Governments

In many migration corridors, the vulnerability experienced by migrant workers demonstrates the need for strengthened government regulation and enforcement. Inconsistencies across jurisdictions, coupled with uneven enforcement capacity, lead to gaps in migrant worker protection. IRIS supports governments to address these issues through assistance in: 

  • advocacy and policy development 
  • policy dialogue at national, sub-national, bilateral, and regional levels 
  • capacity building 
  • networking 
  • facilitation of public-private dialogue platforms 

In doing so, we take a whole-of-government approach to promoting ethical recruitment. This means facilitating dialogue within and between governments, between national, sub-national and local/municipal authorities, and between governments and other stakeholders, including businesses and civil society. It also entails supporting national action plans, road maps and bilateral arrangements on ethical recruitment, and the development and strengthening of labour migration and recruitment policies and regulations.  

IRIS supports the new Global Policy Network on Recruitment, a Member State-led collaboration to strengthen recruitment regulation and migrant worker protection.  In addition, IRIS convenes global and regional conferences to share experiences, facilitate learning, identify common challenges and disseminate good practices.  Read more about how IRIS supports international dialogue to strengthen international recruitment regulation here. 

To enable governments to better design and implement relevant strategies, IOM has created a modular training programme for national and sub-national authorities involved in facilitating cross-border recruitment, including policy makers, licensing authorities, regulators, labour attachés and inspection and enforcement agencies across relevant Ministries. Based on the IRIS Standard and the Montreal Recommendations on Recruitment, the programme supports greater awareness and capacity on topics related to ethical recruitment in the fields of public policy, regulation, enforcement, migrant protection and bilateral cooperation.   

Montreal Recommendations themes

The programme complements the Global Policy Network by supporting senior policy makers, regulators and practitioners to address challenges, identify solutions and highlight promising practices in recruitment regulation.  Modules are designed to support the development and implementation of national action plans, road maps and bilateral arrangements on ethical recruitment, and the development of new labour migration and recruitment policies.  The training programme is part of the Global Policy Network’s multi-pillar approach to enhance migrant worker protection and encourage recruitment regulation that “levels the playing field” to create an enabling environment for ethical recruiters. Governments are also encouraged to refer the IRIS Handbook for Governments on Ethical Recruitment and Migrant Worker Protection for detailed guidance. 

IRIS is referred to under Objective 6 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration; and a number of other inter-governmental frameworks.