The Director General of International Organization for Migration (IOM) Ambassador William Lacy Swing has commended "the dynamic leadership that Sri Lanka has provided for the Colombo Process (CP) - the Regional Consultative Process on the management of overseas employment and contractual labour for countries of origins in Asia". He noted that "the outcome of the recent 3rd CP Senior Officials Meeting held in Colombo projects the prospects for further progress". Ambassador Swing in particular noted the efforts taken by Sri Lanka as a CP Chair to work closely with the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD), a group of the 11 CP States and 7 labour receiving countries, in view to creating a better environment for migrants. Ambassador Swing said he intends to participate at the CP Ministerial Conference which is scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka in mid- 2016.
Ambassador Swing made these observations in responding to the statement delivered by Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha during the General Debate of the 106th IOM Council, which concluded in Geneva last Friday.
In Sri Lanka's statement to the Council Ambassador Aryasinha had noted that the recently concluded 3rd Senior Officials Meeting of the Colombo Process (CP) had agreed to work on tangible actions on five thematic areas identified by the road map proposed by Sri Lanka - namely skills recognition, ethical labour recruitment, pre-departure orientation (PDO), safer, faster and cheaper transfer of remittances and to develop a resource base on labour market trends. He said the CP will also work on 'migration and health' related issues under PDO, and to actively participate in the process of developing the indicators for implementing the migration related SDGs. He added that the CP had also strengthened its operational modalities, agreed to introduce a self-funding mechanism which will ensure predictability to the CPs regular work and meetings, and had enhanced cooperation with other groups, including with the ADD, the EU through the Asia-EU Dialogue and the GFMD.
Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka
Geneva
28 November 2015
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