On Wednesday 18 April, the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a joint report for local, regional and territorial communities in order to assist them with the integration of migrants.
The report sets out 12 “key points” to be considered when drawing up local integration programmes, a press release states. These points cover the health and employment sectors, housing and education as well as the appropriateness of migrants’ skills to meet the needs of the labour market. Recommendations also concern the creation of inter-community socialising areas.
For this report, the OECD studied the case of nine large European towns (Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Glasgow, Gothenburg, Paris, Rome and Vienna) as well as that of the smaller town of Altena in Germany “in order to assess the effectiveness of their response when faced with this challenge”.
The OECD, moreover, observed 61 other towns as well as associations of towns such as Eurocities, and established a database on the characteristics of recent migration in OECD countries at international level.
The report, for example, highlights that 90% of the 72 towns studied often lack coordination with the central governments, and that the towns often have difficulty in putting to good use the financial resources available for integration.
The report also recommends greater awareness of the time it takes for migrants to integrate: 20 years can thus go by before the rate of employment of refugees reaches that of the host country’s nationals. Here, the report cites the example of Amsterdam, which immediately promotes migrants’ entry onto the labour market.
Links between the world of business and civil society and NGOs should also be strengthened. These follow the progression of migrants. This is necessary to retain data on practices launched and their outcome.
The report may be consulted at: https://bit.ly/2EX6RTe . (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)