Republic of Moldova

Migration to be integrated in Moldova's development policies, with United Nations' support

November 9, 2011, Chisinau - A new project on mainstreaming migration into Moldova’s National Development Strategy was launched today by the Government of Moldova with the support of the United Nations Agencies – the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the key objective of the project is to help the Government of Moldova develop efficient migration policies in the context of the Moldova 2020 National Development Strategy.

The Republic of Moldova is one of only four countries in the world to start such work on migration mainstreaming into national development policies. The project will tackle the effects of migration in a number of areas, such as education, health, demographic security, employment and pension system.

”There are 700,000 Moldovan citizens abroad who send back home money that amount to 25% of the GDP”, said Victor Lutenco, Advisor to Prime-Minister on Social Policies. “In this way, migration is defining the present of Moldovan society and it is bound to be decisive for Moldova’s future. We are looking forward to explore all the opportunities that this project will offer in order to amplify the benefits of migration and reduce its negative impact all aiming at boosting the advancement of the spearhead reforms formulated in the Moldova 2020 strategy”.

The project builds on the recently completed EU-UN Joint Migration for Development Initiative, which explored the linkage between migration and development through five projects carried out throughout Moldova. These covered areas such as remittances, communities, capacities and rights of migrants through addressing the negative impact of migration on children left behind, supporting migrants to achieve their goals, specifically related to the accumulation of savings and investment capital and increasing the financial literacy in rural Moldova, thereby ensuring a more sustainable use of inflow remittances.  The project also helped build partnerships between civil society groups and local authorities in Moldova and other actors from the EU member-states.

“In today’s age of global connections and transnational flows, migrants increasingly maintain and develop social relations, investing simultaneously in home and host countries”, Kaarina Immonen, UN Resident Coordinator, said at the launch event. “I hope the new project will further explore how migrants’ skills and capacities can be beneficial to development in Moldova”.

The project will be carried until December 2012 and will mainly focus on the organization of consultations among Moldovan institutions active in the field of migration and building capacities in assessment, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of migration policies. 

For more information, please contact Ludmila Tiganu, Communications Specialist, UNDP, tel. 269 112, e-mail: ludmila.tiganu@undp.org or Tatiana Jardan, Public Information and Communication Specialist, IOM, tel. 23 29 40 (ext. 112), e-mail: tjardan@iom.int