Migration Partnerships

The study “The Power of Partnership Approaches” analyses MPF’s portfolio of 48 partnership projects funded between 2016 and 2023 to propose a classification of five types of migration partnerships. The study describes main characteristics, strengths and opportunities, weaknesses, or challenges, and provides examples of activities under each category.

Over the last year, a truly innovative project redefining migration capacity development has been taking place in Malta - the Training Institute on Migration Capacity Partnership for the Mediterranean (MCP Med TI).

What is it?

Simply put, it is an answer to that deceptively straightforward question, “How can we make training better?”

Thanks to the visionary support of the EU through the Migration Partnership Facility (MPF), along with Malta, Austria and Denmark, the Training Institute was established with an initial external dimension focus on Southern Partner Countries, specifically Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. However, after only one year of operation, its impact is already going far beyond that, redefining and professionalising the capacity training sector.

The project’s overall objective of becoming “… a permanent and accredited regional training institute offering quality-assured, bespoke learning and coaching experiences that result in certification for migration actors” was always ambitious, requiring completely new ways of thinking and working. Fortunately, with its emphasis on continuous innovation, ICMPD has proved to be the ideal organisation to do that.

A Business Case for the Private Sector in the New EU Talent Partnerships

The Talent Partnerships announced by the European Commission will see investment in skills for the benefit of the labour market in Europe and for the benefit of the labour market in partner countries, with more skilled workers being made available to both.

The private sector – as the user of such labour – is an essential voice in identifying the sectors, the skills and the profiles of the candidates they seek. For the Talent Partnership to function they must therefore address the needs of employers – sectorally, technically and in terms of facilitating timely access to labour.

The ICMPD, through the Migration Partnership Facility (MPF) organised a dedicated session at the EU-Africa Business Summit to unpack the Talent Partnerships and a business case for private sector engagement. This session offered an interactive multi-stakeholder forum that brought together at the same table policy-makers and business leaders from the EU and Africa to share views, learn from each other, and jointly reflect on key next steps needed.

Replay ▷

Speakers: 

Michael Spindelegger, Director-General, ICMPD

Johannes Luchner, Deputy-Director General, European Commission, Directorate General For Migration and Home Affairs

Dawit Dame, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Labour and Skill, Ethiopia

Mante Makauskaite, Digital Explorers project lead (Co-founder of AfriKo)

Eden Alemayehu, INSPIRE Project Manager, ICMPD

Moderator: Jennifer Tangney, Senior Project Manager, MPF

MALTA – Dec.15, 2021 - The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) launched the Training Institute on Migration Capacity Partnership for the Mediterranean (MCP Med TI) on 15 December 2021 in Malta. The launch event took place with the distinguished presence of Hon. Evarist Bartolo, Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Malta, and Michael Spindelegger, Director General of ICMPD, with an online intervention by the Deputy Director-General of the European Commission Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs, Mr. Johannes Luchner.

On Wednesday 22 September, the European Union Global Diaspora Facility (EUDiF) and the Migration Partnership Facility (MPF) hosted a webinar to present and further discuss the results of the newly published research on the potential role of the diaspora in the implementation of Talent Partnerships (TPs) with the researchers and representatives of each of the types of actor featured. Click here to read the main takeaways of the event.

For a more in depth analysis of the potential for diaspora in implementing the Talent Partnerships, read the full case study or the abridged version comprising the executive summary and recommendations.

In February, the ICMPD and the Directorate-General Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) co-hosted the workshop “From Pilot Projects to Talent Partnerships – Exploring the future of legal migration to the European Union (EU)” bringing together EU actors, member state and partner country representatives, and labour mobility project practitioners. The workshop was organised to share and reflect on stakeholders’ hands-on experience of implementing pilot projects on labour migration as the EU is gearing up to launch a new policy framework for cooperation on legal migration.

One of the innovative tools proposed by the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum (published on 23 September 2020) is the Talent Partnerships conceived as a single framework aiming to “offer cooperation with partner countries and help boost mutually-beneficial international mobility”.

ICMPD today launches a series of blog articles on how the Talent Partnerships could be shaped, put in motion and brought to fruition by sharing experience, research findings and practices.

The new MPF policy brief explores the preliminary lessons learnt from 18 months of implementation of projects that exemplify important approaches and principles at the heart of the proposed Talent Partnerships. While form and scope of mobility, and targeted stakeholders differ from one Pilot Project to another, all of them have sought to test different methodologies addressing the forming of partnerships, skills and labour market research, candidate search and selection, matching between candidates and employment or educational offers, as well as the organisation of placements and reintegration activities.

The intention of the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum is to offer a “fresh start” for a system that manages and “normalises” migration.  In the introduction, migration is framed as a “feature of human history” that brings growth, innovation and social dynamism, a vision fully embraced and promoted by the Global Initiatives Programme at ICMPD.