Objectives
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International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPPD) Vienna – a model for CDCDI
Luciana Lăzărescu - Integration Researcher
10 May 2013
In February 2013, a delegation from CDCDI made a study visit to Vienna at the headquarters of International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
At the time when the project Research and Documentation Center for Immigrants’ Integration” was conceived, ICMPD was one of the successful models we inspired from. Now when we saw what is all about, it became an ideal.
Background
ICMPD was founded at Austria and Switzerland common initiative, in the conditions in which the pressure exerted by migration, the lack of a common consultation platform between states and the absence of certain concepts to define the migration phenomenon were a happy turn of events.
ICMPD mission is to contribute to an integrated management, sustainable and oriented towards the migration phenomenon in the future, base don evidence, in partnership with all important actors at local, regional and international levels.
ICMPD in figures
The centre is now an international, intergovernmental organization, which în 20 years of activity has come to unite 15 member-states, based in Vienna, with a permanent office in Brussels and local offices in several countries, according to the implemented projects. Romania became a member of this organization in 2010. ICMPD cooperates with more than 150 partners and has collaboration contracts signed with more than 30 countries. The 158 employees of all the organization offices area now implementing approximately 60 projects, most of which financed from European funds.
Organization activities and structure
The main fields of activity of the organization are: facilitating dialogue in migration field, increasing capacity of organizations and institutions so as to respond migration and research challenges. These three lines of action give good results due to the combination between academic research, policy studies and thorough knowledge of the ground realities faced by practitioners in the migration field.
In time, ICMPD has specialized in various areas of migration, grouping its activities in competency centers.
At present, the organization operates with 6 competency centers in the following fields: Asylum, Management of frontiers and visas, Illegal Migration and Return, Migration and Legal Migration and Integration, Migration and Development, Human Trafficking.
As the aim of CDCDI activities is to contribute to the improvement of knowledge, policies and practices related to immigrants’ integration, we were mainly interested in the Competency Centre for Legal Migration and Integration.
Competency Center for Legal Migration and Integration
The Competency Center for Legal Migration and Integration implements projects in several areas of interest for the organization: management of work migration and of highly-qualified employees; academic management and research; integration policies; migration management; family reunion; dialogue in migration field.
The Competency Centre for Legal Migration and Integration came into being in 2010, with the aim of doing comparative studies in the field of integration policies and measures. Naturally, on the basis of research results, the center has come to make recommendations of realistic and pragmatic options and to develop innovative approaches, focused specific problems of integration.
Another concern of the Competency Centre for Illegal Migration and Integration is monitoring the integration indicators. Integration indicators have been defined at European Union level and part of the member-states are already implementing them in various fields. In this field, the objective is to measure the success of integration policies, by measuring and comparing the indicators.
ICMPD collaboration with academics has already become a tradition and take place in a few favorite fields: formation, monitoring, analysis and thorough research, formulation of migration policies.
Integration. Operative definitions
In ICMPD’s view, an immigrant is successfully integrated if:
- “he or she knows German well enough to have access on labour market, to attend formation courses or to continue his or her education and to interact with public institutions;
- is capable to support himself or herself economically;
- respects the Austrian laws and the EU legislation, as well as the common set of values.”
As integration is a two-way process involving immigrants and society, the condition for successful integration is a society that offers immigrants equal opportunities. An inclusive society is defined by mobility and openness, giving all its individuals the possibility to live freely and access to institutions, goods and service son the principle of equal chances, without being discriminated because of their origin, language or skin color.
The dimensions of integration are: structural, social, cultural and political. The first dimension refers to the participation in economic life, education, access to health services and systems of protection and social insurance; the second dimension aims at the participation in cultural and social life, and learning the host country values, and the third one refers to the participation in taking political decisions, regardless the level.
Integration policies are defined by ICMPD as ”the sum of supranational, state and local interventions on integration processes at local, national, regional and international levels.” These interventions are reflected in the areas of learning the language, education, labor market, social and cultural life and values.
Trends in integration approach
Lately, there has been an increase of the importance given to immigrants’ access to labor market so as to integrate successfully. Thus, the new measures are oriented towards the assessment of professional competency, the access to vocational courses, the recognition of formal qualifications and integration”on the fly” in labor market.
Lately, we are also trying to approach cases individually, with thee help of mentors or ”integration guides” (the equivalent of cultural mediators). Both solutions proved to be efficient, but very costly.
Other trends in integration, more or less validated by practice are to reward individuals’ success in integration and to sanction failure. This approach is disputable, due mainly to the fact that more the individuals’ efforts are assessed more and less the opportunities offered by society. Furthermore, failure in integration can be determined by a series of factors, both subjective and objective, which must be taken into careful consideration when giving sanctions.
ICMPD budget
In 2013, the organization budget amounts to 18.402.000 euro, in constant increase compared to previous years (in 2010 the budget allotted had been of 12.430.000 euro). The financing sources come mainly from gained projects, only 5% of budget being the member-states contribution.
Conclusions
Like ICMPD, CDCDI aims to reach the performance of being a good partner for the Romanian state and academic circles with a view of conceiving policies for migration and immigrants’ integration and offering expertise in the field to other researchers, professionals, organizations or states that show interest.
