Almaty, December 2022 – The Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) was established as a regional forum on labour migration governance which brings together the key government and private sector stakeholders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. More specifically, the RCM includes relevant government representatives such as the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Bank, representatives of the private sector; Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions, representatives of State Recruitment Agencies (SRA) and Private Recruitment Agencies (PRA), employers’ representatives (through relevant associations of employers), civil society and advocates for the rights of migrant workers. The RCM meets once a year and the agenda of the annual RCM meetings are informed by outcomes of country-level coordination meetings, or research outcomes. Upon the interests of the coordination mechanism members, additional working groups will be established to follow up on particular issues and report back to the regional coordination mechanism on an annual basis.

The goal of RCM focuses at the SDC-funded “Labour Migration Programme in Central Asia” (IOM LMI Project), which commenced its Phase 1 implementation in June 2022 with the aim to contribute to enhancing labour migration governance to leverage development impacts of human mobility in both countries of origin and destination. The countries participating in the project are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Within the project’s six key outcomes, the project aims to support the efforts of the Governments and other stakeholders in the target countries to develop coordination mechanisms to identify challenges and regularly adapt and improve labour migration policy and processes at national and regional levels.

 Participants of the meetings went through rigorously researched issues pertaining to labour migration, means and methods of coping with low financial literacy; protection of rights of labour migrants, proper education and training on cultural awareness, language courses for better adoption to the customs of countries of destination (regarding the work of private and public employment agencies); ethical labour migration. The diversity of stakeholders, participating in the event ensured a multidimensional approach, allowing to consider the situation of migration from the lens of governments, employers and migrants. Speakers touched upon the digitalisation of the migration processes, and fastening processes of obtaining support, in terms of both legal and financial consultation for incoming and outgoing workers, with particular attention to low-skilled migrants, whose rights might not be protected. Parties have agreed to continue to work closely on the established fundaments in the upcoming future.