SKOPJE, Macedonia – The MARRI Regional Centre, under Montenegrin Presidency of the Initiative and thanks to kind financial support from the Czech Government, organised a Workshop “Management of Labour Migration in MARRI Member States” in Skopje on 16 October 2009.
The opening speech was delivered by Mr. Marjanco Todorovski, State Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Republic of Macedonia.
One of the top priorities of Migration, Asylum, Refugees, Regional Initiative is to enhance capacities of its Member States to channel illegal movements of people in the region to legal ones. Recognised tool for achieving this goal is improving management of labour migration. In this respect, the main objective of the Workshop was to present current state of affairs in management of labour migration within and between countries of the region, discuss identified obstacles and propose sustainable solutions. The focus was on developed national policies, bilateral and multilateral legal instruments for regulation of labour movements as well as improvement in their implementation. The objective was also to strengthen the communication between relevant stakeholders in the region (governmental institutions regulating labour movements) improve methods and quality of exchanged information and thus, create basis for developing sound policies and timely and effective measures.
In order to accomplish the objectives form the Workshop, two high level government officials per national delegation were invited from Ministries of Labour and Social Welfare, Agencies for Employment, and other governmental agencies involved in management of labour migration from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The expert from Italy, Mr. Ugo Melchionda, Labour Migration Expert, IOM Rome, presented an overview regarding the international instruments and best practices in the area of managing the labour migration. Representatives from international organisations, namely IOM Skopje (Ms. Sonja Bozinovska, Labour Migration Expert), World Bank (Mr. Phillip Martin, Professor at UC Davis, USA), ICMPD and OSCE, also provided their valuable input, experience in implementing projects and recommendations for the enhancement of national capacities for labour migration management in MARRI Member States.
The main output of the Workshop is a set of recommendations, i.e. Conclusions for resolution of most pressing identified gaps in management of labour migration in the MARRI region, which participants can take back to their institutions and consider development of effective instruments for implementation of those recommendations.