Roundtable organised by the OECD Development Centre and the European Commission

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Ampang 1, M Floor, GTower Hotel, 199 Jalan Tun Razak, 50400

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The OECD Development Centre initiated a project, co-funded by the EU Thematic Programme on Migration and Asylum, on the interrelations between public policies, migration and development of partner countries. Malaysia is a key potential partner country for this project given the significant weight of migration and its importance for the development of the country. The overall objective of the project is to enhance the capacity of partner countries to incorporate migration aspects into the design and implementation of their development strategies, through a better understanding of the links between sectoral policies and migration.

The project specifically aims to:

• Provide relevant stakeholders, both in EU and partner countries, with evidence-based analysis focused on a limited number of partner countries on:

• The significance of migration in low and middle-income countries' development strategies;

• The impact of public policies (both migration and non-migration-related policies) or of their absence on migration patterns and migrants' situation;

• The impact of decisions adopted in relation to migration on other policy domains and ultimately on the socio-economic development of origin and destination partner countries.

• Increase awareness among partner countries’ relevant interlocutors and provide them with policy recommendations on:

• How to incorporate the migration dimension into the design and implementation of their development strategies and other sectoral policy areas;

• How to ensure policy coherence between migration policies and other policy areas.

• Provide all stakeholders with guidance for policy dialogue.

The project is carried out in the ten partner countries with the full ownership of relevant authorities. It is a state-owned and state-driven process, which implies that the main target group are the governments willing to contribute to the reflections on the link between migration patterns, migration policies and other sectoral policies. Final beneficiaries will be migrants in general from, or in, the partner countries benefitting from improved migration management, but also migrants’ households and communities.

The roundtable will serve as a dialogue platform to introduce what the project entails in further detail and to discuss with all relevant stakeholders in Malaysia the migration-development nexus and the current priorities and policies in place. The workshop will help prioritise key sectors to be studied that can have the most developmental impact through the interrelations between public policies and migration.

Agenda

09:00 – 09:30	Opening remarks Ms. Rafeaah Nahar, Deputy Under Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (tbc) Mr. Ivo Apostolov, Delegation of the European Union to Malaysia Mr. David Khoudour, Head of the Migration and Skills Unit, OECD Development Centre
Session I – Interrelations between public policies and migration: conceptual and methodological frameworks
09:30 – 10:30	This initial session will set the stage for the workshop by presenting the OECD Development Centre’s project on the interrelations between public policies, migration and development of partner countries. The presentation will cover the project’s objectives, the conceptual framework on the different interactions between public policies, migration and development, as well as the fieldwork methodology.
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break
Session II – Research priorities and project implementation
11:00 – 11:45	The purpose of this session is to identify knowledge gaps related to public policies and migration in Malaysia. The empirical analysis that the project will eventually deliver should serve to assist policy makers in better integrating the migration aspects – and taking into account both emigration and immigration trends – in their development strategies.
11:45-12:00	Next steps
12:00 - 13:30	Lunch