What is MPF?
The MPF is a DG HOME funded programme. Its mission is to ensure the implementation of the EU migration policy’s external dimension. By supporting EU Member States in the establishment of partnership projects with target countries, the MPF helps address shared migration challenges and opportunities. Specifically, the MPF can support initiatives targeting:
- Legal Migration and Mobility (aligned to the Talent Partnerships)
- International Protection and Asylum Policy
- Trafficking in Human Beings
- Return and Reintegration
- Border Management
- Anti-Smuggling
- Capacity Building for Migration Management
Supporting the implementation of labour mobility projects and other interventions aligned with the proposed EU Talent Partnerships, as described in the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum, are a flagship element of the MPF’s work. The MPF has developed a dynamic set of tools and engagements fostering an enabling environment for labour and skills mobility. It therefore ensures that opportunities to replicate, scale and extend mobility schemes are available and known.
- The MPF set up the EU Labour Mobility Practitioners’ Network ‒ a platform to promote deeper, more insightful, and sustained engagement on labour mobility by experts and practitioners.
- The MPF also designed a Labour Mobility Partner Country Dashboard for use by policy makers, employers, recruiters, and other interested parties that are looking at employing non-EU nationals, either through existing schemes or considering which country to target for a new labour scheme.
Interactive map of MPF partnerships
Who?
The MPF supports a range of EU-based actors who address migration priorities with partner countries. These include national, regional, and local public administrations; agencies or other specialised bodies in EU member states; universities; NGOs; think tanks, private sector associations and others. So far, the Facility has supported joint actions between 16 EU Member States and 16 partner countries, with more partnerships to follow in the course of 2023.
The MPF is managed by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
Where?
The MPF’s geographic priorities are aligned to those of DG HOME and focus on countries of strategic relevance to migration management and governance. Its focus includes:
- Western Balkans and Türkiye
- Eastern Partnership and Southern Neighbourhood
- Sub-Saharan African countries
- Silk Route countries
- For labour mobility there is a focus on Talent Partnership countries
How?
The MPF supports migration partnerships through four main components:
Grants:
This is the largest component to the MPF. It oversees investments in partnership initiatives through grants that are awarded via Calls for Proposals. Through its Call for Proposals, the Facility has awarded over € 40 million in funding to support 48 projects, promoting partnerships between EU Member States and priority partner countries.
Find out more on the projects funded under the MPF.
Technical Assistance and Support (TAS):
At the request of DG HOME or an EU Member State, the ICMPD may be tasked with the implementation of specific projects. This mechanism enables the migration policy objectives and aspirations of EU Member States, which are not in a position to implement directly an initiative responding to a specific migration priority.
Dialogue:
The MPF supports the Prague Process and the Budapest Process. These are inter-regional and inter-governmental dialogues on migration issues that include EU Member States and regional partner countries who share common migration challenges and interests.
Knowledge Management & Communication:
Knowledge management is a key aspect of the MPF’s support to the external dimension of the EU’s migration policy. This is undertaken by compiling lessons learned, preparing policy briefs or other analytical documents, and identifying the most effective means of disseminating the information, while creating an enabling environment to further discuss topics. This approach fosters knowledge exchange and policy-oriented learning and transfer, informing the design of future actions that are supported by the MPF or other initiatives shaping the EU’s migration policy and practice change.
Look through our available resources and find out more.