Pakistan will chair Abu Dhabi Dialogue for next two years

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will chair the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) for the next two years, starting later this year.

The ADD was established in 2008 as a forum for dialogue and cooperation between Asian countries of labour origin and destination. The effort was being made for the past two years on Prime Minister Imran Khan’s directions by the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and HRD.

In his tweet, former SAPM on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari said it will be privilege for Pakistan to chair the upcoming Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD) for the first time since its inception in 2008, adding that the dialogue will be held later this year for the period of next two years.

“It’s a privilege for Pakistan to chair the upcoming Abu Dhabi Dialogue being held later this year for period of next two years. This honour comes for first time since Dialogue’s inception in 2008 from among 18 nations. We thank ADD & all member states, we hope to chair with fruitful insight”, he tweeted.

“This is a huge recognition of PM’s work for overseas labour rights. Globally it will help us Create a better eco-system for labour rights empowering & ensuring the protection of workers skills up gradation of labour”, he wrote in another tweet.

The ADD consists of 12 member states of the Colombo Process (CP), namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam; and six Gulf countries of destination Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Malaysia.

Regular observers include the IOM, ILO, private sector and civil society representatives. The permanent secretariat is provided by the United Arab Emirates and the current chair-in-office is Sri Lanka.

As a state-led Regional Consultative Process (RCP), the ADD aims to enable safe, orderly and regular labour migration in some of the world’s largest temporary labour migration corridors. Through the multi-lateral dialogue and cooperation on the joint development of labour mobility-related programming, implementation, and reporting, the ADD helps to ensure that the member states develop partnerships for adopting best practices, and are in a position to learn from one another’s experience.

The civil society has been invited to contribute to the dialogue and in recent years to partner in realisation of some of the programme areas.