Strengthening Labour Migration Management in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa with one of the largest numbers of migrants living outside Ethiopia. Limited or unenforceable formal labour agreements between Ethiopia and most Middle Eastern countries lead to migrants encountering a number of problems, including denial of remuneration, human rights violations, and forms of exploitation.

This project intends to support and enhance the capacity of Government of Ethiopia (GoE) policy makers and other stakeholders engaged in labour migration to more effectively manage and regulate labour migration from Ethiopia, and prevent irregular migration to other countries, in particular to Middle Eastern countries. The project will produce the following outcomes:

1) Two assessment reports, including a National labour migration assessment, and a System and Operations Management Audit that will analyze how the process of labour migration works from start to end;

2) Two capacity building trainings and an experience-sharing visit to create awareness among high level officials on labour migration management concepts and support mainstreaming labour migration into national planning strategies and frameworks;

3) Facilitation of a consultative dialogue among officials of embassies of destination countries in Addis Ababa to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to discuss existing challenges and enhance coordination leading towards effective labour migration management between Ethiopia and the respective destination countries.

All the interventions under this project will employ a gender-sensitive approach, including gender analysis, collection of sex-disaggregated data and gender-balanced participation; this is especially important due to the high number of female domestic workers migrating from Ethiopia to the Middle East.