27 migration officers from IGAD member states completed the first postgraduate study course on migration at the Kenya Institute of Migration Studies (KIMS)

27 migration officers from IGAD member states completed the first postgraduate study course on migration at the Kenya Institute of Migration Studies (KIMS) in Nairobi today. Despite the impact of CORVID-19, the students successfully defended their projects virtually. Germany and EU supported the establishment of the diploma course through the Better Migration Management Programme in collaboration with the University of Nairobi, Maastricht University and Department of Immigration Services. The study course aims to improve and harmonise the migration management in the Horn of Africa region.

The students worked on various cases for their thesis i.e. human rights challenges for Kenyan workers in the Gulf Region, effects of forced migration on the environment in Uganda or the role of the Sudanese Government within the Khartoum Process.

About KIMS

The KIMS is the regional centre of excellence for migration studies, affiliated with the Department of Immigration Services and hosted by the University of Nairobi. The Institute will be open to train migration practitioners from all IGAD member states (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, the Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda). KIMS will combine academic excellence with valuable practical skills to better equip regional practitioners to manage the many-faced challenges of migration management in the 21st century.

The post-graduate diploma course is a prestigious flagship course and will be taught by governmental migration practitioners, international experts from the University of Nairobi and the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance. The course combines practical hands-on skills with academic expertise in an intense academic year. The course will analyse contemporary migration patterns, identify its causes and consequences, its risks and challenges and formulate effective policy solutions. It will also benefit from a state-of-the-art document fraud examination laboratory with the support of the Better Migration Management (BMM) Programme.

Both, the KIMS and the post-graduate diploma in migration studies, have been brought about with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and International Organization for Migration (IOM) under the Better Migration Management Programme (BMM). BMM is financed by the European Union through the EU Trust Fund for Africa and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The overall objective of BMM is to improve national and regional migration management within the Horn of Africa in support of the Khartoum Process.