EU-IOM Joint Initiative

for Migrant Protection and Reintegration

Migrants who return to their communities of origin usually struggle to find work or to get the skills they need to increase their chances of securing employment. However, a new programme in Ethiopia is set to change this, with hundreds due to benefit.

Ethiopians account for the largest migration movements in the East and Horn of Africa region. Many of those who migrate often run into unforeseen problems and have to return. But because many of them are young, with school drop-outs among them, a lack of marketable skills sometimes hinders their efforts to find work back home.

Mastercard Foundation’s BRIDGES programme signed an agreement with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to train and place about 10,000 returnees over the next two years while also funding those with business ambitions.

“This agreement will accelerate integration opportunities for returnees, and increase their chances to access capital and jobs,” said Sara Basha, Programme Coordinator for the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in Ethiopia, which facilitated the agreement.

Implementing the BRIDGES programme in Ethiopia is First Consult, a leading development consulting firm.

Under the agreement with First Consult, IOM will refer to the company young vulnerable migrant returnees and potential migrants from migration-prone communities, for skills training. The cost of the training will be fully covered by First Consult. It will include life skills, financial literacy and saving, entrepreneurship, micro-enterprise development and management.

First Consult will facilitate job placements for the recruits. It will also partner and coordinate with financial institutions to facilitate the provision of credit to returnees.

The company is already working to unlock the potential for job creation within industrial parks and small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as promoting local value addition and linkages between large investors and local supplies.

About the EU-IOM Joint Initiative  

Launched in December 2016 with the support of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the programme brings together 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, along with the European Union and the International Organization for Migration, around the goal of ensuring that migration is safer, more informed and better governed for both migrants and their communities. 

For More information, please contact Wilson Johwa, email: wjohwa@iom.int or Adam Sahilu, email: asahilu@iom.int