Policy

Migration Policy

SAMP has a commitment to conducting policy-relevant research, to advising governments on migration policy and to monitoring the implementation of new policy. In this regard, SAMP has an MOU with the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa and works closely with cognate departments in other SADC states. To date, SAMP’s policy work includes the following:

1. Policy Advice

Between 1996 and 2002, SAMP played a major role in advising the Department of Home Affairs and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs. The then South African Director of SAMP, Prof. Wilmot James, chaired the Green Paper Task Team on International Migration. The Canadian Director, Prof. Jonathan Crush, was technical and research adviser to the Task Team. The Green Paper was drafted by Profs. Crush and James and Prof. James Hathaway of York University . Prof. James also served on the White Paper Task Team. SAMP made numerous inputs to the policy reform process in public consultations and through written submissions. These included analyses of the White Paper, draft immigration legislation, temporary work schemes, the brain drain and skills migration and the SADC Free Movement Protocol.

SAMP also published a major overview of immigration reform during the period 1994 to 2004.

Crush, Jonathan, & McDonald, David (Eds), 2002. Africa Today ,Special Issue: Evaluating South African Immigration Policy after Apartheid, 48.3.

2. Policy Implementation

SAMP, in partnership with the South African Department of Home Affairs, devised a survey for measuring client and employee satisfaction with the quality of service delivery by the Department. The results of this survey were released in 2005. SAMP also conducted a similar survey in Namibia at the request of the Namibian government.

Migration Policy Series No. 41, 48

3. Policy Harmonization

Working with its MIDSA partners, SAMP has provided advice and inputs to SADC governments on a wide variety of policy issues. SAMP has been particularly involved in providing advice on the harmonization of migration policy and legislation in the region. SAMP undertook a major review of all national immigration and refugee legislation in the SADC and submitted recommendations on harmonization to governments through MIDSA. Work currently in progress includes a review of migration data collection systems in SADC and a migration audit of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) and country PRSP’s.

See MIDSA Report No. 1, 2 and 3

4. Policy Services

SAMP has written commissioned reports for a number of international organizations and agencies including the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), the UNDP, UNAIDS, UNHABITAT, UNESCO, the World Bank, the ILO and ILO-SAMAT, the IOM and IFPRI. SAMP has also wrote a position paper on Migration and Development for the South African government which will inform that government’s position, and that of the G77 more generally, at the UN HLD in September 2006.

Samp is assisting the South African Department of Home Affairs in its review of migration policy.