Afghanistan

The Afghanistan Resilience Trust Fund (ARTF) is a multi-donor trust fund that coordinates international aid to improve the lives of Afghans. It’s administered by the World Bank and currently supported by 32 donor partners.

Established in 2002, the ARTF was the largest source of on-budget financing for Afghanistan's development until the political event in Afghanistan in August 2021. Until then, it funded Afghanistan’s national priority projects, including in health, education, agriculture, rural development, infrastructure, and public financial management.

The Project is conceived in response to various facets of labour migration, fair and ethical recruitment and sustainable reintegration, gaps and challenges relating to safe, orderly and regular labour migration and improved skills recognition, in the corridors between South and South-East Asia and the Middle East. The project is designed on the first phase of the SDC supported regional project, ìStrengthening Labour Migration Governance through Regional Cooperation in Colombo Process Countriesî.

Programmes promoting effective management of health workers' migration, health system capacity building, and skill/knowledge transfer from the diaspora are underway in Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Ghana. 

In Somalia, IOM’s "Migration for Development in Africa" (MIDA) is an ongoing capacity-building programme, which helps to mobilize competencies acquired by African nationals abroad for the benefit of Africa's development. 

Afghanistan is second only to Syria in the number of refugees originating from within its borders in recent years. Officially, about 2.5 million refugees have left Afghanistan in the almost four decades of this country being marked by hostilities and terror. The unofficial figure for the number of people who have fled exceeds six million. The majority of them are currently in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran as well as in Turkey. It is in this context that the first information centre for potential migrants was opened in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The Almaty Process aims to address the multiple challenges resulting from complex migration dynamics and mixed migratory movements in Central Asia and the wider region, in a cooperative and coordinated manner.

The Almaty Process promotes sustained dialogue and exchange of information on migration issues and on refugee protection challenges such as, but not limited to:

• Irregular migration
• Human Trafficking
• Migrant Vulnerabilities
• Migrant Integration
• Human Mobility
• Human Rights of Migrants.

The first Migration Profile for Afghanistan is a tool for enhancing policy coherence, evidence-based policymaking and the mainstreaming of migration into development planning. Due to security challenges and limited institutional capacities in data collection, a lack of reliable migration data poses challenges to policymakers in Afghanistan to develop appropriate migration policies and relevant migration programmes.

It provides detailed information on the migration patterns in Afghanistan with a focus on circular migration and remittances.  

There is little support for students and entrepreneurs in regions affected by conflict, the climate crisis or displacement. Even when education is available, it is hard, if not impossible, for motivated, talented young people to access the labour market. Spark has 25 years of experience in develops higher education and entrepreneurship for young people in conflict and post-conflict zones, allowing them to develop a cross-sector approach that opens up pathways to employment for potential entrepreneurs.

The Temporary Return of Qualified Nationals (TRQN) programme enables the Diaspora of the targeted countries to contribute to the reconstruction and development of countries of origin. The objective of the programme is to contribute to the reduction of poverty and to stimulate economic development by strengthening the institutional capacities of both public and private organisations.

The Colombo Process is a Regional Consultative Process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia. According to best estimates, over 2.5 million Asian workers leave their countries every year under contract to work abroad. A large proportion of workers from South and Southeast Asia head for the Gulf States to perform various types of service, trade and construction jobs, while others move to North America, Europe and Asian countries.