The African Union has called on the international community to support its efforts of promoting its passport as an official travel document.
The call was made by the advisor to the African Union Commission, Saja Jallow, at the Third Pan-African Forum on Migration at the Speke Commonwealth Resort in Munyonyo.
The Third Pan-African Forum on Migration brought together 250 delegates and experts from across the continent to discuss the global challenge of migrants and refugees.
The Deputy Director-General of the International Organization of Migration, Ambassador Laura Thompson, says the world has 247 million migrants who are often discriminated against.
According to Thompson, well planned migration policies in the main destinations of these immigrants can reduce inequalities and take advantage of the immigrants as a resource to spur economic growth.
Political persecution, war, contracting economies, limited resources and climate change were some of the reasons cited for the increasing migration from poorer parts of the world to the more developed countries.
Uganda’s Prime Minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda stressed the need to focus on programmes that provide jobs to the youth.
Uganda currently hosts more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers. The vast majority of them are from South Sudan.Science and Technology were highlighted as the areas that African governments should focus on in order to provide opportunities for 60% of unemployed labour, largely made up of youngsters.
The policy advisor of the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Joseph Atta-Mensah, says the continent has the potential to invest in its own projects after it received $452 million from remittances 2 years ago.
Africa has over 50million africans living outside their own countries and this conference has cited conflict ,political persecution and unemployment as some of the reasons many migrate and they hope to reverse the trends by generating solutions within however the most vulnerable are women and children.