Republic of Moldova - Making Migration Work for Sustainable Development


What do we do in the Republic of Moldova?

About 25% of the Republic of Moldova’s (Moldova’s) population lives abroad, including over 1/3 of the labour force. The resulting population ageing and depopulation of rural areas pose significant developmental challenges that can be addressed by better leveraging the contributions of migrants and diaspora. In this context, the Programme seeks to enhance Moldova’s diaspora engagement by mapping the diaspora’s contributions to Moldovan communities and building government capacities to engage with the diaspora. So far, 25 local communities successfully piloted a model of engaging the local private sector and public authorities in promoting the local economic growth agenda, with the support of the Moldovan diaspora.

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The Programme builds the capacities of local and national governments to support diaspora engagement and data collection through the piloting of an innovative new approach that tracks diasporic economic engagement in their home communities beyond direct monetary transfers (e.g. philanthropy, investments, tourism and more), based on new IOM guidance, Contributions and Counting: Measuring the Economic Contributions of your Diaspora Beyond Remittances.

Through this piloting, the government will be able to more strategically develop partnerships with the Moldovan diaspora and better leverage their skills, financial and economic power, networks and more to improve the long-term sustainable development of local communities. Building on the Migration Data Survey Report on Moldova, the Programme also creates synergies with other activities contributing to enhancing national and local migration data systems by implementing a methodology to estimate international migration based on border crossing data in coordination with the national authorities. This helps the government to be able to develop migration and sustainable development policies that reflect migration’s complex realities in Moldova. Moreover, the Programme is supporting the national government to facilitate the engagement of Moldovan diaspora in joint development initiatives on central and local levels by setting up an online platform for interaction, expertise sharing and involvement called "eMoldovaTa.gov.md” (“It’s Your Moldova"). 

The Programme is also supporting the local UN Country Team and the UN National Migration Network Task Force to leverage the Global Compact for Migration for the 2030 Agenda and reflect migration and development nexus in the UN planning and analytical documents. The Programme builds off an IOM-UNDP Multi-Year Roadmap for Cooperation on Migration and Sustainable Development, launched in June 2021 and developed through the UNDP-IOM COVID-19 Seed Funding Initiative. The roadmap aims to foster further joint programming and fundraising, which the Programme supports through technical assistance.

In order to build on these successes globally, Moldovan national and local governments share their good practices and build capacities of the other 10 countries within the Global Programme. The national government of Moldova is co-leading our Programme Peer Exchange Group on Diaspora Engagement. This exchange group both showcases Moldova’s achievements in these topics and allows for knowledge exchange and capacity building so other governments and stakeholders may upscale good practices in their contexts. National and local government authorities share their experiences and knowledge in regional and global fora, such as Global Forum on Migration and Development

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