Azerbaijan - ‘Strengthening Migration Management in Azerbaijan’ (2020-2021)

IOM Azerbaijan has been supporting the Government of Azerbaijan since 1996 to enhance their capacities in migration and border management in line with relevant EU-Azerbaijan cooperation frameworks, in particular the Readmission and Visa Facilitation Agreements which entered into force in September 2014. Following the signing of these agreements, IOM started implementation of the EU-funded project “Consolidation of Migration and Border Management Capacities in Azerbaijan” (CMBA) which was implemented from 2014-2018. One of the outcomes of this project was enhanced capacity of the government in effective management of readmission and new visa regime.

To further build on the extensive work done under the CBMA project, the EURCAP Facility and IOM Azerbaijan, launched a new support action in May 2020. Besides contributing further to the implementation of the Readmission and Visa Facilitation Agreements between the EU and Azerbaijan and sustaining the results of the CMBA project, this support action aims at further assisting the Government of Azerbaijan in readmission management in the following prioritized areas:

  1. Design, development, and installation of the electronic Readmission Case Management System (RCMS). More specifically, Azerbaijan will be the first country to have the Model Readmission Case Management System (Model RCMS) customized to its needs and workflow. The Model RCMS, a unified system, is built based on lessons learned and good practice of stand-alone RCMSs developed and implemented by IOM in the past (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Georgia). It serves as a cost-effective, user-friendly, and rapidly deployable platform which unifies core functionalities of various RCMSs, necessary for an efficient readmission process. The six EU Member States participating in the pilot phase of the Model RCMS in Azerbaijan in 2021 are Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Poland. More on Model RCMS.
  2. Enhancement of the institutional capacity to better manage and use migration-related data, in particular the RCMS data on return and readmission – this will be ensured by a 2-day Data Management Workshop that will be delivered to around 30 policy- and technical-level officials from various government institutions in Azerbaijan to show the importance of good quality data for policy making and build on the workshops conducted in Azerbaijan by IOM’s Global Migration Data Center (GMDAC) in April and May 2018.