(November 13/2018) The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with Save the Children International, held a workshop under the theme “The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Promoting Migration Research in Ethiopia” in which civil society organizations, governmental and non-governmental organizations working on migration participated.

The Advisor to the Ministry of Education, State Minister Professor Kindea Gebre Heywet, who attended the opening of the workshop, stressed the need to strengthen the coordination of stakeholders and partners supported by a research system to reduce and effectively manage the growing national migration.

The workshop highlighted that the legal frameworks and implementation gaps identified through joint research and coordination between universities will be taken up by relevant institutions for decision-making and implementation improvements by policymakers.
Professor Kindeya added that, in addition to the current national focus on migration, migration research has been made one of the research strategies given to universities, and migration has also been identified as a major community agenda.

Save the Children’s Programme Implementation Director, Ato Abdurrezak Ahmed, noted that his organization has been supporting the national migration response and noted that the resources obtained from migration research will help to plan plans that will help the program be implemented more effectively, and his organization emphasizes and supports research.

The Director added that there is a need for coordinated and urgent joint responses to reduce the increasing migration vulnerabilities and harms caused by various current challenges.

Ato Abreham Ayalew, Head of the National Migration Cooperation Secretariat at the Ministry of Justice, noted that migration has become a national development and security agenda in the past three years.

He explained that as a result, some universities have opened postgraduate courses focused on migration and some have established migration research centers.

He noted that our country has adopted various migration agreements at the international, continental and IGAD levels and is implementing them as part of its laws, and noted that a draft national migration policy has been prepared in light of the attention given to migration in recent years.

Various papers were presented and discussed at the workshop, and institutions and individuals who contributed greatly to the effectiveness of the Secretariat of the Cooperation Coalition and the success of the workshop were recognized.