Parliaments within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Member States are responsible for law making, enactment of legislative instruments and have an oversight role in ensuring accountability of the executive arm of government in the implementation of the legislative instruments. In 2021, the IOM Development Fund (IDF) approved a project titled Enhancing the Capacities of Parliamentarians to Promote Migration Governance and Improved Migration Frameworks within the Southern Africa Region. The overall objective is to equip legislators with knowledge on migration to enable them to make informed inputs into ongoing processes aimed at improving migration related policies.

In order to contribute towards the overall objective, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) held a three-day training on the Essentials of Migration Management (EMM2.0)  on 30 May – 1 June 2022 for parliamentarians in five SADC Member States and the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SPF). Twenty-eight participants from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Namibia gathered to gain a common understanding of migration management, as well as to discuss migration opportunities and challenges in the region. Given the diverse list of participants, this training highlighted the importance of international cooperation.

The training was facilitated by African Capacity Building Centre (ACBC) manager and senior trainer, Jonathan Martens, based in the United Republic of Tanzania and Allegra Sary, EMM2.0 Programme Officer based at IOM Headquarters.

In addition to a training for policymakers, a training-of-trainers (ToT) was also held on 2 – 3 June 2022. It was attended by IOM staff as well as policy officers with capacity development function within the parliament from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The TOT aimed at establishing a pool of competent facilitators who would be able to effectively adapt the EMM2.0 curriculum according to the national and regional contexts. Trained participants were capacitated to train other parliamentarians on the content of EMM2.0 and especially priority migration issues identified as important for each country.