Improving partnerships within the Mediterranean basin

INTERVIEW REPORT

Author: Emanuela Paoletti, University of Oxford

Researcher: Emanuela Paoletti, University of Oxford

Interviewee: Jamal Al-Grable, General Secretary of International Organization for Peace, Care and Relief (IOPCR)

Sub-regional cooperation and its effectiveness

The IOPCR is an NGO who works on refugees and migrants in Libya. It acts as intermediator between the government and other NGOs in Libya. In particular, it collaborates actively with:

International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD),
UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees) and
Comitato Italiano per i Rifugiati (CIR).

They all have an office in the same building where the IOPCR is based. Since its creation it has actively sought to strengthen the collaboration with other organisations working on similar issues.

We seek to promote partnerships with other organisations and implement practical programmes. These include providing assistance to migrants that are returned from Italy. It also provides assistance to UNHCR to address the issue of asylum. In fact it collaborates with UNHCR on a daily basis to provide assistance to asylum seekers and refugees who are detained or to make sure that the collaboration with the government proceeds as smoothly as possible. IOPCR also works on research. It produces studies and different kind of researches on migration and asylum in Libya. For example recently with ICMPD we have produced two studies that provide a comprehensive survey of the situation in terms of migration in Libya. The study will be presented at the conference held by the UK Border Agency on 20-23 January 2010 and it will be made available to the public shortly. IOPCR has also organised a number of meetings and workshops also dealing with migration and asylum seekers. Another important issue that is at the core of IOPCR is detention of asylum seekers. There are some are many detention centres where migrants are held. For example all the migrants that have been returned from Italy have been held in these centres. What we do is to organise teams that go and visit these centres to provide some sort of assistance. So a team made up by representatives from the organisations mentioned above does these regular visits. This year it has been particularly hard because many migrants have been returned from Italy. However thanks to our hard work migration has also diminished.

The EU and other relevant actors

We are an NGO and we tend to collaborate with other NGOs, or organisation of our same size. We do not collaborate directly with the EU although the project with CIR and ICMPD is funded by the EU. We have however, cooperation with similar organisations working on migration across Africa. We are also trying to develop cooperation with formal authorities, i.e. ministries and other governmental agencies. Yet most of our activity centres on Libya.

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INTERVIEW REPORT