Morocco Offers to Host First African Regional Forum on Marrakech Global Compact Implementation

Morocco has offered to host, on 10 December 2020 in Marrakech, the first African Regional Forum for the implementation of the Marrakech Global compact, which will serve as the African preparatory meeting for the 2022 International Migration Review Forum.

The proposal came in the report of King Mohammed VI on the follow-up to the establishment of the African Migrations Observatory in Morocco, presented by head of the government, Saad Dine El Otmani, on Monday before the 33rd Summit of the African Union (AU), held in Addis Ababa.

Morocco suggests hosting this 1st African Regional Forum “in order to commemorate the second anniversary of the Marrakech Global Compact and to make it coincide with the celebration of International Human Rights Day,” stresses the report.

 

“To take stock of its African implementation, we are convinced that there is no more symbolic setting than the very place where it was adopted,” the report notes.

Through the holding in Morocco of an African regional forum on the implementation of the Compact, “our Continent is assuming its responsibilities, thereby maintaining the necessary momentum around a multilateral management of the migration issue that is beneficial to the people of Africa, and in particular its youth,” the document states.

 

King Mohammed VI, as Africa’s Leader on the issue of migration, also expresses, in this report, Morocco’s readiness “to share its national experience in migration management – recognized by the United Nations as a model that can inspire other countries – with sister African countries that so wish.”

 

The national immigration and asylum strategy, “at once com-prehensive, humanistic and responsible, is in fact perfectly in line with the provisions and objectives of the Marrakech Global Compact,” the Sovereign says, stressing the need to dispel any confusion between migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons.

 

Similarly, the regularization operations from which undocumented migrants have benefited in Morocco are part of the Pact’s efforts to promote legal channels for migrants, the report points out. Migrants’ access to education, work and health not only contribute to their integration, but also to the creation of favorable conditions that enable them to contribute to the enrichment and development of the places where they settled, the document added.

 

Therefore, the measures taken by Morocco to eradicate the smuggling of migrants and the adoption of a legal framework to combat human trafficking are designed to reduce the situations of fragility and risks faced by migrants and to protect and respect their rights, the document says.

 

Morocco’s migration policy is a fundamental dimension of the Kingdom’s African policy, in that it aims, inter alia, to combat the root causes of migration, according to the Monarch, who believes that through the integration of the migration-development nexus in its public policies, “Morocco is effectively helping to promote the emergence, development and prosperity of the African continent as a whole”.

 

In coordination and cooperation with its neighbors and partners, Morocco implements its migration policy to ensure that migration to and from Morocco “takes place in a safe, orderly and lawful manner,” the report notes.

 

Furthermore, by establishing the African Migrations Observatory, Africa is implementing the Marrakech Global Compact for Migration. Africa is thus establishing itself as a central actor in the implementation of the Marrakech Global Compact. By recognizing the importance of mutually beneficial migration governance for countries of origin, transit and destination, “our continent is living up to its commitments”.