Manila to host 2nd Abu Dhabi Dialogue in 2012

Labor chief Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz announced last week that the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, an important event for 20 migrant destination and migrant origin countries in Asia, will conduct its 2nd Ministerial Consultation in Manila on April 19, 2012.

According to Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) news, Baldoz made the announcement after speaking with the current chairman of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue H.E. Saqr Ghobash Saeed Ghobash, Minister of Labor of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), during a breakfast meeting of Abu Dhabi Dialogue members in Kyoto, Japan.

Officially known as the Ministerial Consultations on Overseas Employment and Contractual Labor for Countries of Origin and Destination in Asia, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue was first held in 2008 in Abu Dhabi, where it launched a collaborative approach to temporary labor mobility in Asia and to maximizing worker migration benefits for development.

It involves 11 Colombo Process countries of migrant worker origin: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. It also includes nine Asian destination countries, namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE and Yemen.

During the first Abu Dhabi Dialogue, France, Germany, Japan, Mauritius, Poland, Republic of Korea and the United States (US) were admitted as partner and observer states.

The Abu Dhabi Dialogue is focused on developing four key, action-oriented partnerships on worker migration:

• Knowledge sharing on market trends, skills profiles, workers and remittances policies and flows, and their relationship to development;
• Building capacity for effective matching of labor supply and demand;
• Preventing illegal recruitment and promoting welfare and protection measures; and
• Developing a framework for a comprehensive approach to managing the entire cycle of temporary contractual work that fosters the mutual interest of countries of origin and destination.

“It is based on our agreed principles of shared responsibility that we wish to take a fresh look at our best practices and recommendations for bilateral, unilateral, and multilateral government action on labor mobility to maximize the benefits of labor migration for our people during our next Ministerial Consultation,” Baldoz said.

The 2nd Ministerial Consultation will be preceded by two Senior Officials Meetings, the first one to be hosted by the UAE in Abu Dhabi on January 25 and the second to be held in Manila on April 17-18 prior to the dialogue proper on the 19th. There would be two participating senior officials from the invited governments during the Manila 2012 event.

Image from Microsoft Office website.