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The Cabinet has approved the National Migration Policy (NMP) which has been formulated to manage the country’s internal, intra-regional and international migration flows.
The policy also seeks to protect the welfare of the about three million Ghanaians living abroad and control the inflow of illegal migrants into the country, with the view to reaping the benefits of migration.

A sensitisation workshop was held in Accra yesterday to educate security officers, directors of the various ministries, regional coordinating directors and metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives on the provisions of the bill.

Held on the theme: “Migration and development: Maximising the benefits,” the workshop was organised by the Ministry of the Interior and the Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee on Migration.

Interior Ministry

In his address, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, Mr James Agalga, said migration was increasingly being recognised as a major human development issue which, if effectively managed, could contribute towards socio-economic development.

He said migration had played a central role in the livelihood strategies of both rural and urban populations in Ghana.

He said the nature and scope of human movement kept changing with emerging global trends and indicated that the dynamics called for frequent examination of the issue of migration, sharing of knowledge and reviewing of response strategies.

For instance, he said, from January to June 2015, 3,500 Ghanaians had reached Italy using irregular means of migration. “This calls for drastic intervention on the part of respective governments globally,” Mr Agalga said.

Migration policy

He said the NMP had made provisions for a number of interventions to complement other interventions to solve migration problems in the country. He affirmed the government’s commitment to implement the policy through a multi-stakeholder approach.

He said the Ministry of the Interior was collaborating with the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) to infuse the migration policy into the medium and long-term development agenda of the NDPC.

Urban migration

The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, said rural-urban migration was a worrying phenomenon in Ghana, as more people moved to the city in search of greener pastures. He called for measures to address the challenges faced by the internal migrants.