 So, good morning, good afternoon everyone. I think we are ready to start. Numbers are growing and we are happy to share with you today two important products developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO. So, good morning again. Greetings from the IUM's return and rent integration platform. The public dialogue all stayed on the platform continuing and before starting our conversation, I would like to give you a quick update from and on the return and rent integration platform. And on behalf of the team, I'm very pleased to let you all know that we have started a process of thematic expansion of the platform towards other migrants protection areas such as counter trafficking, child protection, GBV, and other areas, of course, also return and sustainable rent integration. Please do not hesitate to register to the platform community to be updated on the latest about the forthcoming migrant protection platform. Having said this, thank you for your attention and the start. As mentioned, the two knowledge products we present today are released by FAO and produced by Samuel Orl. For all those of you operating in the area of return and sustainable rent integration, it is well known how complex is the process of rent integration requiring the involvement of multiple actors. And if you've been following our exchanges, our public dialogues hosted by the platform, you may have noticed the multiple angle through which, in line with the IEMs integrated approach, we've been analyzing the rent integration over the years. In this context, these two knowledge products represent a step forward in the understanding, analysis, as also planning of sustainable rent integration in rural areas. While the Global Lessons Learn aims to assess lessons and best practices in supporting sustainable rent integration in rural areas, the toolkit for sustainable rent integration addresses an existing gap and intends to guide local stakeholders and actors to integrate rural returnees into programs. So before we start, let me share with you some technical indication about this webinar. If you have any technical problem, please contact us at the email address that you see on the screen. Please feel free to ask your question through the chat. They will be collected and addressed during the question answered after the speaker's presentation. As a last point, this webinar will be recorded and made available on the return and rent integration platform. So I briefly introduce myself. I'm Francesco Giaccia. I'm very pleased to welcome you today. I work as knowledge management officer at the Protection Division in the Return or Rent Integration Unit of IEM. HQ in Geneva. So we are very pleased today to have with us different guests to better understand the rationale, the findings, and the case studies from the products. We will start with Jacqueline de Meranville from FAO. Well, we will share with us, we'll help us to set the frame of this conversation and share with us some introductory words on the two products. Following our intervention, Nassim Majid, co-founder and executive director of Samuel Hall, and very familiar to the audience of the platform webinars, we'll tell us more on the methodology and the key findings from the products. Mamadou Sene and T'Akur Chawan from FAO Senegal and Nepal will then guide us through the two case studies showing the concrete application of the methodology. And following Mamadou and T'Akur's consideration with the help of FAO colleague Cristina Rapone, we will move to the interactive session, where we will ask panelists to address the questions that you will kindly share with us during the webinar. Finally, Roselyne Borland, the head of the Returner Integration Unit at IIMHQ, will share some final consideration before closing the session. So let's start. I'm very glad to give the floor to Jacqueline de Meranville, technical focal point on migration and rural migration officer in the FAO, inclusive rural transformation and gender equality division. She has a long experience with FAO in the areas of knowledge, capacity development, and technical support on migration and employment issue. So after this long introduction, over to you Jacqueline. Please, the floor is yours. Thank you Francesco. And good morning everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are pleased to share with you the two new products we've developed jointly with the Samuel Hall Institute. Allow me first to provide a brief context on why we chose to develop them. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increased number of migrant workers found themselves in a position of needing to go back to their countries of origin or to leave urban centers and return to rural areas. And this put a magnifying lens, not only on areas of return, but also on their capacities to accommodate returnees reintegration. So while a significant share of these returnees move back to rural areas of origin, in many cases reintegration programs already in existence tended to focus on urban centers. And in this context, local rural governments were struggling to meet the needs of returnees and many returnees were left without adequate support. Returnees themselves are also not a homogenous group. So some returning with skills and resources, others returning with empty hands, some wishing to migrate again as soon as possible and others wishing to stay if only they had a viable alternative to migrating again. We heard more and more from our colleagues on the ground around the world of the need to support the returning migrants in rural areas to reintegrate and in particular to have sustainable livelihood opportunities in rural areas. At the same time, available evidence on sustainable reintegration lacked a focus on rural communities, including on the link between sustainable reintegration and rural development. Now, I feel had a long experience in supporting returnees in forced displacement contexts and while carrying out the development of the global lessons learned report and the accompanying rural reintegration toolkit, we wanted to build on this from a development perspective while also learning from other organizations engaged in supporting the sustainable reintegration of returnees. In this context, we asked ourselves what can be learned from returnees' experiences of reintegration in rural areas and the challenges they encounter and how can we increase or improve the support provided to rural returnees and their families? The answers to our questions are reflected in the two newly produced publications aiming to provide a way forward for collective and coherent action in support of returnees in rural areas and rural communities across a range of development settings. The ultimate objective here being to coordinate these reintegration efforts with larger rural development and rural transformation efforts and to stimulate mutually reinforcing outcomes that support the teethmen of sustainable livelihoods and well-being for returnees, their families and local populations. As previously highlighted, reintegration support services