Rome, 13 March 2018 - UNIDO ITPO Italy, in coordination with the UNIDO Office in Brussels, participated as speaker to the Mutual Learning Workshop “Migration: turning challenges into opportunities” held on March 13^rd at the European Commission Office in Rome.

During the morning session ITPO Italy gave a speech on the UNIDO’s capacities and work to create growth and job opportunities locally while addressing migration root-causes. In this connection, UNIDO focuses on strengthening the migration-development nexus because Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development (ISID) can be an effective measure to directly or indirectly prevent and mitigate negative consequences of migration. UNIDO’s Technical Cooperation interventions can have an indirect impact on mobility for example by giving people the choice to (not) migrate (ir)regularly and/or return. At the same time, some interventions directly target migrants or displaced persons as well as host communities in countries of origin, transit and destination, as happened with the project “Vocational training on apparel manufacture for Syrian refugees in Turkey” presented as a successful case in the context of the conference.

The initiative, which represented an interesting occasion to compare ideas, experiences and solutions to stimulate discussion and mutual learning on migration issues, was funded by the European Commission and under the patronage of the European Commission, Directorate General for Migration and Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The workshop hosted Italian and international experts, representing organizations and projects such as OIS, THE NODE, European Commission, WHO World Health Organization, AMREF, and many others.