Building bridges

Practice Aim

To enhance the integration of third-country nationals in the city of Budapest, by providing support for building the capacity of the local administration to develop and implement local integration strategies, to set up migration information points, and to establish partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Target Groups

All refugees.

Identification of stakeholders that made an identification of the practice

Balázs Lehel, International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Criteria actors or stakeholder are using to assess them as a “good practice”

Bridging an information gap between migrants and local governance

Name and leading organization (contact details provided)

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Target VG and type of host community

All VGs who look for a specific assistance (mostly in Budapest)

Application setting

  1. Implementing a study tour to Austrian cities with identified best practices and formulating policy recommendations for the Municipality of Budapest, with a view to improve the capacities available in Budapest regarding local integration measures; and
  2. Establishing a Migrant Information Desk (MID) which provides information on migrants’ rights and obligations, residence and legal issues, education and health systems, labour market and social services, specific migrant support services and any other issues affecting migrants in Hungary. (description published at IOM’s website)

Objectives

To enhance the integration of third-country nationals in the city of Budapest, by providing support for building the capacity of the local administration to develop and implement local integration strategies, to set up migration information points, and to establish partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Length

1 year 2 months 2 weeks (15 April 2017 – 30 June 2018)

Requirements/ accessibility issues

None, walk-in information point set up in central Budapest

Performance procedures

The Information Desk provided information on official subjects and everyday-life topics, such as social security, education, labour market and public transport to third country nationals legally residing in Hungary. Venue: 1052 Budapest, Bárczy István Str. 1-3. Opening Hours:

  • Monday 9am-6pm,
  • Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 9am-5pm,
  • Friday: 9am-2pm

Difficulties or constrains for its implementation

Political context became hostile, the Municipality of Budapest did not want to make too much publicity for the information point

Results

Internal analysis, lessons learnt for a possible future revival of the idea (this time in a more favourable context)

Comments

For more information see http://www.iom.hu/building-bridges