are limited at local level, either due to scarce financial resources or technical capacities, but also insufficient data to inform on the returnees' needs and challenges upon arrival. These gaps inevitably hinder the reintegration process. Yet returning migrants, if empowered, can be agents of change. Besides financial resources, migrants bring back skills, experience, and social networks that can be leveraged to generate livelihood opportunities, diversify rural economies, and empower rural communities. If trained and informed about investment opportunities in the green economy and climate adaptation, they can also contribute to increasing resilience to climate change and to mitigating climate-related risks driving migration. Therefore, targeting reintegration support services in rural areas is of utmost importance for harnessing the potential of return migration and for capitalizing on the economic opportunities that agri-food systems can generate in terms of labor market integration for returnees, business development, and investment. We are actively engaged in facilitating these processes by creating an enabling environment for agri-business, by providing tailored technical trainings and livelihood packages, by rebuilding agricultural-based livelihoods of returning IDPs and refugees, by promoting measures at community level to increase trust and social cohesion between returnees and communities at origin, and also to prevent conflicts over natural resources and land disputes. In closing, we hope that these knowledge products will inform not only your organization's decisions in supporting rural returnees, but also local stakeholders at the territorial level and agri-food system actors in general to successfully incorporate rural returnees into their programs and local development objectives. I hope you'll enjoy learning more about these tools today and hearing from our colleagues working in the field. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you so much, Jacqueline, for setting the frame of the conversation and to highlight the importance of this product. I would like to mention that the approach to sustainable reintegration in rural areas of FAO has been also captured in one of the recent products developed by IUM under the EOM Knowledge Management tab paper on the interlinkages between sustainable development and sustainable reintegration. I think the link to this product will come in the chat soon. Thank you again, Jacqueline. It's now time to move and to dive a bit more into the research and Dr. Nassim Majidi is the co-founder and executive director of research and policy at Samuel All specializing in migration and displacement. Nassim has a strong expertise in return and reintegration and she has published over 20 articles, led 200 studies on migration. It's a great pleasure to having you with us. Nassim, please, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you all for joining. I see a lot of familiar faces, familiar to the conversation on reintegration. And today, thanks to FAO and to IUM, we're expanding the conversation, hopefully also to development and rural sector actors. So let me take you right away through the methodology for our study. So this global study that was just introduced draws on six case studies from development context, but also from fragile and conflict affected contexts from different regions of the world. So you see here we had research conducted in Afghanistan, Kenya, Moldova, Nepal, Senegal and Tunisia. We wanted to have a diversity of also migrant profiles, of settings as I mentioned, but also of programming that FAO and others are implementing in these countries and of reintegration practice. We focused on a range of tools that allowed us to hear directly from returnees from local communities, but also from stakeholders involved both on policy and programming aspects. And we mapped over 120 programs, reintegration programs to see how well they link or not with rural contexts. Now, in terms of the context, as Jacqueline just mentioned to you, this research was very much embedded in the context of COVID. And it was crucial for us to get as diverse profile set as possible for the returnees that we wanted to study. So our focus was as much on international and internal or domestic returns in the 2020, 2021 COVID period. So those two years. And we observed several key aspects. So we recognized that COVID made even more complicated and complex the conversation on who chooses to return and who is forced to return or to come back to the area of origin with the range of choice that migrants had being sharply restrained by mobility restrictions, by a global economic downturn. So we made sure to include returnees across the spectrum from voluntary to forced. And as kind of confirming other research studies on this topic, we found that those who chose to come back were more likely to, for example, invest potential savings in small businesses in rural areas. But we also found that what we see in the literature around the stigma around returns was reinforced or worsened. We saw that COVID and returns resulting from COVID also affected the perception, both on the part of returnees and the members of their communities towards them. There was a negative perception, not only that perhaps returnees were also bringing back the COVID to rural areas, but also just more skepticism towards what urban migrants could bring back, could add value in terms of their added value to rural areas. So the point that we saw is that there was really a tension, a disconnect also between communities and returnees. And this is where the role of civil society was particularly important in our mapping, whether it's church groups in Kenya, or as we'll see in the second youth groups in Uganda. We also made sure to include within the returnee population an age and gender diversity approach. Why? Because we know that many aspects of reintegration are more difficult for women than for men. And as you'll read the main report, you will see that these gender differences of reintegration experiences really came through in the data. In some contexts, women's migration was in the first place not seen as acceptable, not fitting with local norms. And so returnee women faced both the stigma of having left and then of returning with that experience of migration. So they faced more financial challenges but also social challenges upon return. Then for the young returnees who could be both men and women, we saw that they struggled with their rural reintegration because they simply felt out of place in the rural area that they had left. They see many of them saw rural areas as offering them less opportunities, less educational or vocational training opportunities, less entertainment. And as a result, not only did they feel isolated or alienated but in many ways they themselves sometimes also put themselves out of their own communities. So we saw through these challenges real opportunities for us to think what type of programming in rural areas could support reintegration. So faced with these realities, we