Dhaka, Bangladesh 10 January 2020 - The Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants - Bangladesh ( GLO.ACT-Bangladesh) facilitated national consultations from 23-29 November 2019 with government counterparts, UN agencis and donors, and organized a roundtable meeting on 28 November 2019 with members from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Dhaka. The aim of the consultations with government counterparts was to have GLO.ACT-Bangladesh officially endorsed, finalize the workplan and to set the pace for project implementation in the country. The roundtable meeting with CSOs enabled GLO.ACT Bangladesh to share the project workplan and obtain inputs prior to its finalization. UNODC/GLO.ACT headquarter colleagues as well as GLO.ACT's National Project Officer (NPO) participated in and supported the consultations. The meetings were attended by a total of 20 participants (9 females and 11 males).
In order to enhance the ability of GLO.ACT-Bangladesh to implement in the country as well as to strengthen the integration of the programme office in Bangladesh with UNODC's corporate global programmes on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and the Smuggling of Migrants (SOM), the privates sector and institutions such as NRB Bank, the consultation were based on an inter-divisional, inter-agency and multi-stakeholder approach.
Following the consultations, the EU Delegation in Dhaka expressed their appreciation for the approval of GLO.ACT-Bangladesh as well as for its swift implementation of preparatory activities. Throughout the week, national counterparts at all levels demonstrated genuine interest in UNODC's support and technical assistance to be rolled out, in the first instance, under the framework of GLO.ACT-Bangladesh.
Overall, the GLO.ACT team participated in 21 meetings that included national counterparts, donors, UN agencies and other international organizations. The UNODC delegation also attended a sensitization workshop on the Global Compact on Migration (GCM) organized by the UN Migration Network in Bangladesh in which UNODC participates.
At the end of the week, the consultations achieved the 4 goals it had set out to accomplish:
Following the consultative mission and roundtable discussion, GLO.ACT and its partners agreed to several follow up actions including presenting the project to the Economic Relations Division of the Government of Bangladesh for financial registration and developing future funding proposals for the attention of the NRB Bank, UNHCR, and several other donors. A follow-up mission in collaboration with Regional Section for South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific - Division for Operations United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Vienna, Austria to Bangladesh is being planned from 19-23 January 2020 to finalize the projects capacity building strategy for the criminal justice actors on TIP and SOM. This will be done in consultation with MoHA, law enforcement representatives as well as with the MJLPA's Training Institute (JATI). The mission will also seek to discuss potential areas of collaboration with other UNODC projects in Thailand and Myanmar.
GLO.ACT, implemented by UNODC and IOM, therefore is a timely initiative to support the Government of Bangladesh in addressing TIP and SOM. Through this regional consultation, UNODC was able to build bridges between countries, developing potential pathway for further collaboration on combatting TIP and SOM across South Asia.
The Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants - Bangladesh (GLO.ACT - Bangladesh) is a four-year (2018-2022), €12 million joint initiative by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) being implemented in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). GLO.ACT-Bangladesh builds on a global community of practice set in motion in GLO.ACT 2015-2019 in 13 partner countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Through targeted, innovative and demand-driven interventions, the project aims to support the Government of Bangladesh and civil society organizations to more effectively fight the crimes of human trafficking and migrant smuggling across the country. The project works on developing evidence-based information on trafficking and smuggling patterns and trends, legislative review and harmonization, capability development of criminal justice actors, and international cooperation. The project also provides direct assistance to victims of human trafficking and migrants in vulnerable situations through the strengthening of identification, referral, and protection mechanisms.
The project is funded by the European Union
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For more information, please contact:
Mr. Mahdy Hassan
muhammad.hassan@un.org
www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/glo-act/
unodc-glo.act@un.org
Twitter: @glo_act