The Netherlands works on preventing irregular migration from and through Ethiopia. This is done through enhancing community awareness about the dangers and risks associated with irregular migration. The Netherlands further promotes safer migration through legal migration pathways, such as opportunities for labor migration, scholarships, and internships for foreign students in the Netherlands or circular migration between Ethiopia and the Gulf states as well as within the African continent. We also work towards preventing irregular migration by establishing effective cooperation in the field of return migration, preferably through a common EU approach and sustainable reintegration of irregular migrants/returnees.

The Netherlands deepens the migration cooperation with the Ethiopian government. The newly developed National Migration Policy, which includes sustainable socio-economic integration of protracted refugees as one of the durable solutions, helps improve migration governance in Ethiopia and fosters a strategic dialogue and partnership between state and non-state actors. To build on the whole-of-government approach, there is a need to strengthen institutional capacity at national, regional, and local level. Therefore, considerable attention is given to build the institutional capacity of government and non-government actors to effectively implement the national migration policy and align it with global, continental, and regional frameworks on migration. Moreover, the Netherlands provides humanitarian support to Ethiopia through international and Dutch humanitarian organizations e.g., UN, NRC, ICRC, DRA etc.