The Government of Ukraine, supported by IOM, the UN Migration Agency, concluded a follow-up assessment to evaluate the country’s migration policies against the Migration Governance Indicators (MGI) — a set of 90 criteria developed to help countries advance their migration systems in order to maximize the benefits of migration to the country and to minimize the risks for the migrants and the whole society.

The newly published report captures progress made by Ukraine since the initial assessment in 2018-2019 under six dimensions of migration governance that include: migrants rights, whole-of-government approach, partnerships, well-being of migrants, mobility dimension of crisis, safe, orderly and regular migration. In the past three years, Ukrainian authorities succeeded in mainstreaming the migration agenda in the key state policies, such as the Integrated Border Management Strategy, the National Human Rights Strategy, the National Youth Strategy until 2030, the National Economic Strategy until 2030 and others. Other achievements include the launch of the State Determination Procedure enabling stateless persons to apply for citizenship and the creation of the Coordination Council for Protection of Immigrants' Rights by the Ombudsperson’s Office. All these achievements have been made possible through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to migration governance.

As reiterated by the UN Resident Coordinator Osnat Lubrani, throughout next year, the Government of Ukraine and UN agencies will engage in formulation of the partnership framework for Ukraine for a four-year period: ”The MGI assessment findings will contribute further to structure and focus this dialogue along key priority areas of migration governance that have been identified.”

“More than just an assessment, the MGI is a voluntary and consultative process. The MGI provides a space for the government and other stakeholders to build a common understanding of challenges and to promote solutions,” said Elizabeth Warn, the Deputy Chief of IOM Mission in Ukraine in her opening remarks at the event.

The Deputy State Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Anatolii Kutsevol indicated that the MGI process has contributed to the active discussion aimed at defining priorities in migration management in Ukraine. “We achieved certain positive changes in the development of migration policies and are determined to follow our commitments in this direction.”

The report highlighted areas where more efforts can help improve migration governance in Ukraine: from lifting obstacles for persons with complementary protection status, who wish to access naturalization procedures, to ensuring that migrants, regardless of their status, have access to healthcare and labour market in Ukraine.

Ukraine is among 84 countries that participate in the MGI initiative, launched by IOM in 2015. Through this process, IOM seeks to generate a dialogue between migration-management authorities, international partners, NGOs and academia, as only a coordinated response can ensure well-governed migration that benefits all. The MGI exercise brings Ukraine closer to many other countries that aim to enhance their migration governance system and align those to global cooperation frameworks on migration, such as the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

MGI process is a global initiative implemented by IOM, the UN Migration Agency with analytical support of The Economist Intelligence Unit. MGI assessment neither ranks countries on the design or implementation of their migration policies, nor measures the effectiveness of migration policies.  Instead, it takes stock of the migration-related policies in place and operates as a benchmarking framework that offers insights on policy measures that countries might want to consider as they progress towards good migration governance.