Event

Sub-Regional Tripartite Consultations for the Formulation of Skills Partnerships on Migration in Western Africa and the Sahel

Skills partnerships can contribute to reaping migrants’ potential more effectively, being an innovative mechanism for maximising brain gain and sharing the benefits of migration for both origin and destination countries.

In West Africa and the Sahel, the ILO commissioned country studies on the nexus between migration and skills policies, assessing migration trends, priority occupations and how skills development and recognition could benefit migrant workers in both countries of origin and destination. A sub-regional study compiles country study findings and identifies the potential for skills partnership between different countries and national institutions, including training providers, employment services, training agencies, sectoral bodies, and organizations of employers and workers.

To validate research findings and identify key opportunities to forge skills partnerships on migration in the Western Africa and Sahel region, the Regional Office for Africa in collaboration with the Skills and Employability branch conducted tripartite consultations in Abuja, Nigeria from 11-13 September. These consultations were organised with the support of the Norway-funded project Skill-Up and the Free Movement of Persons and Migration (FMM) West Africa project, funded by the European Union and ECOWAS.

Objectives of the tripartite workshop

The tripartite workshop brought together tripartite constituents in order to:

• Share knowledge and good practices on policy coherence between migration and skills policies,
• Assess their country’s potential to benefit from skills partnerships for fairer, rights-based migration, both as country of origin and destination;
• Build capacity on the topic of skills and migration; and
• Discuss and identify concrete avenues for the formulation of skills partnerships on migration.

To this end, participants discussed the identification, formulation and implementation planning of rights-based, tailored tripartite interventions across five broad areas:

(a) Skills identification and anticipation partnerships,
(b) Skills development partnerships,
(c) Skills recognition partnerships,
(d) Partnerships on vocational guidance and orientation,
(e) Knowledge sharing partnerships on skills and migration

The consultations contributed to the objective of the Global Skills Partnership (GSP) recently forged by the ILO in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) the United Nations Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Participants

Tripartite delegations from eight different countries across the Sahel region and Western Africa will be invited to the workshop. These include Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. From each country, 4 government representatives, and 2 representatives each from workers’ and employers’ organizations will participate. The selected countries are among those with the most significant immigrant or emigrant populations in the region as well as those who expressed the greatest capacity, political commitment and demand for the ILO’s technical assistance in the area of skills system development.

Also invited were representatives of the regional economic community ECCAS as well as labour migration experts from the IOM and education experts from UNESCO and representatives from the IOE and the ITUC.

To explore potential support from the development community, interested partners for example from the European Commission, the French Development Agency (AFD), the German Ministry for International Cooperation (BMZ), the Government of the Netherlands, the Government of Norway, Luxembourg Development Cooperation Agency (LuxDev), the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), have also been invited.