FINAL EVALUATION of the project Promoting effective sub-regional governance of migration and protection of children and young people on the move between Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali MALI AND BURKINA - FASO

The general objective of the project is to promote effective sub-regional governance of migration and migratory flows that integrates the approach of protection, social inclusion and the rights of migrant children and young people between Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso. Specifically, the project aims to

    improvement of the data management system relating to the migratory movements of children and young people between Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali, and
    strengthen the role of social services in the coordination, management and sharing of information on the mobility and social integration of migrant children and young people between services involved in protection.

In terms of good practice, the following can be noted:

    The collaboration of all stakeholders including transport unions, motorcycle taxi trade unions, ECOWAS, security forces has facilitated EPA access to bus stations, corridors and vehicles to identify migrant children and young people.
    An adjustment of the objectives enabled the IGT to achieve its objectives within a short period of time. This resulted in the production of maps and ATLAS with data from CaseData to achieve the expected results more quickly.
    Training of all stakeholders on the child protection project in general and specifically on Save the Children's child protection policy.
    The team work initiated by some PTAs has enabled them to reach the Targets defined by the project more quickly. Indeed, they copied some of their peers to proceed with the identification of migrant children and young people at fixed points.

It is clearly stated in the evaluation report that the "International Social Service West Africa (ISS-WA) has a proven experience in setting up and managing databases on transnational migration. It maintains a sub-regional database (CaseData Online) on cross-border migration of children and youth. Within the framework of the project, ISS-AO is co-applicant. It is in charge of setting up the databases in the 12 pilot social services and building the capacity of the social services, their regional and central directorates on the registration and management of the offline database".

The evaluation was thus able to highlight the relevance of the programme, all of whose interventions are in line with the interventions developed within the framework of the sub-regional and national policy documents of the governments of Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali. By committing themselves to the management of child and youth migration, ISS-WA and Save the Children have affirmed their leadership on child protection issues by entering the unique field of data management. The availability of databases in each of the project countries is driving the traceability of data on child and youth migration that had previously received little attention. 13,576 migrant children and young people have been identified in this way within the framework of the project. However, the priority given to the systematic identification and traceability of migration routes and the causes of child and youth migration has resulted in a poor response to basic social needs such as health, food, legal and criminal protection, thus resulting in a low level of support for children in cross-border mobility in the three countries where the project is being implemented.