BUDAPEST PROCESS DRAFTING GROUP MEETING IN ANKARA

20-21 September, Ankara – Over thirty senior officials from representatives of the Silk Routes countries and the donor countries of the Budapest Process/Silk Routes Partnership for Migration as well as the European Commission met these days in Ankara, upon the invitation of Turkey as a Chair of the Budapest Process.

Following the Consultation Meeting held on 2 March in Istanbul, Turkey proposed to hold the 6th Budapest Process Ministerial Conference in October 2018 and to work towards a Call for Action on large movements of migrants and refugees under the Silk Routes Partnership for Migration.

Migration has crystallised as one of the most important issues humanity has to deal with. It is clear that it can only be dealt with in partnership and cooperation between countries. Following the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants the international community is joining forces to develop the Global Compacts - one for refugees and one for safe, orderly and regular migration with the hope that these documents will provide necessary guidelines to the international community.

Now also the Budapest Process region - the Silk Routes Region - stands ready to take onthe challenge and work towards an even more functional Silk Routes Partnership for Migration – with a view to improve the management of and cooperation on migration and both contribute to and take inspiration from the international discussions.

The drafting meeting was used to discuss and identify priorities in order to firstly, increase the capacity to deal with large flows and secondly, to narrow down priorities for the future.

The meeting was convened back-to-back with the Launching Conference of the project “Improving Migration Management in the Silk Routes Countries” – 21-22 September 2017 – that brought together over fifty representatives from over twenty countries. The project was officially launched on 1 August and will be running over four years. It aims at maximising the development potential of migration and mobility within the Silk Routes region and towards major labour receiving countries. It also aims to establish comprehensive regional responses to migration and mobility with full respect of human rights and protection of migrants.

ICMPD supports officials from Afghanistan to advance their knowledge on migration

16 May, Istanbul, Turkey – Fifteen employees, including three women, from different departments of the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan successfully completed a ten day Training of Trainers (ToT) course on migration in the framework of the Silk Routes Partnership project.

The course envisaged several specifically developed training modules on legal migration, trafficking in human beings, irregular migration, migrant smuggling, border management, forced migration and the international and European framework on international protection. The intense training programme on 6-16 May delivered by experts from Argentina, Austria, Germany, Ireland and the UK also aimed at equipping the selected trainers with teaching and communication techniques for adult training. Distributed training manuals on each migration module included facilitating material that can be used by future trainers to conduct their own trainings within the respective ministries.

Ms. Sedef Dearing, Regional Coordinator – Silk Routes of ICMPD, stated that “Obtained knowledge and training skills on migration will support the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations to develop its own training programmes for its staff”.  She added that in the future ICMPD would continue to provide assistance to Afghanistan in the area of migration, in particular as regards policy development and capacity building.

The project aims at contributing to the concrete implementation of the Silk Routes Partnership for Migration under the Budapest Process by strengthening the migration management capacities of the Silk Routes countries Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.