Refugees: HCP and UNHCR seal partnership agreement

The High Commission for Planning (HCP) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) signed a partnership agreement on analytical data on Thursday in Rabat relating to refugees.

Signed by the High Commissioner for Planning, Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, and the UNHCR resident representative, François Reybet-Degat, this agreement gives concrete expression to a long and fruitful collaboration between the two institutions concerning refugees in Morocco, since the HCP had already carried out, in partnership with the UNHCR, a national survey on forced migration in 2021.

The HCP had also carried out a study on the socio-economic and psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on refugees in Morocco in September 2020. A study which made it possible to implement the expertise and statistical tools of the HCP at the service of these vulnerable populations.

In a press statement on this occasion, Mr. Lahlimi A lami noted that the HCP’s partnership with the UNHCR is a consecration of a work aimed at making known the reality of the life of refugees in Morocco, through field surveys, in order to better orient public policies.

“In carrying out our work, we have been able to count on both the support and collaboration of the UNHCR and the Ministry of the Interior,” he said. -he underlined, adding that Morocco has included its migration policy in a common frame of reference based on the High Directives of HM King Mohammed VI and the humanist policy of the Kingdom.

For his part, Mr. Reybet-Degat clarified that this agreement establishes very close cooperation between the HCP and the UNHCR which is part of the National Strategy for Immigration and Asylum (SNIA) initiated in 2013. by the Kingdom. This is an inclusive strategy since it allows refugees access to education and for those with a residence permit to employment, he said, noting that the agreement will allow to document the state of implementation of this strategy through studies and joint methodological work.

In addition, the UN official noted that through the study of the impact of the pandemic on refugees, the HCP has “enabled something unique which should be a benchmark practice” by employing, as a national institution, its analytical and statistical tools in the service of understanding and the apprehension of the socio-economic situation of this population.

This analytical work made it possible to become aware of the major problems facing refugees, especially in the ” access to health and education and therefore to measure the work that remains to be done in the implementation of the National Strategy established in the initiative of His Majesty the King, he added.

The studies carried out by the HCP are essential tools to measure, through statistical data, the impact of the SNIA on the refugee and asylum-seeking populations in Morocco, thus making it possible to continue and expand the work of protecting refugees in the Kingdom.

LNT with MAP