Labour Market and Service Skills Assessement in Selected Locations in Sudan

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct a detailed labour market assessment to identify effective responses to the reintegration needs of returnees in Eastern Africa, while enhancing their employability, and their entrepreneurship capacities. This assessment was based on a survey of returnees, a survey of businesses, KIIs, and FGDs. The work took place across main and secondary cities in three countries: Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Findings showed that returnees faced several challenges across all dimensions of reintegration. In particular, economic reintegration was limited due to returnees’ ability to access recruitment channels, limited access to finance, a skills mismatch, and the generally poor state of the three economies. Social reintegration was limited by poor access to finance while both individual mental health and community integration limited psychosocial reintegration. Recommendations made to IOM focused on enabling returnees to become self-sufficient as soon as possible by facilitating access to employment and promoting entrepreneurship.