The second Programme Steering Committee meeting of the " Migration Governance for Sustainable Development in Indonesia” joint programme was held on 6 July 2023 at the Diplomacy Cafetaria of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and attended by 45 participants from nine ministries/agencies, four UN organizations and one civil society organization.

Despite the delay to the start of the programme, the joint programme presented outstanding achievements after 18 months of implementation as it has completed six out of the 21 activities, where nine activities are on-going, and six activities are yet to start. The programme that should be completed by end of this year, also proposed a 6-month no-cost extension until June 2024 to allow sufficient time for implementation and realize the intended outcomes, and transfer to key counterparts for sustained results in enhancing migration governance in Indonesia. 

Penny Dewi Herasati, Director for Socio-Cultural and International Organizations of Developing Countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated in her remarks: “This joint programme is an important programme for the Government of Indonesia, a significant collaboration platform between the UN agencies and government to address challenges of migration issues and improve local and national stakeholders’ capacity in developing safe, orderly, and gender-sensitive migration policies,” said Penny.

“I would like to emphasize that for the UN, we need to support the government in developing the best possible migration systems. It is important that systems are in place in Indonesia and all over the world to respect the rights of migrants and make sure that the work of migrants can fully contribute to the country’s development,” said Valerie Julliand, UN Resident Coordinator for Indonesia, during her opening remarks.

Farid Ma'ruf from the National Migrant Workers Protection Agency (BP2MI) also highlighted that the collaboration on the safe and orderly migration was well aligned with BP2MI’s role.  Stating that BP2MI received excellent responses from the participants who attended the GCM socialization in three provinces. We hope the policies at the national and the local levels can be harmonized soon. We also hope that with the awareness of migration, more local governments could formulate local regulation on migrant workers' protection,” said Farid.

The programme that is implemented by three UN agencies (IOM, UNDP, and UN Women), aims to enhance migration governance in Indonesia by supporting government capacities in evidence-based, gender-responsive migration management at national and sub-national levels. The extension of the programme includes additional activities such as national symposium of migration best practices to other provinces by UNDP, impact assessment of capacity building by UN Women, and socialization of Global Compact for Migration (GCM) to universities by IOM.

“GCM is something new for many people around the world. This is the first time that the government comes together and said that they want to work together with the common agenda. So far, we have done socialization to local stakeholders in three provinces, and conduct Migration Governance Indicators Focus Group Discussion with the involvement of 29 ministries and agencies coming together. It is good to have a 6-month extension to socialize GCM to broader stakeholders,” said Jeff Labovitz, Chief of Mission of IOM Indonesia.

This joint programme funded by the Migration Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MMPTF) aims to support the inter-institutional coordination processes to apply a 'whole of government' and a 'whole of society' approach to migration governance and the implementation of the National Action Plan for the Global Compact for Migration.