This brief mapping exercise identifies and analyses six migrant resource centres in the Arab States, providing important lessons for future initiatives to establish and run such centres.

Migrant workers in the Arab States are commonly isolated by language barriers, by the remote nature of their workplaces and accommodation (whether private homes, construction sites or rural farms) and their long hours of work. Having a welcoming, common space for them to meet and interact during their (limited) free time is an important basic right which can support their mental and physical health; and can be an entry point for providing much needed services, as well as a potential opportunity for engagement with workers’ representatives.

This brief mapping exercise identifies and analyses six migrant resource centres in the Arab States and examines how the centres were established, their objectives and activities and how they are run and funded. The mapping also collects information on what the centres themselves see as the achievements and challenges of their work, providing important lessons for future initiatives to establish and run such centres.

This study was drafted by independent consultant Carole Kerbage and Sophia Kagan (Chief Technical Adviser of the FAIRWAY Project, ILO ROAS). The authors wish to acknowledge the important contributions to the report by the Migrant Community Centre, Amel Association International, the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre, Caritas Jordan, the Al-Hassan Workers’ Centre, FENASOL Domestic Workers Union (Lebanon), the Kuwait Trade Union Federation and Human Line Organization. The authors are grateful for review by ILO colleagues Zeina Mezher, Ryszard Cholewinski, Max Tunon, Eliza Marks, Emanuela Pozzan, Mustapha Said, Mari Schlanbusch, Igor Bosc, Anna Engblom and Helene Bohyn; as well as the members of the ILO Policy Advisory Committee on Fair Migration in the Middle East and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.