Under the auspices the United Nations, it has been adopted the first, intergovernmental negotiated agreement to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner. The purpose is to improve the governance on migration, to address the challenges associated with today’s migration, and to strengthen the contribution of migrants and migration to sustainable development.
The Interreg Europe project BeyondEDP is influenced by this agreement. Europe is one of the most important regions in the world in terms of migratory flows; with Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and France hosting the highest numbers of the estimated 31.9 million non-European Union (EU) nationals residing in Europe. Despite the economic crisis, net migration remains positive in the major migrant destination countries. The European Commission has recognised the importance of social economy enterprises in addressing the challenge of migration by dedicating the 2016 Social Innovation Competition to ideas for receiving and integrating refugees.
The policy instruments improved during the BeyondEDP project to support social enterprises are concerned by this agreement. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) considers that “social economy enterprises support and foster people's entrepreneurial tendencies and facilitate their access to business activities, regardless of whether they have the initial financial capital to start up a business. This is particularly true of cooperatives, and so it would be useful and important for programmes promoting social economy enterprises to be rolled out as part of the development cooperation programmes implemented by the European Union in developing countries”. Opinion INT/785 about social economy enterprises as a driver for migrant integration
More information
- International Organisation for Migration (IOM): http://www.iom.int/
