Migration and Health

Over the past few years, Thailand has regularized over two millions undocumented migrant workers, enabling them to get the same legal protection as Thai nationals and gain access to basic social services such as healthcare and education.

In access to Education, on 19 January 2018, the Ministry of Education issued a directive instructing all public schools to accept for enrolment all children including those that do not have Thai nationality or legal documents.

The joint cooperation between Egypt and Jordan in the field of labor management aims at creating a safe, fair and stable work environment for Egyptian workers in Jordan and their employers. The Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Immigration and the Jordanian Ministry of Labour are the main stakeholders. They are jointly responsible for the implementation of the 2007 Memorandum of Understating (MoU) and the 2016 Labor Agreement and managing the jointly-established channels of communication, as well as consultation mechanism. 

Main aim:

Camp Konik was the largest refugee settlement in Montenegro with a total of 228 displaced/internally displaced famility (some 950 persons). The camp was constructed in 1999 to host refugees that fled from Kosovo.

The EU Integration Action Plan of Third-Country Nationals provides a comprehensive framework to support Member States' efforts in developing and strengthening their migrant integration policies, and describes the concrete policy, operational and financial measures the Commission will implement.

This is an international cooperation agreement between Tunisia's and Italy's local authorities and their sectoral branches. The main objective of this agreement is to provide better access and information to maternal health to migrant women at the local level.

Indonesia has entered into bilateral agreement with several countries to improve the competences of Indonesian human resources through training programs, the development of competence standard and sharing of information related to labor market. More specifically, it has established cooperation with the Government of Japan on the placement of Indonesian health workers in Japan

Sri Lanka adopted the Inter-Ministerial and Inter-Agency Coordination Framework for development and support of the National Migration Health Policy, which coordinates many sectors involved in promoting the health of migrants and families left-behind.

Through its policy of “Healthy Migrants in Healthy Communities,” Thailand has provided access to health services and health insurance for both documented and undocumented migrants including their dependents.

Under the Compulsory Migration Health Insurance (CMHI) scheme, the yearly premium for an adult is an affordable 1,600 THB or 44 USD per year, while the premium for a child is only 365 THB or 11 USD per year.

Migration is one of the defining features of the 21st century and significantly contributes to economic and social development everywhere. As such, migration will be key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This case study forms part of a series of case studies on good practices, lessons learnt and recommendations extracted from the projects supported by the Joint Migration and Development Initiative (JMDI) to enhance migration management for local development. The experience of the JMDI shows that the most effective initiatives are anchored with local or regional authorities and carried out in a multi-stakeholder and participatory approach, including migrants and migrants’ associations or diaspora.