Almaty - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) – the UN Migration Agency – in partnership with the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the UN Network on Migration, organized a national online training-webinar on February 11 and 15, 2022.

The webinar was dedicated to the preparation of the voluntary review of the status of implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) at national level in Kazakhstan, and their participation in the upcoming International Migration Review Forum (IMRF). The webinar was held as part of IOM’s “Strengthening International/Regional Policies and Initiatives on Migration in Kazakhstan”, a National Project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

This two-day webinar was a part of the global Migration Week 2022 organized by the UN Migration Network in February this year. The meeting was attended by all interested stakeholders from governmental agencies, members of the UN Network on Migration, as well as representatives of the civil society, including NGO’s, academia, national human right organizations and the private sector.

Opening the event, the First Deputy Committee on Migration of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Mr. Yerbolat Abulkhatin, emphasized that: “The GCM is the first comprehensive UN framework document adopted as a result of intergovernmental negotiations to strengthen international cooperation in the field of global migration management. The Kazakhstani Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population carries out interdepartmental coordination of state bodies in the field of migration. As part of the implementation of the GCM, Kazakhstan is committed to conducing a national review on the implementation of the objectives of the GCM. To facilitate this process, an interdepartmental working group was created under the Ministry.”

IOM Coordinator for Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Mr. Zeynal Hajiyev, noted that “during the preparation of the current voluntary review, Kazakhstan has focused on the global challenges of migration: linkages between migration, environment and climate change; global competition for talent; transformation of the global labor market; the COVID19 pandemic; and integration of migrants. It should be recognized that Kazakhstan has done a lot to implement all 23 objectives of the GCM. Kazakhstan wishes to apply for to be a Champion Country of the GCM” and it felt that these achievements support the state in this regard.

Resources, tools, and case studies related to each of the 23 GCM goals, its 360-degree vision, and cross-cutting principles were made available on the webinar. Each session on the agenda was dedicated to the thematic clusters of the round tables of the upcoming IMRF and provided participants with the opportunity to discuss and exchange information on the progress in the implementation of the GCM.

Of particular interest to key stakeholders was the discussion of Objective 4 of the GCM that aims to “Ensure that all migrants have proof of legal identity and adequate documentation”. The representative of the Migration Service Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed that the Migration Service Committee has been conducting an identification campaign to identify undocumented persons. Since the start of the campaign in 2020 the Migration Service Committee has registered more than 7,299 undocumented persons without documents (persons with undetermined citizenship), of which 6,062 persons have been documented.

NGO representatives further discussed cooperation opportunities with the territorial divisions of the Migration Service Committee. They proposed organizing a separate meeting between IOM, the migration authorities and NGOs to address matters of documenting migrants (“individual cases”). The initiative was supported by the Chairman of the Migration Service Committee and the IOM.

In general, as a result of the two-day webinar, the participants proposed constructive recommendations for improving the implementation of the GCM in Kazakhstan, which will be included in the final voluntary review report on the GCM implementation in Kazakhstan. 

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