IOM Regional Director (RD) for East & Horn of Africa (E&HA), Mr. Mohammed Abdiker met with Secretary General (SG), for East Africa Community (EAC),  Ambassador Libèrat Mfumukeko in EAC Head Quarters (HQ) in Arusha, Tanzania on 08 October 2019.

The major objective of their meeting was for IOM RD to present his IOM credentials to EAC.

Additionally, they have discussed on current migration trends and challenges in the region and globally especially with regards to youth migration and how IOM as the United Nations (UN) Migration Agency could assist EAC Regional Economic Community (REC) to address them. These included: irregular migration, human trafficking and smuggling, free movement of persons, migration management, and Global Compact on Migration (GCM) etc. They have agreed to have a technical meeting on the aforementioned issues earliest feasible.

The EAC REC currently covers six countries i.e. the United Republic of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.

"EAC needs the IOM technical support for its member states on border management through capacity building" said Ambassador Libérat Mfumukeko, the EAC SG and "EAC can contribute to the costs for the trainings", he added.

"I'm very committed to strengthen the collaboration between IOM and EAC as one the two REC's having their HQ's in the E&HA region" said, Mr. Mohammed Abdiker, IOM RD for E&HA by the end of his encounter with SG of EAC, Ambassador Libérat Mfumukeko.

IOM RD, Mr. Mohammed abdiker was accompanied in his meeting with SG of EAC by IOM Chief of Mission (CoM) to Tanzania, Dr. Qasim Sufi and the Manager for the IOM African Capacity Building Center (ACBC) in Moshi, Tanzania, Mr. Nelson Goncalves while from EAC side there was the Assistant Commissioner for Political and Legal Affairs, Mr. Stephen Niyonzima who was present in the meeting.

For more information, please contact: Mr. Nelson Goncalves at email: ngoncalves@iom.int or tel. +255688700090