28 January 2016: A publication from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) summarizes good policy practices to support the lasting integration of refugees and other groups in need of protection in the host countries, as well as key challenges. The booklet, the first in a series on ‘Making Integration Work,’ stresses the importance of early intervention, including providing access to language courses, employment programmes, and integration services as soon as possible, including for asylum seekers with high prospects to remain.

The publication, subtitled ‘Refugees and Others in Need of Protection,’ also stresses the need to help migrants settle where jobs are, and not necessarily where housing is cheaper, and to adapt integration programmes to reflect migrants’ diversity in terms of skills and the specific needs of refugees.

The publication was launched at a joint high-level conference on “integration of beneficiaries of international protection.” Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, stressed both the moral imperative and the economic incentive to help the millions of refugees living in OECD countries to develop the skills they need to work productively and safely.

The booklet summarizes the integration of refugees along ten main policy lessons, supported by examples of good practice: provide activation and integration services as soon as possible for humanitarian migrants and asylum seekers with high prospects of being allowed to stay; facilitate labor market access for asylum seekers with high prospects of being allowed to stay; factor employment prospects into dispersal policies; record and assess humanitarian migrants’ foreign qualifications, work experience and skills; take into account the growing diversity of humanitarian migrants and develop tailor-made approaches; identify mental and physical health issues early and provide adequate support; develop support programmes specific to unaccompanied minors who arrive past the age of compulsory schooling; build on civil society to integrate humanitarian migrants; promote equal access to integration services to humanitarian migrants across the country; and acknowledge that the integration of very poorly educated humanitarian migrants requires long-term training and support.

The publication series aims to capture the main lessons from OECD’s work on integration policies, particularly the ‘Jobs for Immigrants’ country reviews series. Future booklets will address: the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications; the integration of young people with a migrant background; language training for adult migrants; and the integration of family migrants.

The OECD developed the booklets with support from Germany, Norway, Sweden, and the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium. [OECD Press Release] [Publication: Making Integration Work: Refugees and Others in Need of Protection]