IFAD launched the ‘Remittance Community Task Force’ with public and private stakeholders to come up with immediate measures to address the impact of COVID on remittances and in response to the call by the UN Secretary-General for global solidarity within the COVID-19 pandemic. This task force contributed to the discussion within the Financing for Development Process recently launched by the Prime Ministers of Canada and of Jamaica.
International initiatives such as the Call to Action: “Remittances in Crisis: How to Keep Them Flowing”, launched by Switzerland and the United Kingdom in May 2020, have also contributed to leveraging remittances and other migration-related financial flows to assist local COVID-19 response and recovery interventions.
The COVID-19 pandemic represented a major public health challenge and had serious economic and social impacts on origin, transit and destination countries, as well as on migrant workers and their families and on businesses and their operations. This informative note presents policy options in order to ensure comprehensive social protection for migrant workers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Spain offers universal access to basic health services. Beyond the most favourable scheme enjoyed by EU nationals covered by EU common legislation, all migrants staying in Spain, irrespective of legal status, have access to the basic national health system. This measure has proved its utility during the pandemic.
The pilot phase of MSDG was implemented from August 2017 to December 2018, during which a Gambian Diaspora Strategy (GDS) was developed and incorporated in the Gambia National Development Plan (NDP 2018-21).
The O-REMIT project by the International Organization for Migration uses data from various sources to analyze transaction costs and aim for a threshold below 3%. This provides insights on cost-efficient remittance options and help the diaspora in Belgium make meaningful investments in their home country.
Three streams will be implemented:
Stream 1: Understand the remittance flows and behaviour of diaspora in Belgium.
DIASDEV is a joint project initiated by the French Development Agency and the Caisse des Dépôts from France, Italy, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia and carried out in partnership with public-sector financial institutions in 2021.
DIASDEV aims to increase diasporas’ capacity to mobilize their savings for investing in their countries of origin. To achieve this goal, the project is structured around two pillars:
i) Facilitation fund for diasporas’ investments, offering funding for technical and financial assistance to financial operators, banks, post offices
The Migrants4Climate (M4C) Award 2023 was launched in 2022 at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt.
It has been organized by the GFMD 2022-2023 French Chair, the Ghanaian Chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This Award aims to give visibility to initiatives led by or - inclusive of and targeting - migrants and diaspora and features a strong engagement in climate action and environmental sustainability.
Established by the UN Network on Migration in May 2019, the Fund is governed by a diverse and inclusive Steering Committee and administered by the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office.
Committed to safe, orderly, and regular migration, the Migration Multi-Partner Trust Fund supports the adoption and implementation of the Global Compact for Migration to encourage the uptake of migration approaches that benefit communities of origin, transit, and destination, as well as migrants.
It contains practical guidance grounded in international labour and human rights standards and drawing from real examples around the world. It shows how social dialogue benefits the development, implementation and monitoring of these agreements, and can be used as a basis for training and preparing for negotiation of bilateral labour migration agreements.