Subject
IOM1 has outlined the concept of “safe, orderly and regular migration” as such (references ommitted):
“Migration features as a key cross-cutting theme in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. SDG target 10.7 calls for States to “facilitate orderly, safe, and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies” within Goal 10 on reducing inequalities. Through this goal and its contingent target, States acknowledge that good migration governance is a key element for safer, more orderly and more regular migration.
Orderly Migration: IOM defines orderly migration as “the movement of a person from his or her usual place of residence to a new place of residence, in keeping with the laws and regulations governing exit of the country of origin and travel, transit and entry into the host country.” This definition underlines the State’s right to regulate entry as a basis for being able to ensure migrants’ proper treatment, granting rights, enforcing law, managing relationships with host communities.
Regular migration: Regular migration is defined as “migration that occurs through recognized, authorized channels.” The regularity of migration does not only refer to the method used to cross a country’s border, as migrants can enter into a country through regular channels, but find themselves in an irregular situation after a certain period.
Safe Migration: There is no common definition for the concept of “safe migration.” When using the term, it is important to understand that a migrant can be in an unsafe situation while or after having migrated through regular channels; and conversely, a migrant can be in a situation that is both safe and irregular. “Safe migration” is not a static concept. The situation of migrants can change from safety, to unsafety throughout the various phases of their migratory process. Moreover, while the concepts of ‘orderly’ and ‘regular’ migration have a normative character, the concept of “safe migration” primarily concerns the well-being of migrants.”
Skill partnerships can be defined as follows:
“The heart of a Global Skill Partnership is a pre-migration agreement between two countries. The governments and any private-sector partners agree on who at the destination will help finance migrants’ training, what portion of training will occur at the origin and to what standard, who will offer employment at the destination under what conditions, and how the benefits of skilled migration will support training for non-migrants. The agreement shapes the financing for training skilled migrants in such a way that it creates, rather than depletes, human capital in the origin country. At the same time it meets the needs of the destination country while opening opportunities for migrants.”
The commitment
“to invest in innovative solutions that facilitate mutual recognition of skills, qualifications and competences of migrant workers at all skills levels, and promote demand-driven skills development to optimize the employability of migrants in formal labour markets in countries of destination and in countries of origin upon return, as well as to ensure decent work in labour migration”
is the outline for Objective 18 GCM (A/Res/73/195). While implicitly addressed in many subsequently listed actions of Item 34 GCM, skill partnership agreements and network-building are expressly referred to in lit. (c), (e), (f), (g). ILO, IOM, UNESCO, IOE, and ITUC formed a Global Skills Partnership (GSP)
“to mobilize technical expertise of the three organizations towards supporting governments, employers, workers and their organizations, educational institutions and training providers, and other stakeholders to develop and recognize the skills of migrant workers with a particular focus on women and youth.” (ILO et al. n.d.).
In distinction to this, we rather refer to the more limited term of “Transnational Skill Partnerships”.
1) IOM. (n.d.). Facilitation of safe, regular and orderly migration. Global Compact Thematic Paper. Clemens, M. A. (2015). Global skill partnerships. A proposal for technical training in a mobile world. IZA Journal of Labor Policy 4(2), 1-18.