Knowledge Hub on Labour Migration in South Asia Launched

[Press release]

Screenshot of participants during the launch.

Delhi, India – This week saw the virtual launch of a South Asian knowledge hub on labourmigration by a cross-agency UN regional programme. The South Asia Centre for Labour Mobility and Migrants (SALAM)will bring together academic and policy think tanks from across the sub-region to advance the state of knowledge inthis area, building bridges across disciplines.

SALAM was launched by the Governance of Labour Migration in South and South-East Asia (GOALS), a regional programmejointly implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Organization for Migration(IOM), and UN Women, with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

The hub seeks to be a one-stop platform serving policy makers, civil society actors, social partners and otherstakeholders with knowledge, information, networks, and policy solutions leading to positive changes in labourmigration policies and practices.

Affirming the regional aspect of GOALS, SALAM was also launched in partnership with Bangladesh’s Refugee andMigratory Movements Research Unit, India’s International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS),Nepal’s Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility, Pakistan’s Sustainable Development Policy Instituteand Sri Lanka’s Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka.

“The knowledge hub on labour migration of South Asia was established with the vision to promote understanding,strengthen research, enhance teaching and capacity building of relevant stakeholders to formulate evidence-basedpolicies to protect migrants’ rights and promote decent work for achieving integration of migration withsustainable development,” said R.B. Bhagat, Professor and Head of Department of Migration and Urban Studies ofIIPS.

Dagmar Walter, Director of the ILO Decent Work, Technical Support Team for South Asia and Country Office for India,said “the work of this regional knowledge hub should be sustained through collective effort and sharedactions.” Speaking on behalf of ILO, IOM, and UN Women, she urged the partner institutions “to groundtheir work on international human rights and labour rights and emphasized that joint and equal ownership should beleveraged as a strategy going forward, as well as inter-institutional collaboration”.

The virtual inauguration was attended by government representatives from across the sub-region, representatives ofinstitutional partners of the hub, experts on labour migration, and ILO, IOM and UN Women representatives.

SALAM will connect researchers and institutions from South Asia working on five themes: labour migration policies;gender and migration; migration, health and disaster; migration and development; and drivers of migration. The hubwill examine specific labour migration and mobility issues through the broader lens of decent work for migrantworkers and the social, economic and political trends in the sub-region and beyond.

It will also work to strengthen labour migration data from a gender perspective, supporting the wider work of theGOALS Programme in areas such as fair and ethical recruitment and reintegration. This aims to fostergender-responsive policy dialogues, leading to effective actions that improve the lives of women and men who migratefrom South Asia to work in different parts of the world.

The development of SALAM is hoped to increase meaningful participation of relevant government and non-governmentstakeholders in the labour migration landscape. This is in line with the Global Compact on Migration’swhole-of-society approach, which emphasizes the importance of including this wide range of stakeholders to ensuresafe, orderly and regular migration.

“This knowledge hub could be a unifying platform for sharing regional and national best practices and avoidreinventing the wheel,” said Nikaril Kanth, representative from Sri Lanka’s State Ministry of ForeignEmployment. He also said that SALAM could contribute to the development of similar knowledge hubs at national level.Dr Surabhi Singh of India Centre for Migration said that “India has been trying to engage with regionalplayers to update knowledge and understanding of Labour Migration issues both at national and regional levels. IndiaCentre for Migration will be happy to collaborate with this forum.”