Activities

The Khartoum Process facilitates collaboration and information exchange among countries along the migration route between the Horn of Africa and Europe. Our activities include at the political level, Steering Committee Meetings and Senior Officials' Meeting and at the technical level, Thematic Meetings, Thematic Workshops and Trainings.

Thematic Meeting on Migration for Development: Harnessing the Potential of Diaspora

  • Date:
  • Location: Asmara, Eritrea
Thematic Meeting

On 23rd – 24th of October 2019, the EU-Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative (Khartoum Process) convened a Thematic Meeting on Migration for Development: Harnessing the Potential of Diaspora. The meeting was hosted and chaired by Eritrea and co-chaired by Switzerland.

The meeting has been attended by Khartoum Process partners representatives (Khartoum Process countries, the African Union Commission, the European Commission, the European External Action Service, IOM, UNHCR, GIZ), representatives of UNCDF, IFAD, AFFORD, World Bank / KNOMAD, and ADEPT, as well as relevant private sector representatives from MFS Africa and Homestrings.

The meeting aimed at exploring the topic of leveraging diaspora potential for development, starting from understanding, reaching out to and engaging with the diaspora, to providing an enabling environment to maximise diaspora capital, including remittances, skills, and knowledge, amongst other types of contributions. Discussions were structured along the following thematic pillars:

  1. Engaging the diaspora in their host countries: options for the countries of origin;
  2. Fostering an environment favourable to the engagement of diaspora in their country of origin;
  3. Remittances and investments: ways of maximising the impact of remittances.

The participants have acknowledged the role of the diaspora in supporting development efforts in their home countries, with the African Union reiterating its vision of the diaspora as the sixth region of Africa and both the host and co-host countries reaffirming the role of the diaspora in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).