President of Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) Amina Bouayach, recently chaired a meeting in the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé of the African Working Group on Migration, part of the Network of African National Human Rights Institutions (NANHRI), with the participation of presidents and heads of national human rights institutions representing 20 African countries.
The meeting, which was attended by members of the Working Group (Morocco, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya), as well as national institutions from Egypt, Togo, Senegal, South Africa, Rwanda, Mauritius, Zambia, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Cabo Verde, Burundi, Ghana, Cameroon, and Ethiopia, provided an opportunity to assess the Group’s overall work since its creation, while highlighting the main achievements in training, advocacy, institutional coordination, and capacity building.
The meeting also provided an opportunity to review the achievements made through training sessions and exchanges of experiences, particularly on the protection of refugees and the rights of migrants in times of crisis, the social and economic inclusion of migrant workers, and active participation in regional and international fora, with a view to strengthening the voice of African national institutions in the various bodies concerned with migration issues.
In this context, emphasis was placed on the signing, in Rabat in April 2025, of the cooperation agreement with the UN Committee on Migrant Workers, considered a milestone in the progress of the Working Group.
This agreement established a structured institutional framework for cooperation, information exchange, and coordination of advocacy efforts aimed at encouraging States to ratify the relevant international convention, bolstering monitoring and implementation mechanisms, and translating a shared commitment to strengthening the protection of the rights of migrants and their family members, while enshrining a lasting partnership between African national institutions and the UN system.
Members of the working group, the NANHRI presidency, and participating institutions unanimously praised the momentum and enthusiasm that characterize the Migration Group, as well as the results achieved at the continental and international levels.
The meeting renewed the call for strengthening the protection of the rights of migrants and refugees, particularly in an international context marked by the rise of hostile rhetoric towards migration-related rights, and to exchange views on ways to promote these rights on the African continent.
At the end of this meeting, held ahead of the annual NANHRI meeting, Bouayach reaffirmed the CNDH’s support for the Group’s efforts and the enshrining of its collective action, with a view to building an African approach based on human rights in the field of migration and addressing the growing challenges associated with it at the continental and international levels.
Morocco chairs the African Working Group on Migration, created in Marrakech in 2018 with the aim of institutionalizing work on migration issues within the NANHRI.