Launching the ‘Meeting the Development Challenges of Migration (MED_MIG) Project’

IPS recently launched the ‘Meeting the Development Challenges of Migration (MED_MIG) Project’, which aims to facilitate and conduct and timely research to fill knowledge gaps in developing effective policies to maximize development benefits of migration. The project is funded by the End of Phase 1 Opportunity Fund of the Think Tank Initiative (TTI).

Under the project a number of activities are earmarked for 2014 including training of researchers at IPS, targeted policy oriented research, establishing a Migration Resource Centre (MRC) within the IPS library, hosting of a workshop and an international conference, and disseminating research findings through multiple channels.

The launch coincided with the First Steering Committee, which was set up under the MED_MIG project to provide guidance and technical inputs to the IPS research team to ensure the policy relevance and quality of research outputs. The Committee consists of officials from Ministry of Labour and Labour Relations (MLLR) and Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE), representatives from Association of Licenced Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) and International Labour Organisation (ILO), an academic from University of Colombo (UoC), and a migration consultant. Dr. Saman Kelegama, the Executive Director, IPS delivered the Welcome Address while Dr. Nisha Arunatilke and Janaka Wijayasiri, Research Fellows chaired the Launch and Committee meeting. Chandana Karunaratne, Research Officer and Nipuni Perera, Research Assistant presented proposed studies under the project. Suwendrani Jayaratne, and Dharshani Premaratne, Research Officers participated in the discussions at the event.