A technical workshop on immigration and co-operation for chiefs of immigration departments in the region was held from 14 - 15 March 2012 at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.
The meeting, which was officially opened by Assistant Minister of State for Immigration and Registration of Persons of the Republic of Kenya, Hon. Francis Baya, was followed by a one day meeting of the Task Force on the Implementation of Legal Instruments and Decisions of COMESA Council of Ministers in the area of free movement of persons as well as the Task Force on Capacity Building in Immigration Matters.
The meeting of the two task forces came up with an action plan for implementing their mandate, focusing on the following priority areas:
- Co-operation on immigration in the region;
- Information sharing among Member States;
- Addressing human trafficking as a key component of migration management in the region; and
- Inter-agency co-operation.
The meeting also revised the timeline for implementation of the recommendations and it is expected that all activities envisaged under the priority areas would have been addressed by the next meeting of the Ministers and Chiefs of Immigration, scheduled for July 2012.
The workshop brought together Chief of Immigration Officers and their assistants from 16 COMESA Member States, representatives of the COMESA Business Council, the COMESA Monetary Institute, SADC, the African Union; the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
It was organized by both the COMESA Immigration Unit and the ICMPD, which is one of COMESA’s partners in migration matters since 2011.