United Arab Emirates

Rise links services including migrant remittances, bank account, investment, insurance and shopping. Rise is Re-imagining banking for migrants, bringing essential financial services from their home and host country on one platform.

Now Money offers digital payroll, account and remittance service for low-income workers, migrants and the unbanked.

Migrant workers make up 88% of the population of the UAE, yet many don’t meet the minimum salary requirements for a traditional bank account. Without access to banking services, workers are put at a distinct disadvantage as much more time, effort, cost and risk is involved in managing their money. Now Money is UAE’s first digital payroll and banking service for migrant workers – with no minimum salary requirement.

The UAE and India have developed the UAE-India Harmonized Framework for Skills Recognition and Certification designed to address the mismatch between workers’ skills and requirements of employers aims to improve skills mix in the UAE labour market and enhance the rate of mobility for certified workers, improving job security and reducing vulnerabilities. Employers in the UAE are incentivized to participate in the programme through reduced work permit fees.

The overall objective of the project is to promote the extension of social protection for migrants in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in accordance with international social security standards, by promoting research, informing social dialogue and supporting reform efforts.

The project operates along three main axes:

The FAIRWAY programme addresses underlying causes of decent work deficits at their source through national-level interventions in selected countries of origin in East, West and North Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Morocco). In the Arab States, the programme provides continuity to interventions in countries of destination across the region by building on the work of the Fairway Middle East project (2016-2019), which target low-skilled migrant workers from all regions.

The Migration Youth Forum is MYCP's flagship initiative and an official youth preparatory space to the GFMD Summits, implemented since 2018. This has been 2-3 days long virtual or in-person event, which have been very successful in:

– building the capacity of young people to advocate on issues of migration;

– giving youth a space to consult, help them consolidate their priorities, and amplify their voices;

– creating strong networks and collaborations across youth peers as well as relevant institutions from governments to UN and civil society;

This programme aims to understand the impact of enhanced skills recognition on migrant productivity, wage gains, and job satisfaction, with a view to eventually introducing a harmonised skills ecosystem in the GCC – Asia labour migration corridors.

This programme between the governments of India and the United Arab Emirates links the electronic emigration and immigration systems of the two respective governments, with the objective of reducing contract substitution and improving government oversight over recruitment practices. The process for implementation has been made available to other ADD Member States for replication, as well as to the wider GFMD community through the Platform for Partnerships.

The Comprehensive Information and Orientation Programme (CIOP) implemented currently in the context of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) helps operationalize a coordinated management system for the provision of tailored pre-employment, pre-departure and postarrival orientation (PEO, PDO and PAO) services for temporary contractual workers (TCWs) in the GCC states. With technical support from IOM, the governments work towards developing a CIOP regional guide and a corresponding management system, which will then be tailored to operations in the specific country contexts of ADD Member States.

The Government of the UAE has recently instituted a public-private partnership programme to scale up and standardise post-arrival orientation programmes to migrants and their employers.