Nairobi – The EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa (EU-IOM Joint Initiative) and the related EU-IOM Individual Measure for the EU-IOM Joint Initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa have come to an end, six years after it was launched to provide protection and reintegration assistance to vulnerable migrants in the Horn of Africa.
  
The programme covered four countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia) in the Horn of Africa and was the first comprehensive programme to save lives, protect and assist migrants along key migration routes in Africa. The programme facilitated safe, humane, and dignified voluntary return processes for over 9,663 stranded migrants. It provided migrants in vulnerable situations with medical care and addressed their protection needs through the provision of shelter, food, water and sanitation as well as specialized services such as psychosocial support and family tracing and reunification. 
 
In the past six years, the programme set up mechanisms to provide tailor-made reintegration assistance to returnees, expanded local partnerships and reintegration support networks to 90 partners to improve the reintegration assistance and monitoring for returning migrants. More than 15,000 returnees were assisted to complete their reintegration assistance process. 

Still, more than 77,862 returnees and host community members benefited directly from 605 community-based reintegration (CBR) projects, across Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. 

Beyond assisting returnee migrants, the programme implemented 31 community-based projects in areas prone to irregular migration. Over 410,000 community members including returnee migrants, unemployed youth and potential migrants benefited from interventions which contributed to addressing the drivers of irregular migration, strengthened social-cohesion and building resilience.
 
The programme produced tangible results through targeted partnerships and capacity building initiatives, supporting the development or support to 32 strategies, policies, and plans, facilitating delivery of migrant protection, return and reintegration assistance across Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and the region. 

“Through the EU-IOM Joint Initiative, IOM and its partners were able to successfully provide much needed assistance to thousands of some of the most vulnerable migrants in the region. The programme worked to assist returning migrants to restart their lives in their countries of origin while at the same time including the host communities where migrants return to. Helping to reintegrate them. The impact has been very positive for many,” noted Mohammed Abdiker, IOM Regional Director for the East and Horn of Africa.

The programme was implemented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and funded by the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF).

About the EU-IOM Joint Initiative

Launched in December 2016, with funding from the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration brings together 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, the EU and IOM around the shared goal of ensuring that migration is safer, more informed and better governed for both migrants and their communities.