The 9th Meeting of the Working Group has been held in Belgrade (Serbia) on 18th-19th October 2016. It was chaired by Turkey and co-chaired by Hungary and Afghanistan and hosted by Serbian Ministry of Interiors, while ICMPD has taken key organizational role.
The meeting has been dedicated to Integration as 2nd priority area of Istanbul Ministerial Declaration on Silk Routes Partnership for Integration. It has also considered re-integration, the topic covered by 3rd and 4th priority areas of the same document (migration & development and irregular migration).
The focus has been put on population that migrated for labor purposes, family reunification and similar causes, as well as on refugees. The discussion was also a follow up of the previous meeting in Tehran, that commenced dialogue on long term integration, voluntary return and resettlement in the framework of Budapest Process participating countries. The objective of the meeting was to outline the state of play in BP and to identify priorities for dialogue and cooperation in the context of SR Partnership. The work has been divided into 3 panels.
MARRI Regional Center Director, Ambassador Tamara Mugosa has been invited to take part at the 1st Panel: Supporting integration of migrants and refugees.
In an interactive discussion Mugosa informed on MARRI mission and achievements related to the topic, stressing the need of upgraded cooperation of national, regional and international players. She has also been focused on the need for comprehensive political and activities approach to social, cultural, political and economic aspects of integration and re-integration, in order to preserve stability, security and sustainable development of our societies in management of large scale migrations.
One of the hardest tasks to be completed, she stated “is to understand integration as absorption of persons as equals into our societies, where our policies and media should play an important role. Moreover, education and training of civil servants, education of our children in and outside the schools on history and culture of the countries of migrants’ origin, as well as education of migrants on our culture, should be considered. We need to think about and develop strategies on how to employ people coming (returning) to our countries, considering features of our economies and labor market”.
She also talked about challenges in integration, considering the situation of mass influx of migrants on the WB Route (registration, provision of food and shelter, local population perception, borders security, asylum procedures). In that context she informed on readmission agreements that MARRI Participants signed and implement, as well as on enhanced regional cooperation in the field of migration management during previous year.
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