Established 2008

Objectives

The Abu Dhabi Declaration launched a collaborative approach to temporary labour mobility in Asia and to maximizing its benefits for development.

Current Focus

The Abu Dhabi Declaration focuses on developing four key, action-oriented partnerships between countries of origin and destination for development around the subject of temporary contractual labour, based on a notion of partnership and shared responsibility:

• Developing and sharing knowledge on labour market trends, skills profiles, workers and remittances policies and flows, and the relationship to development;
• Building capacity for more effective matching of labour supply and demand;
• Preventing illegal recruitment and promoting welfare and protection measures for contractual workers; and
• Developing a framework for a comprehensive approach to managing the entire cycle of temporary contractual work that fosters the mutual interest of countries of origin and destination.

Priorities

• Identification of the roles and responsibilities of all actors (governmental and private) at each stage of the contractual work cycle (from recruitment to preparation to movement to work in a host country to return and reintegration) to ensure safe, protected and beneficial labour mobility.
• Elaboration of concrete projects activities ("practical outcomes" and related plan of action) to give effect to the partnerships.
• Elaboration of a regional multilateral framework on temporary contractual labour mobility.

20 Members (Current Rotating Chair: United Arab Emirates)

11 Colombo Process countries of origin Afghanistan Bangladesh China India Indonesia Nepal Pakistan The Philippines Sri Lanka Thailand Vietnam

9 Asian destination countries Bahrain Kuwait Malaysia Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Singapore United Arab Emirates Yemen

Partner and Observer States

France Germany Japan Mauritius

Poland Republic of Korea United States

Partner and Observer Institution

• The European Commission (EC)

Planned Meetings for 2012

• 2nd Ministerial Consultation in Manila, Philippines on April 19, 2012

Contact Information

Secretariat

Tel: +41 22 717 9111
Fax: +41 22 798 6150
E-mail: machieng@iom.int

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