Accra, July 29, GNA - The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday held a meeting in Accra to form a Technical Working Group (TWG) to facilitate efforts leading to the development of a National Migration Policy. The meeting also heralded the commencement of the two-year National Migration Profiles Project under the IOM's "Migration in West and Central Africa" Programme, aimed at enhancing governmental capacities of selected countries in West and Central Africa to promote comprehensive and proactive migration management policies. The research and capacity building project is funded by the European Commission, the Swiss and Belgian government, and implemented by the IOM in line with European Union and Africa Strategies for Migration Management.

The Project, which is being carried out in 10 other countries including Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is expected to serve as a national policy instrument to promote the Ghana government's effectiveness to evaluate, monitor, manage and improve migration for development. Stakeholders include the ECOWAS Commission, the Dakar-based IOM Mission with Regional Functions, the Ministry of the Interior, institutions involved in migration in Ghana, International organizations and diplomatic missions to Ghana. Speaking at the meeting, Davide Terzi, Chief of Mission of the IOM, noted that the project would facilitate efforts made by the National Migration Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior to develop a migration policy for the country.

He said the project would provide a comprehensive framework for updating data from different sources in a structured manner, to provide a means to identify data gaps and develop strategies to enhance data collection, analysis and sharing for governments in the region and the international community, as they coordinated their efforts in migration management.

Mr Terzi expressed faith in the timeliness of the project to facilitate efforts of the government as it faced the challenge of managing the rapid growth of regular and irregular migration. Nana Obiri Boahene, Minister of State at the Interior Ministry, tasked the TWG to come up with recommendations that would be valuable to the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee of the National Migration Bureau and the Bureau itself.