EU-IOM Joint Initiative

for Migrant Protection and Reintegration

Close to seven hundred unaccompanied migrant children were assisted to return to Ethiopia in 2019 under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa.

Thanks to three new agreements signed with local NGOs, the programme will be able to support an additional 500 returnees, including more than 145 children and their families, to improve their livelihoods and to start new lives back home.

“Reintegration is not an assistance one entity or organization can deliver on its own,” said Sara Basha, programme Coordinator of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative. “IOM recognizes the need to collaborate and work together with stakeholders.”

Basha added: “It is equally important to support the Government’s efforts to strengthen its migration management systems and structures, including ensuring the sustainable reintegration of vulnerable Ethiopian returnees.”

The EU-IOM Joint Initiative provides newly-arrived children with accommodation and meals at its transit centre in Addis Ababa, until their families are traced for reunification. This is done in collaboration with UNICEF and the Bureau of Women Children and Youth Affairs (BoWCA).

When families have been traced and contacted, IOM facilitates transportation along with a social worker from BoWCA to escort and ensure reunification is completed.  Once back home, the programme offers the returnees support to re-enroll in school, in addition to providing economic assistance to their parents. This is mainly in the form of establishing of small businesses.

Some of this assistance takes place through existing partnerships with UNICEF and Save the Children. Until recently the programme had 12 local and international implementing partners in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country that also accounts for the largest migrant movements in the Horn of Africa region.

The onset of COVID-19 has resulted in larger numbers of migrants being prompted to make their way back to the country, where they often do not have a support structure.

A new agreement signed with the local NGO Positive Action for Development, will provide reintegration assistance to 110 child returnees and 35 other vulnerable children in East and West Haragae Zones of Oromia region and the Dire Dawa city administration.

The new agreement is just one of three finalized recently by the EU-IOM Joint Initiative in Ethiopia. Together the agreements will provide for the support of around 470 returning migrants and other vulnerable communities.

In one of the agreements, the EU-IOM Joint Initiative has entered into a partnership with Jimma University, a public institution in Oromia, to support 105 returnees with a new business opportunity in integrated chicken–fish farming. The local government has provided land in support of the project.

The EU-IOM Joint Initiative has assisted the return of close to 3,000 returnees in the Oromia region, which accounts to 39% of the total returns facilitated under the programme since June 2017.

A new partnership was also signed between Wolaita Sodo University and the EU-IOM Joint Initiative. It will enable about 220 returnees and internally displaced persons in the Southern Nations Nationalities and People’s Regional State (SNNPR) region to participate in the production of sisal fibre, a natural fibre which can be used for different types of products, such as clothes, ropes or carpets. 

The university is co-funding the project in addition to providing technical and training support to the returnees. The local government has provided a 10 hectare plot to support this community project, which will indirectly benefit around 660 family members of the beneficiaries.

In SNNPR – which is the source of many Ethiopian youth migrating to South Africa - the EU-IOM Joint Initiative contributed materials worth 18,000 EUR to support the establishment of Halaba Youth Centre that will be jointly run by returnees and other youth from the community. Its purpose is to provide the returnees and the youth with sustainable livelihood opportunities to support themselves and their families. The centre will have a cafeteria, a gaming area and a children’s playground to be used by the community.   

Over the last four years, the EU-IOM Joint Initiative has provided voluntary return and reintegration assistance to about 8,000 Ethiopian migrants, of whom 20 percent were children.

 About the EU-IOM Joint Initiative

Launched in December 2016 and funded by the European Union (EU) Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the programme brings together 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, the EU and IOM around the goal of ensuring migration is safer, more informed and better governed for both migrants and their communities.

For more information please contact Helina Mengistu at IOM Ethiopia, Tel: +251 11 5571707 (Ext. 1109), email: hmengistu@iom.int; or the IOM Regional Office in Nairobi: Julia Hartlieb, Tel: +254 734 988 846, email: jhartlieb@iom.int and Wilson Johwa, Tel:  +254 20 4221 112, email: wjohwa@iom.int