Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM) Project Phase II

Introduction:

Fair and effective labour migration governance can be a vehicle to respond timely and effectively to labour market needs, convey stimulating innovation and development, as well as transferring and improving skills. In order to contribute to this, the BRMM Phase II programme, a three-year prolongation of the BRMM Phase I programme funded by the UK-FCDO is focusing on strengthening the capacities of countries in East and Horn of Africa to govern labour migration by using evidence-based policies, enhancing migrant workers' qualifications and skills, and actively engaging the social partners.


Context:

Migration in the East and Horn of Africa is a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. It has always been part of its socio-economic landscape. The flow of people in, between and from countries in the region is best characterised as mixed migration flows that encompass refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrant workers. This flow has put a strain on governments in the region as they struggle to cope with the large number of migrants crossing their borders and moving through their countries. The men, women and children making up these migrant flows frequently resort to unsafe modes of transportation and smuggling networks during their journey, exposing themselves to injury, violence, detention, exploitation and abuse.
Therefore, countries in the East and Horn of Africa region have increased efforts to enhance migration governance at the national and regional levels based on continental and global initiatives and frameworks established to advance improved migration management.

To overcome some of the challenges and improve labour migration governance in the East and Horn of Africa, the ILO is implementing the “Better Regional Migration Management” (BRMM) programme at a national, regional and continental level. The programme will focus on improving labour migration statistics in the region, promoting and measuring access to social protection benefits for migrant workers, developing skills of potential and returned migrants and promoting recognition of skills and prior learning, improving MSME growth and access to finance, enhancing engagement of tripartite partners and in policy development, fostering the ratification and effective implementation of labour migration related international labour standards, advocating for fair recruitment, and assisting partners in negotiating and signing BLAs to ensure the protection of migrant workers.

These will be achieved through Capacity development through training and awareness raising; promoting social dialogue; generating knowledge through research and institutional strengthening.

Areas of Work:

The programme will implement the following three inter-related pillars of intervention:

1. Better Statistics: Labour migration policies and programmes that support fair and productive migration in East and Horn of Africa are evidence based and gender sensitive.
2. Better Skills: Labour migration governance is fair, equitable and effective recognising skills and facilitating social inclusion and decent work.
3. Strengthened Labour Migration Governance through the inclusion of social partners: Labour migration governance is strengthened through being more inclusive of social partners.


The first component will scale up and expand the work on labour migration statistics, focusing on building the capacities of National Statistical Offices to collect and disseminate Labour migration statistics, following international standards and definitions. It will also focus on selected administrative sources for labour migration data. The work under the statistics component will be done, following the ILO methodology for building Labour Market Information Systems and will incorporate labour migration components. The programme will ensure a sustainable and comprehensive strategy, resulting in reliable and up-to-date statistical data for the development and implementation of labour migration policies.

The second component will continue the work on improving employment services for the labour market integration of potential migrants and returnees. In this context, a particular attention will be devoted to developing MSMEs and social finance. This component will contribute to better skills matching and development and will also look into strengthening access to social protection benefits for migrant workers, thus delivering a holistic approach to labour migration and will further use the ILO’s Social Security Inquiry (SSI) for the collection of social protection statistics.

The third component will focus on enhancing labour migration governance, with the strong engagement of employers’ and workers’ organisations. The Programme will continue to build their capacity for the effective implementation of ILO migrant-related labour standards, recommendations and frameworks. It will further strengthen the capacities of employers’ and workers’ organisations to actively contribute to labour migration policy design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation at national, regional and continental levels. The programme will contribute toward ensuring decent work for migrant workers.