Actions

2021 is ending and despite the volatility, there are many achievements worth sharing from the past 12 months. It includes achievements for our individual Actions as well as the development of various innovations to strengthen our work with our stakeholders.

MIEUX+ has launched its second Action in Kazakhstan to support the Human Rights Commissioner and civil society partners in their endeavour to promote the rights of migrant children and their families in the region of Almaty.

Together with experts from Bulgaria, Denmark and Estonia, the MIEUX+ team undertook the onsite component of the capacity and training needs assessment in the framework of the 2^nd MIEUX Action in Mauritius. This project will focus on strengthening the capacities of government officials working on combatting trafficking in human beings (THB), through the development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) aimed at enhancing the identification, referral, investigation and prosecution of THB cases.

The third MIEUX Action in Moldova was launched on 9 November 2021 and seeks to ensure quality management of integrated border management principles in the country. High-level representatives from Moldovan authorities, ICMPD and the EU Delegation as well as European experts discussed the relevance, importance and next steps of this project.

MIEUX+ organised its first mission since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kyiv to meet with its partner, the State Migration Service of Ukraine and other stakeholders involved in the integration of asylum seekers, refugees and persons in need of complementary protection.

MIEUX+ concluded its third Action in Dominican Republic, which focused on knowledge exchange between government peers tasked with migration and border management issues.

MIEUX+, the Brazilian Public Defenders’s Office (DPU) and the MERCOSUR Public Defenders’ Network (BLODEPM) organised the regional webinar “Asylum Application Process and Legal Assistance Offered by Public Defenders – Challenges, Effects of the Pandemic and Good Practices” on 17 June 2021 in honour of the upcoming World Refugee Day.

Global attention to climate change and environmental challenges is growing and our partners in Western and Central Africa have raised their concern about its impact on migration. The ongoing MIEUX+ Action Benin II aims to improve assistance to migrants displaced by climate change and environmental degradation.

In December 2020, MIEUX+ launched a new Action in Brazil in the area of international protection and asylum policy with the Federal Public Defenders’ Office. It is not the first time that the institutions cooperates with MIEUX. In 2019, the Brazil II Action focused on children in migration whilst the newly launched Action builds on the aims to contribute to better protection and juridical support to a broader spectrum of migrants and asylum seekers in Brazil.

With the launch of its new phase, MIEUX+ is looking for migration experts to support its capacity building activities all over the world, starting with a new series of Actions focusing on crisis management and migration and health.

Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar presented the new Politique nationale d’engagement de la diaspora malagasy (National Malagasy diaspora engagement policy), prepared with support from MIEUX, in Antanarivo, Madagascar. The formulation of the policy, linked to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, has been the objective of a two-year Action that started in November 2017 and aims to promote, foster and facilitate the participation of Malagasys abroad into the country´s future development.

The European Union is supporting the Ecuadorian Chairmanship of the 2019 Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) through the MIgration EU eXpertise (MIEUX) Initiative, implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). The two-day regional workshop “Providing regular pathways from crisis to safety”, co-organised by ICMPD and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on 19 and 20 September in Quito, Ecuador is the third in a series of four regional workshops preceding the Quito Summit in November and will gather representatives from academia, national and local-level governments, international organisations and civil society to exchange experiences on management of mixed flows. 

Northern Brazil is facing a mounting challenge with the increasing arrival of a large number of migrant children, unaccompanied or not, to the Northern Brazilian States of Amazonas and Roraima. Responding to a request from the Public Defender's Office, MIEUX launched a new Action to assess the ongoing situation and to transmit the European experiences in areas of interview protocols for international protection applicants, especially children.

The joint EU- ICMPD Migration EU eXpertise Initiative (MIEUX) gathered 20 participants, composed of a mix of partner authorities, experts and MIEUX staff, for a two-day workshop in Cotonou, Benin about Migration and Environment. The event is the last of a series of activities executed after the request from the Ministry of Environment of Benin, the Office of Secretary of State of Guinea-Bissau and Ministry of Planning, Development and Land Use of Togo back in 2015.

Today MIEUX publishes two new Regional Factsheets on Eastern, Central and Southern Africa and on Latin America and the Caribbean. In total, 37 Actions across these two regions have supported governments on important areas of migration such as data collection, migration and development, irregular migration, THB and smuggling of migrants (SOM). 

Romain Gustot, Project Officer and Regional Coordinator for the EU Neighbourhood, reflects on his recent mission to Minsk and the MIEUX Action supporting the government of Belarus on labour migration.

Today, MIEUX launches a new thematic factsheet on the topic of migration and gender. The Factsheet explores the relationship between protection and empowerment of migrant women and girls in the context of policy development and offers some suggestions for migration practitioners working on this topic.