Dear Readers,

Welcome to the seventh Edition of the IOM Zambia Newsletter. As the newly appointed Chief of Mission for IOM Zambia, I have the great pleasure to present this Edition, which contains highlights of our work from June to December 2017 and upcoming events for 2018.

The past six months have seen many significant achievements, not least with our support to the Government of Zambia to explicitly integrate migration into its national development plan for the first time. The inclusion of migration issues into the Seventh National Development plan is a huge milestone for the migration work in Zambia as this will enhance migration governance, including through policy, planning, and implementation.

We are also very proud to have seen the finalization of the Migration Data Assessment in December 2017 and its official launch by the Honourable Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Stephen Kampyongo MP. Underscoring the above milestones, we are proud of all the exceptional work being done by the IOM Zambia team and our partners to help address the complicated issues surrounding migration. These achievements will set the scene for much of our work in 2018, which is already off to a busy start.

In addition to work with a national focus, IOM Zambia has also stepped up its efforts to ensure we place a regional and indeed global lens on migration governance, and that we support the Government of Zambia and partners to do so too. This has included facilitating a delegation of nine representatives from Zambia at the September ministerial meeting of the Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA), led by the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Labour and Social Security. Moreover, IOM’s engagement and support to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was also scaled up during the second half of 2017, including through working collaboratively for the first meeting of the Migration Dialogue for COMESA Member States (MIDCOM) and the launch of a flagship training and awareness raising programme for COMESA Member States on its Free Movement and Visa Protocols, with thanks to the support of the IOM Development Fund (IDF). These are foundations we are committed to building upon in the coming months and years.

We wish to express our sincere gratitude for the great partnership we enjoyed with an ever-expanding network of government departments, civil society organizations, cooperating partners. We sincerely hope you will enjoy reading this Seventh Edition of the IOM Zambia Newsletter.

I will end with the words of the IOM Director General, Ambassador William Lacy Swing: “Migration is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be managed. Migration is not only inevitable and desirable, but beneficial, if well managed.”

Thank You!