First Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) Meeting on 27th February 2024

Migration statistics are critical to developing sound, evidence-based policies that harness the contribution of migrants to the national development process and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well to ensure that no migrant is left behind. Although various national institutions collect considerable amount of migration data across the government sector, there is no mechanism to centralize, disaggregate and cross-reference the data collected in order to more effectively utilize the information towards achieving the SDGs related to migration.

Against this backdrop, the Sustainable Development Council (SDC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) established a formal collaboration earlier this year to develop a sustainable mechanism to track the progress towards the achievement of migration-related targets of the SDGs as well as the contribution of migration towards the national development process.

An Inter- Agency Task Force was accordingly appointed consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Labor and Foreign Employment, Ministry of Education, Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, Department of Immigration and Emigration, Department of Census and Statistics, the National Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force etc. to work in eight priority areas of migration such as Data, Information Provision, Recruitment and Decent Work, Eradicating Trafficking, Managing Borders, Skills Development and Recognition, Remittances and Dignified Return and Reintegration.

The first meeting of the Inter-Agency Committee was held today and was jointly chaired by the Director General of SDC, Chamindry Saparamadu, and the Chief of IOM Mission to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Sarat Dash.

The discussions focused on promoting a participatory approach towards improving migration-related development outcomes that are critical to achieving the SDGs. In addition to the establishment of an inter-agency committee, a mapping exercise for the development of migration-related national proxy indicators, the development of an ICT platform for sharing knowledge and information and building the capacity of government officials to manage the ICT platform are the key outcomes of this initiative.