1 week ago
4
Meanwhile, yesterday, the ministry met with tourism stakeholders yesterday as consultations continue for Belize’s first National Migration and Development Policy. Among those participating in the meeting were representatives from the Belize Tourism Board, Airline Representative, and members of the Belize Tourism Industry Association. Discussions focused on the relationship between migration, tourism, labor mobility, investment, and national development. The consultation was led by Ministry of Immigration, Governance and Labor CEO Tanya Santos, who emphasized the importance of collaboration among stakeholders, to strengthen migration management and support Belize’s growing tourism industry. Also contributing to the discussion UNDP Representative Johanna Sáenz, who shared perspectives on regional human mobility and governance as Belize works toward developing a comprehensive national migration policy.
Tanya Santos, CEO, Ministry of Immigration: “Our first stakeholder session was with representatives from the Government of Belize which was on Monday and again we got some very insightful information from them on issues that are affecting their different areas of concentration in the government. The team has also had several community consultations in San Pedro, in Bella Vista, in Belmopan that has revealed some very intriguing recommendations as well for communities. So we continue these consultations for the rest of this week. Tomorrow we’ll be meeting with data producers because data is very important for policy decision-making and also we’ll be having sessions with the private and the productive sector agriculture industry and others who are large producers.”
Johanna Saenz, UNDP Representative: “All the stakeholders including government but also private sector and NGOs, academia and CSOs share information between each other. I think it’s important to strengthen through the policy the channels of communications in order to communicate better and to find better channels to share information. The second one is the coordination mechanisms. It is important to create working groups in order to take information or decisions evidence-based. So the idea is to promote conversations between different sectors and the government in order to provide key information or key highlights challenges to promote the facilities to take more informed decisions. And the third one is to have open spaces to highlight or to put in the knowledge of the government the big challenges that all the stakeholders have. So that implies a capacity building for the government but also most agency of the migrant communities by themselves and also by the other stakeholders to let the government know how the daily addressing challenges of migration issues is taking place in the country. I really want to highlight the Belizean government leadership at the regional level showing that it is possible to promote the relationship between migration and development in order to have a better country to live in.”
The Ministry says the ongoing consultations are aimed at creating a policy framework that supports sustainable development while addressing the country’s evolving migration needs
English (US) ·