Newsletter – n°20 – March 2013

Initiative worth following

Social integration and citizenship of migrants are crucial elements in the implementation of the migration and development nexus.

Local and regional authorities’ capacities to mobilise and to bring different actors together, their knowledge of the needs of populations, their expertise in the implementation of local public policies and their direct experience with territorial development has made them become key actors in the promotion of the migration-development linkage.

This is especially noteworthy through the actions they carry out to facilitate migrants and their integration in host societies, and their participation in projects of decentralised cooperation in the South which involve migrants in their native country.

Co-development can in this context bring social innovation models helping to bridge international solidarity actions with local development.

Besides commitment of local actors and, in particular, of migrant organizations and young people with a migrant background, in decentralised cooperation projects, represents an opportunity for local authorities to better manage “living together” policies. In this regard, co-development can also be seen as a tool for citizenship and for the social cohesion of territories.

EUNOMAD, the European Network on Migration and Development, is organising a seminar intended to contribute to the EU policy agenda in this field.

Find out more about the seminar on www.eunomad.org. To register, contact Laurence Dufay.