wanted to see which programs actually already may be addressing these issues, what could we learn from them and also what gaps exist. So we wanted to look at what programs target the youth, women, men in their reintegration process in rural areas. And given how local some of these issues are, we looked at national programs but also at local programs or projects that target, for example, youth in their reintegration process in rural areas. So based on the mapping of 124 programs and projects with links to rural areas, we found that only about 40% of them actually have links with agricultural or rural transformation activities. And we also found that even when programs are area-based, so they cover a rural area, even when they cover returnees and non-returnee groups, they often do not pay sufficient attention to the specific needs of youth and women in rural reintegration processes. So we divided up the six countries that we had. We wanted to see what lessons can we learn from these countries and what can make for a successful rural reintegration process. And we found that there were two categories at a country level, two categories of countries. One are the countries that are making a conscious effort, as you can see on your slide, to institutionalize an approach to rural reintegration. And so these countries have set up consortia or multi-stakeholder partnerships that link both government and non-government. These are often countries that have a normative framework. And this is really important because what we found is that one of the prerequisites for success was to have a national framework for return and reintegration with clearly delineated roles that could then be rolled out at a local level. So that's a real key to success in this in this first category. And then we have a second category of countries where we see more disconnected efforts. The efforts are there, then just not harmonized between national and local levels. Despite attempts at coordination, we don't see that level of harmonization of activities and mechanisms that could really address the specific obstacles. So obviously we'll hear in a second from representatives in Senegal and Nepal on what this means very concretely for them. But Senegal is a good example, especially since 2021 of a government that has ensured that all levels of representation are there to discuss sustainable reintegration in rural areas. Also recognizing that young people who leave and who are not reintegrating properly will threaten food security for many others. So there's a real national and local stake here that some governments have recognized and we hope this report can help other governments and rural development actors recognize the needs and the value of investing in reintegration. And hopefully where I'm sitting today, Nairobi Kenya, Kenya is increasingly focused on adopting an integrated approach, but we still see these gaps between national and county level policy development and implementation. We highlighted this in the report and this is something we hope that stakeholders here, for example, with ILO and others and FAO can really push forward. So what good practices did we identify beyond this categorization of countries? We wanted to recommend ways forward and build on lessons learned. So the report highlights seven lessons learned, cutting across policy and programmatic lessons. And in the report, every time we mention a lesson, we give concrete examples of programs that can be implemented. So it's really drawing out on ideas that can be replicated, scaled. The report is very rich with very practical examples. I've already covered the need to link reintegration and development plans, so the policy coherence. So now I wanna just go further in depth on two of our lessons learned, which are also recommendations. One is the need to build inclusive food systems. As we suggest, doing that based on existing programs that we've mapped and seen. So really linking reintegration and the migration conversation to a conversation around securing food systems, value chains in rural areas. So how can this be done? We give a few ways to do that. One is through an incubation approach, incubation youth incubation programs here at FAO, has an integrated country approach, for example, in Senegal for creating decent jobs for young people in agri-food systems. And so in Senegal, this initiative has developed sustainable rural incubation, service provision for youth agricultural entrepreneurs. And now this is done in conjunction with the national authorities and can be linked to this national framework and local responses to reintegration. We also say that we need to be inclusive and in the approach we need to also have return on investment models for rural and reintegration to attract more investment in rural areas or to invest in environmentally and community conscious jobs. So this is really to address the disconnect I mentioned previously about youth who don't see themselves as fitting in. Well, we talk about the needs for youth to feel part of a bigger vision for their community through green jobs, but also through social impact training and jobs that can actually generate community financed public goods and services. Now, we obviously also talk about the need to focus on gender and age-sensitive programs throughout the report, establishing networks and building an ecosystem of support around youth farming teams, for example. As we give the example of Uganda with the Young Farmers Champion Network that was launched in 2016. It's an initiative that really focuses on the capacity of youth to reintegrate in rural areas to make them champions, farmer champions. And we see there's a potential there to even connect them with the diaspora. So we also propose extending these kinds of models to the diaspora to also get more investment from the diaspora in rural reintegration. And this leads me to the final comment which is on the question of financing rural reintegration. And so given the lack of investment that we know in infrastructure and value chains and markets in remote or rural areas, we know also that the cost of reintegration is often higher than in urban areas. So how can we address these financing issues? And here we give recommendations around matching grants and co-financing, around providing incentives for banks to loan and to get traders more involved in the conversation, but also to setting up investment structures for youth and communities. So these are all detailed in the report. Last slide, the report is accompanied by a toolkit and this practical toolkit aims to support both local stakeholders and actors who are very much invested in agri-food systems in rural programming and migration stakeholders working to support both normative frameworks but also reintegration programs in rural areas. The toolkit is structured in the four sections that you see here that mirror the program cycle. So again, to make it as operational as possible. Thank you very much and I look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thank you so much Nassim for