Salvadoran Municipalities Receive Training to Incorporate Orderly and Safe Migration into Local Development

During the last week of June, the Specialized Diploma for the Governance of Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration for Municipalities began in El Salvador. The diploma is being delivered in two large groups, bringing together 24 participants from 13 municipalities in the east and west of the country. 

The diploma is a joint effort with the Salvadoran Institute of Municipal Development (ISDEM). Through a constructive and participatory methodology, it seeks to strengthen the capacities of municipal authorities and public employees to support the construction of public policies, programs or local initiatives that link migration and local development. 

The studies will be divided into 6 learning modules, which will include themes of municipal governance, contextualisation of the migration phenomenon, local governance of migration, legal regulations on the subject and management and integration models for the migrant population at the local level. 

"As an institution that supports the efforts of municipalities to improve the living conditions of their population, to provide quality services and to enhance local and territorial development, the ISDEM considers the alliance with IOM important and the implementation of this diploma will strengthen the capacities of employees and municipal officials to manage different aspects of migration in their localities, "said Heide Chacón, Head of the Cooperation Management Unit of the General Management of ISDEM. 

"It will allow us to acquire knowledge and strengthen capacities for the development of productive initiatives that improve the socioeconomic situation of migrants and the population in general, in addition to obtaining technical guidance," added Ada Renee Meléndez, representative of the municipality of Gotera. 

The course will last 96 hours and will end in September. This is the first edition of the diploma, but the interest aroused among the target audience augurs a new edition by 2022. Participants highlighted that this training will enable them to offer more specialized services through mechanisms such as the Information Hubs on Migration. 

"Now we will try to open new Hubs in each municipality to support migrants. It will be of great benefit, not only in a personal way to acquire the knowledge, but to transmit better attention to the people who really need it, "explained Julio Vásquez, technical person of the municipality of Polorós. 

IOM implements this diploma within the framework of the Western Hemisphere Program, funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.