Nigeria - IOM, through the European Union-funded project “Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa (FMM West Africa),” provided support to the ECOWAS Commission for a technical meeting on migration data management, from July 2 to July 3, 2015, in Abuja, Nigeria. 
FMM West Africa seeks to support the effective implementation of the ECOWAS Freedom of Movement Protocols and the ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration by strengthening the capacity of the ECOWAS Commission and states in the region to manage migration data.
Strengthening national migration data management systems and improving the coordination between national stakeholders is a common challenge in the region.
“Reliable data is the basic foundation for any sort of effective policy development in the migration sector. This meeting presents an opportunity for ECOWAS to discuss how to establish regional migration data collection and management tools contributing to credible and reliable data collection and thus allowing for informed migration policy development,” ECOWAS Commission Director on Research and Statistics, Mahamadou Yahaya.
The Project “Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa” (FMM West Africa) is funded jointly by the European Union and ECOWAS, and implemented by the Consortium of Partners: IOM, ICMPD and ILO.
For further information, please contact Kristiina Lilleorg, IOM Abuja, Tel: +234 81 78062848, or + 234 (0) 80375-0178, Email: klilleorg@iom.int or Nnamdi Iwuora, IOM Abuja, Tel: +234(803) 587 4705, Email: niwuora@iom.int