the comprehensive description of the methodology for guiding us through the lessons and I found it actually very interesting the focus you made on the links to the development, to the national development plans, the finance, the funding aspects as well, needed for a successful reintegration which is again very much in line with the findings of the previous paper that I was mentioning before. And another aspect that I think is important to underline is the practicality of this toolkit. And once again, the collaboration among actors as a key to support migrants protection and reintegration in different contexts. So thank you again Nassim. I'm sure this will trigger interest from our sessions participants building on this. We now move to some concrete case studies. Mamadou Saneh and Takur Chawan, both national coordinators, sorry, respectively from the FAO country offices in Senegal and Nepal. We'll tell us more on this and we start from Mamadou. A geographer specialized in cooperation, project engineering as director of the regional development agency of Durbel. He has developed a wide range of skills in the field of decentralization and territorial development. And since 2017, he has an expert at FAO coordinator of migration related project. So Mamadou, thank you for being here. The floor is yours. Thank you very much Francisco. Hello to everyone. Thank you to IM and FAO for including me in this important exchange. I'm very delighted to participate in this webinar based on the topic I have been working on for several years. The purpose of my presentations is to share reviews and experience conducted in Senegal by FAO in the framework of a reintegration project for attorneys and potential migrants. The project targeted six rural municipalities as shown on the map. Can you see on the map? Oh, okay, as shown on the map. Excuse me. These municipalities are strongly impacted by the departure of young people to the main urban centers and abroad. Our strategy has been to integrate migration issues into the daily life of communities, into public policies, development strategies, organization of actors, extra. I apologize for my English is not very good, my broken English. I mean, I will be certainly more fluent if the presentation was in French, but let me try. Okay, so for our experience, what are the main orientation of our expenses in Senegal? First, build the capacity of national and local stakeholders to reintegrate attorneys in rural areas. Capacity of 170 national and local stakeholders have been strengthened on the links between migration, agriculture, and rural job development. As you know, FAO conducts its activities, mainly in rural areas. Migration consideration has been taken and has been integrated in local development plans in target municipalities, in collaboration with the regional development agencies. Second, actually support government in providing customized response to bring new integration support services closer to rural people. And for that, orientation and support desk BESAOS in French Bureau, Communo, Dakai, Orientation and Distribution for prospective and nutrients set up in these six municipalities. And for each support desk, we have selected the coordinator who have been trained and coached. Third, orientation, provide retinues with training and incubation services to create viable opportunities in agri-food system. For this, we have trained 120 young retinues in agri-business, agriculture, poultry farming and cattle farming. Through a major agri-business incubation platforms support the formation of local association in targeted municipalities, because it was a real challenge for us to in these rural municipalities to facilitate the organization of association in these municipalities because migrants were everywhere in the world. It was very difficult to meet all these migrants in each municipalities in only one association. But the result was really positive. And next, I'm looking for the next positive, okay. And for the lesson learned from experience, I want to share some good lessons learned from the experience in Senegal. First of all, promoting viable employment opportunities in agri-food system is key to create sustainable livelihood alternatives in rural areas. For that, FAO supported prospective and retaining migrants by strengthening technical capacities on good agricultural practices and entrepreneurial skills. Second, when empowered, retaining migrants can be agents of change. They can contribute to development and climate action and to share information on migration risks and opportunities with their peers. Addressing the rural integration requires increased coherence among agriculture, employment and migration policies. For that, FAO increased the capacities of national and local policy makers to reflect migration and agricultural issues into policies and program. Next, okay, no, excuse me, excuse me. There is a problem, someone can... No problem, Amadou. I think you just need to... Yes, I think there was two slides about... About the lessons, yes, here we go. This is the one, over to you. Thank you. Okay. Okay, the office's reintegration programs tend to focus mostly on European centers. Overlooking rural areas where local governments struggle to meet the needs of Russian needs. The BESAWRs, model is a successful example on how to bring employment and reintegration support services closer to rural people and responsive to their needs. This is very important. Adapting a national government system to rural context. Sustainable reintegration requires not only a compounding returning migrants, but also creating and enabling environment in which their needs are taken into consideration. For that FAO worked closely with national and local governments to mainstream reintegration efforts into policy and programming and strengthening locally owned reintegration mechanism. Okay. I think that's all, Frances. Thank you for your attention. Thank you so much, Amadou. And not a problem, the presentation was super smooth. And thank you for highlighting this a few important points. I would like to underline the concept of returnees as agents of change within their communities of origin, which is extremely important point together with the rural capacity building that you mentioned and once again, the collaborations among key actors. We move now from Senegal to Nepal with Thakur Chawan. Thakur has more than 20 years of experience in the international development sector, is now working as project coordinator at FAO in Nepal. Over to you, Thakur. The floor is yours for the second case study. Okay. Thank you very much. I am providing me the opportunity to share the experiences on sustainable reintegration of migrant returnees in the local economy. Just I would like to highlight here that this is something was adopted and the based on even late assessment that was conducted during COVID context in Nepal that how the COVID is being impacted, impacting the local communities, the marginalized communities in different sectors. So the report when it came out, it's very clearly mentioned that all of the communities who are living in Nepal, they are being impacted in different level of vulnerabilities. But while talking about the migrant returnees, it's very different. It's very different than other section of society. Because if you see in Nepal, about 30 million population is outside of the country. They are migrating in different parts of the world, including the Gulf countries, European countries, even in the neighboring countries like India or their income and employment generation. So when there were the context of COVID, about most of the migrant who migrated for foreign employment, for seeking their livelihoods, they lost the job opportunities as in many parts of the world, people faces. So there was unemployment conditions, there were reduction in loss of income and also there were the closure of the borders as well. So people were facing a different level of vulnerability and insecurity and challenges. In so many cases, there was also the devastating condition that people lost their lives who migrated outside the countries due to absence of this take care support. The people, I'm talking about the people who left behind in the communities, particularly the people, the families, from the migrant families, particularly if you see the trend of migration, mostly the males are there who migrated to the other parts of the world or seeking for employment opportunities and women and elderly are left behind in the communities. When COVID impacted, the people who were migrated, the families who were mostly dependent on the remittances, they were cut off from the getting remittances and they were not able to support their families for their food security livelihoods and other family needs. So in that context, the local government in Nepal, they were providing some sort of in-kind support in the form of some food plans, food support for one to two months to the most marginalized families in those locations. So in that condition, if you see the context, there was the women who were left behind, they were facing some sort of stigma, some sort of discrimination. They have some level of restricted mobilities and the food system as mentioned by earlier panelists, that food system was also very much broken and they were not in the position of getting in food support or market support, or even they have some product to sell in the market to amid the family needs. In that condition, in Nepal, from the FAO, we started initiatives called sustainable reintegration of migrant returnees and strengthening their capacity to harness positive effects of migration in Nepal. And we piloted that sort of initiatives in one of the locations. If you can see here, the Chanderpur municipality that is southern part of Nepal, where there were severe flux of migration from that municipality to other parts of the world, as well as there were some internal migration as well. So when the COVID context was there, so they were not able to send some sort of, what do you call this, monies and families that was cut off. And also the production was also very declined due to some sort of getting in food support, extension support, even there was sort of a lower level. So we tried to support those communities, those families who were in the dire needs of support from outside to generate income and employment opportunities in both in farm and non-farm sector, but focusing on the return migrants and their families. If you see the scenario, the young men and women's are mostly migrated and the elderly and the women's are in the household. So they were also some sort of infected from the COVID and they were feeling sick, some sort of support. So they were also psychologically deprived. So in that case, we tried to build the resilience of the household, not only from the COVID shocks and stresses, but all other like climate related shocks and stress and other economic shocks and stresses. So we were also trying to work with those migrant families and even the returnees to enhance their social and economic inclusion in the local economy. And also we were trying to remove the repetencies of those families from remittances and re-intrigate those families in the local economy so that they were getting some sort of support from the local government and other support services available at the local level. For that, we started some sort of a refugee assessment that is the socioeconomic assessment, my case assessment at the local level. And then we also based on the assessment, we found that we need to support the families for their self-employment, wage-employment type of work. And salary, even if there is opportunity, then they can go for salary-employment. So particularly the target groups were migrant returnees and prospective migrants, particularly young women and men in those areas. And we also worked with the, there was a migrant returnees association in the municipalities. We also tried to work with them and then local government and the federal government to onboard on some type of intervention. So while doing that, we based on the local and the rapid market assessment, we selected in participatory way through the rapid market assessments of sort of farm and non-farm based skills and area non-farm areas. Farm-based area, we provided skill development trainings, even vocational skills that was based on national level, we call Center for Technical Education and Vocational Training, that was a level one level of certified training to 160 of those returnees and their families who were interested for non-farm based enterprises development who are trying to enter into self-employment and visual employment. At the same time, not only the training, but we also provide sort of skill certification that was our National Skill Testing Board at the government level, federal level, they support in certification of students of those graduates. So for these skills development interference of training, we collaborative the private sector training and in employment service provider, those who were working in the nearby location, nearby the municipalities, because there were very limited mobility, there are some COVID restrictions that prevent move freely from one place to another fallacious, due to so many WSH related and government related health advisory. At the same time, once we provided some sort of farm-based and non-farm-based skills training, particularly in the farm-based, we provided training on the sort of form in the area of comparative advantage that the farmers can start and run their interfaces, micro-businesses, every trainer's type, and they can get income opportunity at the local level and local vicinity. And we also aid those technical trainings with inter-farm-based training and then providing some sort of post-training support material so that they will be motivated to start and run their interfaces. Not only the post-training support, but we also supported those skill graduates for their business plan, development, and then technical support, advisory support, and some sort of troubleshooting support on mentoring and coaching at the enterprise level. And we also realized that we needed some market linkage support to those people to remain viable, remain competitive in the local market. And at the same time, we adopted the business development services like linkage with financial services, restation of the SDR interfaces in the local government, and also we were trying to link those interfaces with insurance for that, if there is some sort of shocks and stresses and there is a loss, then they'll be able to get some compensation from those insurance, particularly agriculture insurance, livestock insurance. And all these initiatives, so all these interventions were very closely collaborated with the local government from the start, from the inception, from the assessment, from providing training, some sort of support. So while doing all sort of supports and intervention, we also worked with, as shared by our previous panelists, developing guidance tool on sustainable reintegration of migrant attorneys, how can we do that so that the local government capacity can be enhanced, they will be able to support the other, the left behind the attorneys, the migrant families to be able to reintegrate those inhabitants in the rural economy. So those sort of reintegration tools were developed. At the same time, once the tools were finalized, we tried to contextualize that tool in the Netflix context and we translated that tool in the Nepali version so that our local government and then their planning is stopped, they can apply those tools for their planning purpose. You see the cycle, the planning cycle, the design assessment, the pre-design type of thing, implementation and the monitoring evaluation, all cycle is there. So in the previous slide, you might have seen that. So we try to develop the capacity of the local government officials and the elected representative so that they will be able to understand the thing, the projective to reintegrate those migrant returnees in their families in the local economy and some sort of plan will be what we call regularized in their local planning processes. In Nepal, there are some certain concrete rights that have been provided by the condition that the local governments are one, they can develop, they can plan the economic development programs for their local inhabitants. So that sort of rights are there. So they try to get those rights and build support services at the local level. So the next one, I would like to highlight here that how our intervention, our supports, we try to institutionalize at the local level. As I mentioned of our interventions that was initially discussed with our federal government, Ministry of Agriculture and Wildlife Development and we formed a steering committee at the Department of Agriculture and Livestock in the leadership of the Director General of Department of Agriculture Project Steering Committee. And in the Project Steering Committee, we were supposed to share all the policies, plans and interventions and budget with those sort of steering committee and then once it is approved, it should be implemented at the local level. At the same way, we had developed a coordination committee at the municipal level in the chair, chair of the mayor of that municipality. So both the government, the local and the federal government was on board in every aspects of our intervention and implementation. So this was the one step forward to buy in the program from the government side as well. At the same time, we started the dialogue. As I mentioned earlier, there are a large number of Nepalese migrated to the abroad and they are the one who contribute one third of the global, one third of the Nepalese GDP. So their contribution was also very high. So in that scenario, it is our responsibility. It's the responsibility of the government, the development agency, development partners to support those people who are contributing in the significant economic development of the country if they are in the dire needs of support in the contestant's context. So earlier that attention was not there by the development agency, but we try to initiate the dialogues that look, this is the area, it is very insidious. So government support, the development partner support should be there so that when they are in the need, we should support them. Those are sort of dialogue discussions we develop at different level, particularly that sort of dialogue was conducted at the Palika level. So Palika was very pumped to collaborate with the FAO intervention, this initiation and they also collaborate some of the resources, particularly their agriculture section, their officials, their agriculture section staffs, they fully supported and they lead the whole the intervention at the Palika level, including the participants selection, training course delivery, supporting the post training support items, supporting and providing technical backuping to those beneficiaries and restricting them at the Palika level of their interface. Even after fit out of the project, if you see, we just about one month back, we again, we had a visit there and we discussed with the Palika representatives officials and they are very happy that they have the least of the beneficiary they supported earlier in the FAO and still they are doing very nice job and they have still allocated some of the resources, some of the support to those beneficiaries to enhance their income and employment opportunity. So while doing that, as I mentioned earlier, there were some cases of the social level stigma, the particularly the women and most vulnerable members, they were facing discrimination and the poverty level were high. So we also took the gender transformative approaches and pro pro approaches to select the beneficiary because the size of the beneficiary is a very larger size but we had some sort of certain resources, certain time. So we try to provide our support to a limited number of families. So even from the large of beneficiary, we selected few. Only if you see the number, we provide the support to only 327 households. Out of that. So we focused on most marginalized and the vulnerable and poor families to build their, this economic capacity. We mobilized the local partners because at the time there was the shifted mobility and local resource versions, local experts, municipal officials so that the services were not obstructed because from our side, we had some sort of provision, some sort of barriers to travel from a current level to the community level very frequently due to some COVID related or some sort of provisions. Thank you, Takur. Sorry to interrupt, Takur. I think we are as lightly go beyond the time. So yes, if you can. I'll try to cover very briefly for that. Thank you. As I mentioned, we developed these guidance tools from our learning, from a consultation with the local government and we translated it in Nepali and we printed it and also ended up with the local government and our department of agriculture so that our local government can use some sort of tools to apply in certain, in this type of context. We also developed some communication material that would help the local government to build their capacity, enhance their planning and implementation capacity and those sort of evidence that would help also in evidence based advocacy and policy dialogues with the different layers of government. So here I would like to stop my sharing. Thank you. Thank you very much for being with me even though it was a long or high as well. Absolutely, thank you so much, Takur. It was very interesting and you can see the amount of comments or questions coming through the chat. Thank you so much. So we can now, after this interesting intervention, we can move to the question and answer. I see many questions coming through. I leave the floor to Cristina Rapone, Program Officer of Rural Immigration at the FAO Decent Rural Employment Team who will kindly moderate this interactive session. Thank you. Over to you, Cristina. Thank you, Francesco. Thank you. Everyone I think has been a rich and very interesting presentations and a lot of questions, as you said, coming in the chat. We probably won't be able to address them all but please continue keeping writing because we will be replying to them in the platform community. So work out for the answers if we don't manage to get them through during the session. I will start asking some of the first questions that came in to Nassim, particularly there was one on whether the researchers had considered diversity characteristics beyond age and gender, for example, disability and different sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and other sex characteristics and if they have been implemented an intersectional approach to the fundings and it was another question I would like to post to Nassim about strategies that can be employed to ensure the safety and security of returning migrants during the reintegration process. Over to you, Nassim. Thank you. Thank you so much. And yes, I think these two questions are very interesting because they bring us back to the importance of protection as we discuss rural reintegration programming. And so there's a section actually in the report which discusses specific contexts of return and related protection considerations. So we have a section on that. And so to first start with your last questions on how can we better prepare and how can we ensure safer returns? And I think this links the return with the reintegration process. We give one example in the report of how that could be done, specifically looking at how to bridge the gap between pre-return and post-return. So the preparedness dimension. There are financial services and solutions for migrants abroad or elsewhere in their country that can be put in place. We used an example of a project launched by IFAD in Nepal on loan and grant systems that basically provides migrants with the financial capacity to engage in a safe return and then to plan their reintegration. So we have some of that in the report. Now on the other question related to the SOJESC needs and the intersectionality, we do recognize and we found that because there's basically a barrier in terms of the decentralization of protection services in rural areas. So we recognize that. We actually dedicated a separate piece of research which IUIMO released soon, which we developed for migrants with diverse SOJESC in both urban and rural areas. So we do discuss that, but because it was such a big thematic issue that required its own research, we really treated in depth in this other report that will hopefully be out very soon. Thank you. Thanks, Naseema. I have another question to address to Jacqueline. It's about the evaluations that usually a system that is provided to return migrants is too short and often not taken up by longer term development financing. So individuals and communities revert to unsustainable but traditional practices. So how can we as FAO and other stakeholders be actually more effective in advocating for greater integration into development intervention? Thank you, Christina, and thank you for the question. First, I would just say that this is exactly the direction that we're moving to take things. So we're aware that particularly in emergency context of following a crisis with a large scale return that has been interventions that focus on this quick sort of immediate support of training and inputs, et cetera. But we're moving through, I mean, in the context of strengthening this humanitarian development piece in excess to provide a more sustainable support and to provide more durable solutions for the populations. And I know that's something that our colleagues in the emergency and resilience department are working very avidly on. And also in our own division with the projects that we've been implementing on return, really trying to expand and provide a more holistic support as we have seen in a couple of examples here from Senegal and Nepal but really to accompany participants to really embed them and connect them locally. And so for instance, if somebody is starting up an agribusiness related to animal husbandry that they are also linked up with the veterinary services that continue to provide support to them following the project that they've received support in developing a business plan that links to financial institutions, that the local governments are taking them in as well and providing continued support. And maybe to mention an example from another context not presented here, but for instance in Madagascar, we supported return also with set up of these community empowerment clubs called Demutra clubs or listeners clubs also linked with rural radio that they're really a forum for community members to come together to discuss the issues their communities are facing and to find solutions together. And they are local institutions that persist over time and tackle various challenges and also help with issues related to social cohesion and acceptance of returning migrants and also solving some of the other issues I saw in the chat people were asking about land. I mean, in this context as well it communities can discuss, okay how we can provide also lands to returnees or together with the local leaders, et cetera. So, I would say, I mean, we are definitely moving in this direction and working together to provide support across the organization in that regard. And we would love to see more long-term programs in this area also in partnership with other UN agencies to really bring together our complementarities. So, if anyone is interested in say joining forces and moving in that direction together in a given context, we'd be happy to discuss further with you. Thank you, thank you very much, Jacqueline. I will take just another question. And then as said, we will reply in writing to all the others thanks again for the enthusiasm. And so, Takur, a question for you that's been asking whether beyond training and assessment if within the project, FAO had supported also beneficiaries with grants or support agricultural equipment so that they could start up their businesses taking consideration of renewable abilities. Over to you, Takur. Thank you. Yeah, okay, thank you very much. I have also mentioned in the talk box, I'll just reply that once the training was completed we provided some sort of equipment, tools, input support to the skilled graduates so that they will be able to start and run their micro businesses. For example, we provided vocational skills training in five trades like mobile refier, then motorcycle refier, then next one is tailoring, so when the training was completed and then they were certified by the National Skill Testing Board, we provided them with some sort of necessary tools and equipments for that the beneficiary, particularly the most marginalized youths and adolescent girls, they can start and run their micro businesses. And in the vocational skills training sector at the same time, we also supported one farm level skill development training like vocational, sorry, the off-farm of vegetable production, oxygen vegetable production, some sort of figary farming, drug rearing, so in those God keeping in those area, we also provided some startup support to them. For example, when there is a beneficiary that they were interested in starting in their micro business in figary enterprises, we provided some figlets to them, some support on vaccination, some support on designing and constructing the state for figaries. So likewise, we also supported in God keeping, drug farming, vegetable farming as well. And we also try to link those graduates with the financial services and the services with the local government that is run by the agriculture section. So they also received some sort of support even we were phased out from those areas. So those sort of support are there. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Takur. I give the floor back to Francesco. Thanks again. Sorry, we had to cut it short on the questions but I see participants are still there. So the conversation is interesting and we'll certainly reply to you all. Thank you. Thank you so much, Christina, and for all the speakers and your engagement. It's very interesting to see such interest in this topic. So we can now move to the last session of this webinar today, Rosalind Borland, the head of the Returner Integration Unit at IUM. We'll share some final consideration. Thank you, Ros, over to you. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to host FAO and Samuel Hall colleagues and all of you. It says something that we still have more than 100 participants and we've gone over time. My remarks will be brief. I just want to highlight a few things we've heard today from this interesting discussion. The first point would be that I think it's very easy to hear the complexity of reintegration and the fact that we all know we must have coordination among many, many actors. And we're hearing this more and more from returner integration actors that they need the whole of government approach, a 360 degree approach, a holistic integrated approach to migration in general, but also as we heard from our panelists, migration mainstreamed into other policies and programs in general. I also think we can hear the complexity of the context in the different case studies and not just the context, but the profiles of the people who are returning and all the other people that make up their communities as well as their household. For my one, I would just say, such a pleasure to host you here and to hear about these really important efforts from FAO and Samuel Hall in supporting the reintegration of migrants in rural areas. And I think we could hear and also see from the products that sustainable reintegration represents an opportunity to support rural environments of spaces of protection and inclusion for returnees. Again, we heard from the discussions that we know returnees have specific needs and their families and their households do. But at the same time, we hear how important it is that there is some coherence to this work on reintegration at all levels and also how this reintegration work links to the actions for development or COVID support or other actions for social services, et cetera, especially at the local level, which came out again and again. I would reflect that the products today are very complementary to the literature we have as a return on reintegration community. And that includes some of the work that Iowa has been doing, including with our partner, Samuel Hall. So it's really great to see this piece of work that's so complementary and so important and well needed and to see how there is a toolkit that is very practical. I think that's always extremely important for us to see how we apply our policies and our aims at the actual implementation and operational level. So I would just finish by saying, in line with our own work from IOM on having a rights-based approach and a sustainable development-oriented approach to return and reintegration, I think we would like to see how we can further build on this work together with other partners. And I heard partners and experts on the line saying they are also looking to complement so there is mutual experience and collaboration and we can work together to enhance social cohesion. And part of that I think is stock-taking and learning as we go. So I think promoting the use of tools and evidence-based work, as we've heard the panelists say is quite important. Finally, I think it's, as I said, it's a pleasure, but also I think also an obligation perhaps of IOM to be a convener of some of these spaces as an agency on migration. So we really wanna promote continued experiences to be shared, including in the platform, on all of this work on protection, return and reintegration. So thank you so much, really appreciate everyone's time and it was just a pleasure to hear about these really important products. Back to you, Francesca. Many thanks, many thanks, Rose, for bringing together the different aspect that were discussed today. So thank you everyone for remaining with us. The conversation as mentioned by Christina continues online. Please do not hesitate to register to the platform community where you will find the answer to the unaddressed questions by joining the thematic group reintegration and the specific group and forum that we created under that forum. So please take a few seconds, please, of your time to reply to the poll that just appeared on your screen. I also remind you that the recording of this webinar will be shortly available on the return and reintegration platform and we have reached now the end of the conversation today. We really hope that the presentations of the products triggered your interest. Once again, many thanks to the speakers who joined us today. Thanks to the colleagues in Dakar, Kathmandu, Nairobi, Rome, Geneva, Rome, who made this presentation possible and also helped on the organization and moderation. Please continue to following our activities. As mentioned, the Migrants Protection Platform will come soon. Register to community to receive the latest information. Thank you so much again and I wish you a nice rest of the day. Goodbye.