On Tuesday 7th April 2026 the IOM Chief of Mission to Mauritius and Seychelles, Ms Alia Hirji paid a courtesy visit to the Minister for Employment and Human Resource Planning, Ms Idith Alexander.  Ms Hirji is in Seychelles for the inception phase of the Regional Responses to Climate Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa (RE2CLID) Project.  She took the opportunity of her mission to call on Minister Alexander as the new minister responsible for employment to share updates on joint initiatives currently ongoing and discuss future collaborations in areas of priority for the country, specifically relating to the management of migrant workers.

Seychelles became a member of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in December 2011.  Areas of cooperation relevant to employment and labour have focused mainly on labour migration management, that covers subjects such as ethical recruitment, labour mobility, and migration data.   Support has been through assistance with policy development, drafting of a migration profile, facilitation of workshops and exchange visits with like-minded countries and data gap assessment.  Mrs Hirji informed that IOM intends to build on these areas going forward and invest more in private sector involvement who are the main recruiters of migrant workers. 

Minister Alexander gave an overview of the Ministry’s priorities relevant to migrant recruitment that includes the review of important policies and laws such as the National Employment Policy, Labour Migration Policy and the Employment Act 1995.  She informed of the newly formed joint committee with the Immigration Department to discuss common pertinent issues as they come up and of the newly revamped cross sector Committee on Employment of Non-Seychellois Workers (CENS) re-named Non-Seychellois Employment Committee (NEC) involving relevant stakeholders including the private sector and workers’ representatives. The Minister also spoke about the government’s plan to digitalise its services, which aims for a more efficient service delivery, where the processing of application for recruitment of non-Seychellois workers will also be part of.

The meeting concluded with the commitment from both sides to work towards a more coordinating approach across different sectors for better results and the potential for further collaboration in areas of common interest.