the role of this committee has been to strengthen information services to educate migrant workers about their rights, access to services and immigration requirements.