With the 2021 theme for International Migrants Day being a celebration of the potential of human mobility, it is a timely opportunity to share an update on the portfolio of technical support actions that each seek to make the most of the human mobility potential that diaspora communities embody.
EUDiF’s portfolio of Capacity Development Lab and Diaspora Professionals 4 Development actions has grown in the last few months since the end of the second call for applications in August for which there were over 85 applications. Following the selection committee, there are now 14 actions underway or about to kick-off. Full details of each new action will be published in early 2022, with regular updates and action insights on their way as these exciting new initiatives get going.
As of December 2021, our actions form a truly multi-thematic portfolio that spreads over Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America, with one action having a particularly global reach. Each new action has a unique identity in terms of beneficiaries, partners and focus, which ranges from knowledge transfer on climate action, to education, to institution development, entrepreneurship, heritage tourism, crowdlending – and more besides!
The common denominator of the actions is the focus on incubating promising and innovative approaches that have high potential to be replicated and/or scaled up. In this regard, the new actions complement those already under way in Armenia, Moldova, Lebanon, Madagascar – catch up on these via Capacity Development Lab and Diaspora Professionals 4 Development pages.
In each action, EUDiF accompanies its partners by bringing in specialised expertise (often from within the diaspora), connecting peers, providing backstopping support and consolidating knowledge in order to share and cascade outcomes.
In total, almost 60% of our actions are with partner countries, whilst almost 40% are support to diaspora organisations. Over 30% are partnership actions (i.e. with multiple beneficiaries, or a beneficiary working with a partner) and 14% are implemented at local level in the partner country.
The region, structure and topic-diverse makeup of our action portfolio is symbolic of the diversity in the approaches and potential of diaspora engagement for sustainable development. It means that each action requires a tailored approach, but the combined portfolio has exciting potential for knowledge transfer during implementation, as well as far beyond. We look forward to sharing updates from the actions as they unfold and stories from the people involved. Watch this space!