ICMPD launches conference on migration management policies

The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), in cooperation with relevant ministries and international partners, on Tuesday held a conference on lessons learned from the evidence-based Immigration Policies Development Project, a management system to unify data sources of foreigners residing in the Kingdom, in its first phase.

Interior Minister Mazen Faraya said in opening remarks that based on the ministry's role to develop its services and systems, and due to its legal jurisdiction on foreigners' entry to and residence in the Kingdom, and recent regional circumstances, an urgent need emerged for adopting a new management approach of their files, basically depending on migration governance in view of the existence of multiple sources of foreigners' data, which made it hard to track their records.

Faraya said his ministry, in cooperation with relevant security bodies and ministries, adopted the immigration policies development project to unify data sources in order to arrive at accurate records and figures of foreigners residing in the Kingdom, "so that their numbers can be handled in a systemic statistical method to draw up policies and take evidence-based decisions in a manner to achieve the national interest."

During the conference, which was organized in cooperation with the ministries of Interior, Labor, Planning and International Cooperation and Health, as well as the Public Security Department, Faraiah commended the Danish government and the ICMPD for their support and contributions to the implementation of the first phase of this national project.

The project's work team reaffirmed that participatory institutional work among the ministries has led to the formation of a national task force and a steering committee comprising the partner ministries to exchange data and coordinate among them, which led to building a central database for non-Jordanian residents.