Conference with government, civil society and academics to discuss difficult issues relating to migration.
The Doha Dialogue is an annual three day conference hosted by the Qatar Red Crescent Society and the IFRC in Doha. The first edition was held in June 2014 and brought together international NGOs, governments, civil society representatives and academics to address the challenges of labour migration and expatriate workers. The conference aimed to address best practices and methods of collaboration. It also aimed to evaluate ways to improve relevant labour laws, policies and programmes to protect the rights and interests of expatriate workers. The first Doha Dialogue included a workshop for Red Cross Red Crescent partners to establish a cross-regional platform for cooperation on labour migration between Asia-Pacific and Middle East and North Africa. A follow-on conference to the first Doha Dialogue took place in Manila in 2015.
The Manila Conference on Labour Migration took place over two days in Manila, on 12-13 May 2015, hosted by the Philippine Red Cross and the IFRC. The conference provided a forum for discussion of labour migration with a specific focus on female domestic workers. Representatives from Ministries of Labour and Foreign Affairs were invited to participate in the hope that their presence would encourage greater discussion and local and inter-regional collaboration between the authorities and the humanitarian sector.
About 100 participants attended the Doha Dialogue in Doha (including 50 participants from outside Qatar).
Design. [P1] Focuses on the need to improve labour migrant policy in Qatar. [P4] Designed to advocate for respect of the rights of labour migrants.
Implementation. [P6] Serves as a forum for capacity building, support and common understanding on migration.
- There were no major difficulties beyond the logistics and organization such an event requires.
- Involve major actors in this event and engage with representative sponsors sensitive to the issue.
- Important to make this a regular event because long term dialogue and involvement are required to generate significant change on major issues.
- One important key is to mobilize sponsors and ensure representative participation from all the actors involved (or supposed to be involved) in such issues.
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