Policy and program specialists from government agencies, civil society and international organizations focused on migration health will exchange information on policies, programs, best practices and lessons learned.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE

• The workshop will be designed to contribute to the development of the Counter-Smuggling Work Plan of the Liaison Officer Network to Combat Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking, of the Regional Conference on Migration, with the aim of promoting medium- and long-term strategic policies and actions at the regional level.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

During the workshop, input is expected to be generated by the RCM Member Countries under the following specific objectives:

• To have a counter-smuggling regional planning tool in place, with a comprehensive approach;
• To strengthen regional coordination and follow-up on actions and policies developed on this matter;
• To offer regional common goals in terms of preventing and combating migrant smuggling, including protection of the most vulnerable migrants, in accordance with the Guidelines established by the RCM (http://www.programamesoamerica.iom.int/sites/default/files/LINEAMIENTOS%20ingles.pdf);
• To enable the development of more standardized operating procedures in the different countries in the region;
• To promote collaboration and complementariness with other regional spaces addressing the topic to a certain extent (for example, the Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Persons and Migrant Smuggling; the Commission of Police Chiefs and Directors for Central America, the Caribbean and Colombia; the Ad Hoc Working Group on Extraregional Migrants (RCM), etc.).

This workshop was designed jointly and thanks to the collaboration of the Technical Secretariat of the Regional Conference on Migration (RCM), Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD), the Regional Office for Central America, North America and the Caribbean of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Environment, Climate Change and Migration Division (MECC) of the same organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.