Cairo, 8 December 2016 - IOM, government representatives and partners gathered today in Cairo, Egypt to celebrate IOM’s 25^th anniversary in Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

“Over the past 25 years, millions of migrants in the MENA region and beyond have moved for security, protection, family, or personal aspirations, or all of the above. For them, migration represents both an opportunity and a risk. On this anniversary, we celebrate the many positive contributions of migrants while also remembering the lives lost on dangerous migration journeys,” said IOM MENA Regional Director Carmela Godeau.

To mark the occasion, IOM launched a publication: Governing Migration and Creating Opportunities: Egypt and IOM. It describes the cooperation between IOM and Egypt over the past 25 years. It can be downloaded in English and Arabic here.

During the period, IOM activities in the region have included movements and resettlement; emergency preparedness and response; post-crisis transition and recovery; migration health; labour migration and human development; counter-trafficking and migrant assistance, including return and reintegration assistance for stranded migrants; immigration and border management and migration policy and research.

In Egypt, IOM and the government have continuously enlarged their cooperation in new programmatic areas from the promotion of regular labour migration channels for Egyptians interested in working abroad, to the enhancement of livelihood opportunities in communities at-risk of irregular migration, through economic and labour market development programmes.

IOM and the government have continued to support migrants and host communities in the fields of health and protection, and collaborated on migration management, counter-trafficking activities, refugee resettlement and   emergency and post-crisis operations. 

Over 32,000 refugees have been resettled by IOM from Egypt to various countries – with the US being the largest recipient. Thousands of Egyptian and non-Egyptian migrants have also been helped to return home to their countries of origin and received reintegration assistance in order to restart their lives with dignity.

In more recent years, IOM Egypt has engaged in enhancing the skills of over 3,400 Egyptians to increase their employability, and assisting more than 1,300 18-25 year olds to secure employment or become self-employed.

In terms of policy making, IOM has supported the government in developing Law 64/2010 on trafficking in persons, and Law 82/2016 on smuggling on migrants. In addition, IOM worked with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to move forward dialogue within the framework of the AU Horn of Africa Initiative on Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants, as well as the EU-Horn of Africa Migration Route Initiative (Khartoum Process). 

Across the MENA region, IOM has offices in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia and Yemen.

In 2015 alone, over 4.6 million people, 52 percent of them women, benefitted from the work of these offices. Some 47 percent were internally displaced persons, while over 16 per cent were refugees – other people IOM reached were returnees, irregular migrants, and unaccompanied minors among others.

Of IOM’s humanitarian response activities, which consisted largely of distribution of non-food relief items, water, sanitation and hygiene assistance, and health care, 32 percent was carried out in the Syria, 22 percent in Sudan, 18 percent in Iraq, 12 percent in Lebanon, and 8 percent each in Jordan and Yemen. 

For more information, please contact Amr Taha at IOM Egypt, Email: iomegypt@iom.int, Tel. +20 2273 65140/1/2.