Diaspora Empowerment and Engagement

Each year the UNHCR organizes, together with the Ministry Delegate for Migration Affairs of Morocco the talent show "Refugees Got Talent" to coincide with World Refugee Day (20 June) in Morocco. The talent show promotes refugee talent and aims to spread an image of refugees based on the contributions that refugees can make to host societies.

The contest, which was hosted for the first time in 2016 by the UNHCR and the Foundation Orient-Occident, is open to all refugees living in Morocco between the ages of 16 and 65 years old.

The Government of the Philippines created a communication platform BaLinkBayan for Filipino returnees, which functions as a one-stop online portal for diaspora engagement. BaLinkBayan is a means to connect Filipino individuals and communities to the Philippines through the Diaspora to Development (D2D) program of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) BaLinkBayan focuses on the five of the D2D: diaspora investment and entrepreneurship, diaspora philanthropy, brain gain program, educational exchange, and medical mission coordination. 

Madagascar has created a Directorate in charge of Diaspora within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The first initiative of this directorate was to carry out a profiling of diaspora members in France, which hosts the majority of migrants from Madagascar. The government of Madagascar also organized the first forum on Diaspora, to uncover the activities of the Malagasy diaspora, and to them in contact with civil society organization with which they can work and create synergies. 

The Somos Mexicanos ('We are Mexicans') program provides support to members of the Mexican diaspora who choose or are forced to return to Mexico. An initiative of the Mexican Ministry of the Interior beginning in 2014, the program includes support on food and health, identity, communication to families, transfer and shelter. It also seeks to maximize the productive reintegration of returnees, providing guidance on job opportunities, access to socail programs, and options to continue studies.

The Handbook for Armenians Abroad was published in 2010 by the Armenian Ministry of Diaspora with the support of the ILO-EU project 'Towards Sustainable Partnerships for the Effective Governance of Labour Migration in the Russian Federation, the Caucasus and Central Asia'.

A whole ministry  in charge of Moroccans living abroad was created in the 90's. Gradually, their policy changed from making the distinction between different types of migrants; the first and second generation. 

The Government of Lebanon holds annual conferences for diaspora focused on investment opportunities and incentives in the country.

At the same time, the government of Lebanon holds conferences abroad targeting the Lebanese diaspora on various topics, to provide and talk about investment opportunities in Lebanon. The most recent one was held in France and focused on Energy.

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 Government of Nigeria is currently focusing on creating an enabling environment for the Nigerian diaspora to contribute to national development on the understanding that the diaspora can only make meaningful contributions to national development when the favourable conditions are put in place. On 30 June 2017, Nigerian Government signed the Nigerian Citizens in Diaspora Commission Establishment Bill 2017. The Commission has the responsibility to coordinate and organise Nigerians in and from the diaspora to contribute human capital and material resources, including their expertise, for t