Brunson McKinley, Director General of the International
Organization for Migration, will today present the annual Director
General's Award to staff in recognition of outstanding work.

The ceremony takes place at 1600 local time at the
organization's headquarters in Geneva.

Announcing this year's list of awardees, McKinley said: "2006
was another busy year for IOM, with an intense operation to
evacuate migrants from the conflict in Lebanon and ongoing
emergency and post-crisis activities in many countries, plus the
excellent day-to-day work on the projects and programmes that we
continue to develop, implement and expand upon throughout the
world."

The full list of recipients of the Director General's Award for
2006 is as follows:

• Patrick Corcoran - IOM Ho Chi Minh City - for his
  groundbreaking work on pre-consular services and facilitated
  migration
  
  
  
• Vincent Houver - IOM Amman - for the successful evacuation of
  thousands of migrant workers during the summer crisis in
  Lebanon
  
  
  
• Aliou Ka and Fatou Diallo Gueye - IOM Dakar - for their hard
  work and dedication to migrants in West Africa, in particular
  stranded migrants in Mauritania and Senegal
  
  
  
• Valbona Lenja - IOM Tirana - for her consistently excellent
  conceptual work on counter-trafficking
  
  
  
• Corina Lupasco - IOM Chisinau - for her leadership,
  adaptability and readiness to go the extra mile in finance and
  administration
  
  
  
• Davide Mosca - IOM Nairobi - for his invaluable contribution to
  IOM's migration health programmes in Africa and beyond
  
  
  
• Akio Nakayama - IOM Tokyo - for his dedication to strengthening
  IOM's relationship with Japan
  
  
  
• Maria Rumman - IOM Damascus - for her success in expanding
  IOM's relations with Syria
  
  
  
• Tom Sinkovits - IOM Port of Spain - for excellence in
  government relations, project development and implementation in
  core technical cooperation areas
  
  
  
• Aida Zecevic - IOM Washington - for her successful liaison work
  with the private sector

Members of the press and representatives from diplomatic
missions are welcome to attend the award ceremony.

For those wanting interviews with any of the above, please
contact:

IOM Media and Public Information

Tel.: + 41 22 717 93 61