At the time when the project Research and Documentation Center for Immigrants’ Integration” was conceived, ICMPD was one of the successful models we inspired from. Now when we saw what is all about, it became an ideal.
Background
ICMPD was founded at Austria and Switzerland common initiative, in the conditions in which the pressure exerted by migration, the lack of a common consultation platform between states and the absence of certain concepts to define the migration phenomenon were a happy turn of events.
ICMPD mission is to contribute to an integrated management, sustainable and oriented towards the migration phenomenon in the future, base don evidence, in partnership with all important actors at local, regional and international levels.
ICMPD in figures
The centre is now an international, intergovernmental organization, which în 20 years of activity has come to unite 15 member-states, based in Vienna, with a permanent office in Brussels and local offices in several countries, according to the implemented projects. Romania became a member of this organization in 2010. ICMPD cooperates with more than 150 partners and has collaboration contracts signed with more than 30 countries. The 158 employees of all the organization offices area now implementing approximately 60 projects, most of which financed from European funds.
Organization activities and structure
The main fields of activity of the organization are: facilitating dialogue in migration field, increasing capacity of organizations and institutions so as to respond migration and research challenges. These three lines of action give good results due to the combination between academic research, policy studies and thorough knowledge of the ground realities faced by practitioners in the migration field.
In time, ICMPD has specialized in various areas of migration, grouping its activities in competency centers.
At present, the organization operates with 6 competency centers in the following fields: Asylum, Management of frontiers and visas, Illegal Migration and Return, Migration and Legal Migration and Integration, Migration and Development, Human Trafficking.
As the aim of CDCDI activities is to contribute to the improvement of knowledge, policies and practices related to immigrants’ integration, we were mainly interested in the Competency Centre for Legal Migration and Integration.
Competency Center for Legal Migration and Integration
The Competency Center for Legal Migration and Integration implements projects in several areas of interest for the organization: management of work migration and of highly-qualified employees; academic management and research; integration policies; migration management; family reunion; dialogue in migration field.
The Competency Centre for Legal Migration and Integration came into being in 2010, with the aim of doing comparative studies in the field of integration policies and measures. Naturally, on the basis of research results, the center has come to make recommendations of realistic and pragmatic options and to develop innovative approaches, focused specific problems of integration.
Another concern of the Competency Centre for Illegal Migration and Integration is monitoring the integration indicators. Integration indicators have been defined at European Union level and part of the member-states are already implementing them in various fields. In this field, the objective is to measure the success of integration policies, by measuring and comparing the indicators.
ICMPD collaboration with academics has already become a tradition and take place in a few favorite fields: formation, monitoring, analysis and thorough research, formulation of migration policies.
Integration. Operative definitions
In ICMPD’s view, an immigrant is successfully integrated if:
- “he or she knows German well enough to have access on labour market, to attend formation courses or to continue his or her education and to interact with public institutions;
- is capable to support himself or herself economically;
- respects the Austrian laws and the EU legislation, as well as the common set of values.”
As integration is a two-way process involving immigrants and society, the condition for successful integration is a society that offers immigrants equal opportunities. An inclusive society is defined by mobility and openness, giving all its individuals the possibility to live freely and access to institutions, goods and service son the principle of equal chances, without being discriminated because of their origin, language or skin color.
The dimensions of integration are: structural, social, cultural and political. The first dimension refers to the participation in economic life, education, access to health services and systems of protection and social insurance; the second dimension aims at the participation in cultural and social life, and learning the host country values, and the third one refers to the participation in taking political decisions, regardless the level.
Integration policies are defined by ICMPD as ”the sum of supranational, state and local interventions on integration processes at local, national, regional and international levels.” These interventions are reflected in the areas of learning the language, education, labor market, social and cultural life and values.
Trends in integration approach
Lately, there has been an increase of the importance given to immigrants’ access to labor market so as to integrate successfully. Thus, the new measures are oriented towards the assessment of professional competency, the access to vocational courses, the recognition of formal qualifications and integration”on the fly” in labor market.
Lately, we are also trying to approach cases individually, with thee help of mentors or ”integration guides” (the equivalent of cultural mediators). Both solutions proved to be efficient, but very costly.
Other trends in integration, more or less validated by practice are to reward individuals’ success in integration and to sanction failure. This approach is disputable, due mainly to the fact that more the individuals’ efforts are assessed more and less the opportunities offered by society. Furthermore, failure in integration can be determined by a series of factors, both subjective and objective, which must be taken into careful consideration when giving sanctions.
ICMPD budget
In 2013, the organization budget amounts to 18.402.000 euro, in constant increase compared to previous years (in 2010 the budget allotted had been of 12.430.000 euro). The financing sources come mainly from gained projects, only 5% of budget being the member-states contribution.
Conclusions
Like ICMPD, CDCDI aims to reach the performance of being a good partner for the Romanian state and academic circles with a view of conceiving policies for migration and immigrants’ integration and offering expertise in the field to other researchers, professionals, organizations or states that show interest.
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