Return migration continues to be one of the least considered aspects in migration policy, despite its crucial socioeconomic significance for both countries of origin and destination.
Obstacles to addressing return migration may stem from:
The lack of analytical tools informing the impact of return on development and about the factors shaping returnees’ patterns of reintegration;
the need for adequate institutional mechanisms aimed at fostering and supporting the social and professional reintegration of migrants in their country of origin.
Policies addressed to returnees have to take into account the pre- and post-return conditions faced by migrant workers, the reasons for emigration and return, the duration of stay abroad and all those elements that can affect the capacity of reintegration in the home country.
They should consider the employment and investment opportunities for the return migrants as well as serving migrants who return temporarily or permanently, with a development-oriented approach that places their skills, rights, aspirations and know-how at the centre of the discussion.
Return constitutes a stage in the migration cycle and requires a multidisciplinary rights-based approach and relevant support mechanisms.
The project targets directly Morocco, and Tunisia and indirectly Algeria and Mauritania. Its overall objective is to support the social and professional reintegration of return migrants by strengthening the capacity of policy level stakeholders in North Africa to design and facilitate evidence-based return migration policies.
More specifically, the project will:
provide analytical tools allowing the adoption of policies supporting returnees’ reintegration;
raise awareness of the need to develop adequate mechanisms sustaining the reintegration of returnees while redefining current policy priorities applied to return;
contribute to integrating return migration issues in national and regional development strategies;
produce and disseminate information and innovative datasets on North African returnees,
facilitate a constructive dialogue among European and North African stakeholders;
provide added value to temporary labour migration schemes;
capitalise on returnees’ know-how and human and financial capital acquired abroad;
generate lasting and self-sustaining channels of discussion between migration stakeholders, at national and international levels.
