A four-day training workshop on developing labour migration policies in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Libya has opened on Monday in Sogakofe to enable the four countries to facilitate a coherent migration management approach by promoting legal and irregular migration.
The training workshop, organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), formed part of the AENEAS labour-migration programme sponsored by the European Commission and co-funded by the Italian Government.
Aeneas project is a new programme dedicated to migration and asylum with the aim to assist third world countries to improve the management of their migratory flows.
Mr. Ken-Wuud Nuworsu, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Manpower Youth and Employment (MMYE), said the absence of comprehensive and coherent national regulation and coordinated operations of state institutions in the management
of migration and foreign employment of migrant labour, had resulted in the meting-out of inhuman treatment and exploitation of other citizen from the sub-region in foreign countries.
He said, the MMYE was currently working to legally export skilled, semi-skilled and un-skilled labour to some needy countries such as South Korea, Libya, Spain and Italy with a view to creating employment for unemployed youth in the country.
He said labour migration required public-private partnership, inter governmental agency cooperation, bilateral and multilateral arrangements to
make migration beneficial to both sending and receiving nations.
He asked that, the workshop focused on the root causes, policy framework
for effective management of migration and migrants, alternatives to illegal migration, the gains and losses, the roles of third parties in migration and
the adoption of common strategies to mainstream migration into the economic development and growth of various countries.
According to him, the Ministry was also in collaboration with the Foreign Ministry and Ghana National Service Scheme to establish Ghana overseas Agency at the ministry.
Mr. Davide Terzi, (ed. Correct) Chief of Mission, IOM, in Ghana speaking at the opening of the workshop said the main objective of the AENEAS project was to facilitate national labour migration management, matching supply and demand and addressing irregular migration flows through information dissemination.
He said IOM's approach to international labour migration was to foster the synergies between labour migration and development and promote legal avenues for labour migrants as an alternative to the ongoing, widespread irregular migration.
He explained that the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between it and IOM in May this year, to assist Ghana manage its labour migration.
"This four-day training workshop is designed to take this mechanism a step further by providing participants from Ghanaian ministries, departments and agencies working on issues related to labour migration with the requirements for the development of Ghana's own labour migration policies", he said.
Mr. Jo Rispoli, Programme Manager, IOM, in a presentation said the objectives of the workshop was to develop knowledge and skills on labour migration, acquire knowledge on international legal framework on labour migration, learn about good practices in the management of labour migration, and to foster understanding on the generic principles of labour migration towards the development of a policy.
He said eleven modules on several issues related to labour migration management would be taught by resource persons followed by group work sessions and discussions.
"It is expected that at the end of the training workshop participants would have understood what issues should inform the development of labour migration policies as well as to be able to develop a labour migration policy for Ghana", he added.
He said the labour migration management project would be implemented through three complimentary components which included; building capacities in sending countries to manage labour migration and to combat irregular migration in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, developing the capacity of Libya as a receiving country to develop labour migration management, and sharing experiences across Africa.
Mr. Rispoli said governments needed to realize that labour migration policies should be directed towards the overall objectives of protection, development, and international cooperation and capacity-building.
He said policy options, such as promoting foreign employment must be explored to optimize the benefits of organized labour migration, adding that labour migration policies should be gender-sensitive, consistent with the national development plan.