Monday 3 October 2022. ROSEAU, Dominica – On Friday 30 September 2022, 12 individuals representing government entities, migrant advocacy groups, and UN agencies completed IOM’s Essentials of Migration Management (EMM), a three-day training workshop on the foundations of managing migration. Most participants are part of a newly formed interagency committee for migration in Dominica.
The Ministry of Planning, Economic Development, Climate Resilience, Sustainable Development, and Renewable Energy supported the formation of an inter-agency committee to address migration issues, in line with its commitment to the development of whole-of-government and whole-of-society policy approaches. Government officials in attendance represented the sectors of social development planning, labour, the environment, and gender affairs.
“The idea behind this EMM was to build capacity to assist Dominica in its efforts with development planning especially as it pertains to mainstreaming migration and policy development,” EMM facilitator, Vynliz Dailey explained.
The Essentials of Migration Management (EMM) is IOM’s flagship programme on migration management which provides foundational training and online resources to government officials and all stakeholders dealing with migration. Participants explore the interaction between different thematic areas, examine relevant terminologies, and build a common understanding of migration with a whole-of-government approach. The training also leverages cooperation at national, regional, and global levels, while articulating the relevance of international frameworks, such as the 2030 Agenda and the Global Compact on Migration, on the day-to-day work of government officials and other stakeholders involved.
According to IOM facilitator Fiorella VARGAS “We are hoping to increase capacity of participants as to how to manage migration, and how they intersect – how the Ministry of Education talks to the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Environment, for instance.” One of the participants reflected on the training saying that it helped him to understand better the various reasons why people migrate and the training would help him “be more sensitive towards the migrants” in his daily work.
The EMM2.0 workshop was facilitated thanks to funding provided by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), under the Western Hemisphere Program being implemented by IOM throughout the region to promote well-managed, legal forms of migration and respect of the human rights of migrants.
Through this interactive three-day workshop, the Ministry of Planning and the IOM Dominica mission expect that the participants will have a better understanding of why it is important to manage migration, and how they can contribute, through their area of work as public officers, or members of civil society, to improving, ultimately, the positive impacts of migration on the Dominican society and economy.
