Pretoria - South Africa has been re-elected to sit on the International Organisation on Migration's (IOM) Executive Committee.
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, who has just returned from the organisations 98th council conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said that the arrangement would assist South Africa in pursuing migration policies for the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
South Africa is interested in ensuring policy coherency as well as building the capacity to manage migration in the region.
"We would like to appreciate the confidence shown on us by members of the IOM to re-elect South Africa into its Executive Committee. We are glad that the council has decided that South Africa remain host to the Southern African region," said the deputy minister.
This will be the third term that South Africa sits on the committee.
He said one of the challenges of the 21st century was how to manage migration effectively, humanly, in the national and global interest.
Since this process cannot be stopped or reversed, Gigaba said South Africa hoped to build partnerships, both at a bilateral and multilateral level, to harness migration for the country's developmental needs.
