Award
–
Tony Luka Elumelu, a principal programme officer, Free Movement and Tourism Directorate, ECOWAS, shines at intensive course on migration policy in Senegal
LIVING up to the high reputation of ECOWAS as a trail blazer in regional integration matters, a staff of the ECOWAS Commission has distinguished himself at the just-ended intensive course on Migration Policy for Regional Economic Communities, RECs, in Dakar, Senegal.
Tony Luka Elumelu, a principal programme officer, PPO, in the Commission’s Free Movement and Tourism Directorate put up an outstanding performance with excellent grades in the five-module course jointly organised by the African Union and the United Nation’s Dakar-based African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, IDEP.
Elumelu, who served with the Nigerian Immigration Service before joining the commission in 2008, topped the class in all the five modules – on the African Union Migration Policy Framework for Africa; Reforming and aligning national legislation with sub-regional and international Conventions; regional and national migration policies, data collection and analysis; and migration, human rights and security-related issues.
The African Union’s Migration Policy Framework and its objectives were presented to the 16 participants from the Common Market for East and Southern Africa, COMESA, Economic Community of Central African States, CEEAC, East African Community, ECA, Southern African Development Community, SADC, and ECOWAS, who were also taken through the course’s five modules that preceded a written test.
For his distinguished performance, he was presented with a certificate and a plaque by Ibrahima Fall, permanent secretary in Senegal’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, who represented the minister at the closing ceremony on July 26.
Elumelu praised the course organisers, describing his performance as a demonstration of the level of ECOWAS’ achievement in migration. He said the programme provided participants with an opportunity to share relevant information and knowledge on migration, one of the key pillars of regional integration.
According to the organisers, the course was to guide policymakers in RECs on the “formulation of migration policies that will enhance regional integration and actively contribute to the implementation of countries’ development strategies.”
It was also “to provide policymakers with the required knowledge and the appropriate tools to develop migration policies at the intra-regional and inter-regional levels, and introduce participants to possible institutional architecture that can enable a better contribution of migrants to the economic development of destinations and origin countries and which should be defined in consultation with the different national stakeholders.”
— Aug. 12, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
Tags:
