 Maragasca, situated off the southern eastern coast of Africa, is the fourth largest island in the world and boasts one of the most unique environments. But despite a wealth of natural resources, the country remains one of the world's poorest and heavily dependent on foreign aid. In the last decade, social and environmental changes have driven many people in Maragasca to increasingly migrate within the country and abroad in search of opportunities. In response to this situation, the IOM Development Fund has been providing support to the Government of Maragasca to address particular areas of migration management. Labour migration has always been a reality in Maragasca, but the number of departures increased significantly with the effects of the political crisis of 2009 when hundreds of thousands of jobs in the formal sector were lost. Neighboring countries such as Mauritius, Seychelles and the Gulf countries became the main destinations for Malagasy workers employed in the domestic, textile, fishing and construction sectors. But the lack of a well-articulated pre-departure on-site, paired with return policies for labour migration has led to many of these workers to be exploited due to irregular and uninformed migration. In 2015, IOM Maragasca, with the financial support of the IOM Development Fund, launched a project to strengthen labour migration management in Maragasca and ensure the protection of migrant workers and their families in national policies. What IOM has done is to support, support and contribute to the implementation of government policies, security, protection and the individual who goes there and their families who stay here. To reach this goal, IOM and the Malagasy Ministry of Employment worked hand-in-hand to bring all the governmental and non-governmental actors to produce the first analysis of labour migration in Maragasca. In February 2016, the project concluded with the development of a roadmap to ensure that by 2020, migration for the purpose of labour can be leveraged to benefit the country's development. Since its creation, the IOM Development Fund has implemented hundreds of successful capacity-building projects worldwide. To learn more about the IOM Development Fund activities, please visit our website.