IOM launches communication campaign to promote more balanced narrative on return and sustainable reintegration

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched today a communication campaign to promote a more balanced narrative on return and sustainable reintegration. It is the result of a worldwide collaboration led by the EU-IOM Knowledge Management Hub (KMH) and funded by the European Union, together with 11 IOM Country Offices* and national stakeholders.

Inspired by the need to balance perspectives on this matter, the campaign aims to promote a more realistic and fact-based narrative on return migration and sustainable reintegration as a multidimensional process. The campaign seeks to bring attention to migrants’ experiences after return and on the opportunities and challenges brought by their reintegration process. The campaign showcases how IOM’s Integrated Approach to Reintegration works in practice, through the views of returning migrants, their families and communities, and local stakeholders, who are all central in contributing to sustainable reintegration. Through this campaign, IOM not only shares good practices from return and reintegration programmes, but also promotes a stronger focus on the protection of migrants’ rights and on the benefits of enhancing ownership of communities of origin and governments, as guided by IOM’s Policy on the Full Spectrum of Return, Readmission and Reintegration.

The materials produced – available in several languages - include short videos of migrant stories, a podcast series facilitating dialogue and exchanges among experts and practitioners, and capacity development videos, particularly suited for training activities. All these complement the extensive materials targeted to reintegration practitioners and stakeholders, developed in the past years by the KMH and available on the Return and Reintegration Platform, which will be soon expanded into the Migrant Protection Platform.

Finally, the campaign aspires to serve as a reference for all countries around the world intending to advocate for sustainable reintegration programming across all levels, and to improve the cooperation with local, national and international actors and partners for the implementation of such actions.

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The KMH was implemented from 2017 until 2022, as part of the Pilot Action on Voluntary Return and Sustainable, Community-Based Reintegration funded by the European Union.

* Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Malawi, Morocco, the Philippines, Senegal and Serbia.

For more information contact:
Giulia Brioschi, Communications Officer, gbrioschi@iom.int