The Swedish Migration Agency starts Nordic cooperation in Iraq

Published 19 June 2024 at 14.54

Domestic. A delegation from the Swedish Migration Agency recently visited Iraq, together with Norway and Denmark, to inaugurate a Nordic platform that will coordinate efforts in the area of ​​migration in the country. The work will strengthen the work with return and reintegration.

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At the beginning of June, the Swedish Migration Agency visited Baghdad and Erbil to participate in the inauguration of NORAQ. It is a Nordic cooperation platform that aims to strengthen Iraq's ability to manage migration.

Sara Åhman, head of the Swedish Migration Agency's national operational department (NOA), was one of the agency's employees who participated during the inauguration on the ground in Iraq.

– We are happy to contribute through Nordic cooperation under the NORAQ umbrella together with Norway and Denmark, to support the government of Iraq and the Kurdish regional government, especially in the area of ​​reintegration, she said during her opening speech in Baghdad.

< p>On site during the opening were, in addition to several organizations and partners, also ministers from the two governments in Iraq, EU ambassador Tomas Seiler and Norway's ambassador to Jordan, Espen Lindbæck.

At the Swedish Migration Agency, work with aid funds has been a new assignment since the beginning of the year. The work takes place within the framework of certain established criteria where an important principle is to take care of the needs of the recipient country.

– With these funds, the Swedish Migration Agency steps in and strengthens Iraq's ability to take care of the needs of its own citizens in the area of ​​migration, something which in the long term promotes work with return and reintegration, says Kjell-Terje Torvik, project manager at the Swedish Migration Agency.

Sweden's contribution to NORAQ is the project SI-COM (Sweden-Iraq Cooperation on Migration Governance), where experts from the Swedish Migration Agency will train public employees in Iraq in migration-related areas.

The Swedish Migration Agency will occasionally work on site in Iraq during the course of the project, but the organization that will have the primary responsibility for keeping the work together on site is ICMPD (International Center for Migration Policy Development).

The project runs between June 2024 and May 2026. The Swedish Migration Agency also runs projects in the Western Balkans, in Ukraine and Somalia.