The \u201cDeep Dive\u201d workshop, held in Pretoria, South Africa,\u00a0 brought together senior officials and technical experts from both institutions to map out priority areas for collaboration. The meeting builds on a memorandum of understanding signed in October 2025 and subsequent engagements earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The initiative reflects growing recognition that migration and economic development are closely interconnected, particularly in a region where cross-border movement plays a central role in trade and labour markets.
\nAfDB Director General for Southern Africa Kennedy Mbekeani said mobility is essential to regional integration and growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cEconomic development cannot advance without regional integration, and regional integration cannot advance without the movement of people,\u201d Mbekeani said.<\/p>\n
Mbekeani said the partnership would combine financing, policy expertise and technical capacity to address challenges that neither institution can solve alone.<\/p>\n
From IOM\u2019s perspective, the focus is on ensuring migration is safe, orderly and productive.<\/p>\n
IOM Sub-Regional Director Yitna Getachew highlighted the scale and impact of migration globally and within Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome 60% of international migrants are workers contributing to development, while displacement continues to affect millions,\u201d Getachew said.<\/p>\n
Getachew said the challenge now is to translate those realities into practical policy and investment action.<\/p>\n
–AfDB\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36333,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-37804","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have advanced plans to deepen cooperation in Southern Africa, following a high-level workshop focused on mobility and development.","published_date":"","news_description":"The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have advanced plans to deepen cooperation in Southern Africa, following a high-level workshop focused on mobility and development.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37805,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37804\/revisions\/37805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}