The Migration Challenge Competition designed to support tech start-ups with a focus on labour migration solutions has been selected as a UNSDG Good Practice for 2021. Each year, the purpose of this call is to highlight examples of good practices around the globe, including those that can be replicated or scaled-up by others across the globe counting towards the 2030 mark.
“If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together”
African proverb
The Migration Challenge is a partnership initiative championed by the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) in successful collaboration with Seedstars, a start-up incubator, and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). This partnership is designed to support impact-driven ventures focused on addressing labour migration with the aid of technology and innovative solutions.
With less than ten years to go to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in the 2030 Agenda, many stakeholders, national governments and United Nations system entities are crafting innovative solutions to achieve these global targets. Inspiring success stories and partnerships from across the globe are shared and each gain is celebrated, for, they are worth sharing, replicating, and scaling up to address existing gaps and pervasive constraints. These solutions and gains are particularly critical to support recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic and to accelerate progress towards the Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs.[i]
Start-ups and tech industries are driven by entrepreneurial minds with innovative ideas to generate economic opportunities, while providing smart solutions to pervasive social problems. During the pandemic, businesses adopted technologies at a quantum leap, accelerating processes for digital services and products.[1] The IOE believes in the powerful impact of @businessvoice in creating sustainable solutions to address the development challenges.
The Migration Challenge Competition brings together startups from fintech, edtech, healthtech, blockchain technology and human resources sectors, which have an impact on emerging markets. The IOE-Seedstars-SDC partnership contributes directly to the sustainable implementation of SDGs 8, 10 and 17, by supporting tech start-ups whose beneficiaries are vulnerable groups necessitating access to banking and information as well as decent and productive work. In addition to addressing SDG 10.7 to facilitate regular migration, these start-up solutions also create indirect ripple effects upon SDGs 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively.
In the context
of COVID-19, the Challenge has further enhanced its relevance, as it offers
start-ups with much-needed support[ii]
as they struggle to navigate the economic challenges created by the pandemic.
To sustain partnership efforts, IOE has developed a network of Migration
Challenge finalist start-ups, where they can continue to enhance their human
capital and grow networks with governments and employers’ organisations.
Supporting start-ups with focus on labour migration is a triple win with long
term gains for business, government and communities, at the heart of which lies
many SDG targets.
[i]https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/good-practices
[ii] https://gfmdbusinessmechanism.org/news/nine-tech-start-up-finalists-present-their-pitches-at-the-it-takes-a-community-campaign-the-first-prize-goes-to-relocate-me/