UN Country Team ensures mainstreaming of Migration Issues in its Core Work

On 22 September participants from UN Agencies in Sierra Leone gathered for a training on how to integrate migration into the Common Country Analysis (CCA) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF).

The training covered sessions with an in-depth overview on Migration Governance, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda, Migration and the Common Country Analysis and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework and Financing & funding the SDGs.  

The United Nations Resident Coordinator (RC) in Sierra Leone, Mr Babatunde Ahonsi, in his statement noted the importance of setting up the UN Network on Migration in Sierra Leone and also emphasized the relevance of migration to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development: “Agenda 2030 cannot be achieved without due consideration of migrants and mobility. As a cross-cutting issue, migration is relevant to all the 17 SDGs”.

The RC also explained that the inclusion of migration in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) present a momentous opportunity for the UN Country Team (UNCT) to systematically integrate migration into all relevant areas and stages of their work, in alignment with and as part of the implementation of these two frameworks.

IOM Deputy Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Ms Sophie Nonnenmacher, who facilitated the training said, “When we have a global and regional architecture like the UN Migration Network, the country network serves as a critical element in the set of tools.  Therefore, the network in-country can be a driving force to create more impacts”.  She added that the network also gives UN Agencies an entry point to help the Government of Sierra Leone address migration-related issues and implement the GCM objectives.

Tanzila Sankoh represented the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the training. According to her, the exercise was timely and very useful especially at this time when the Common Country Analysis is being reviewed. “Migration related issues should be well captured and detailed in the CCA and the Cooperation Framework. It is necessary to even add migration into specific areas including the outputs and outcomes components of the framework”, she added.

The UN Network on Migration, established by the UN Secretary-General in 2018, has been tasked with ensuring coordinated UN system-wide support to States in implementing the GCM. In Sierra Leone, the National UN Network on Migration was launched on 1 June 2021, to facilitate effective, timely and coordinated UN system-wide support to Sierra Leone on migration governance.