Good Practices in Migrant Integration for Municipalities in the Baltic Countries: Part 2

The Academy is an interagency initiative which offers a series of training courses to assist municipalities in preparing them to work with newcomers and address the challenges they might encounter while welcoming them.

Building on their expertise and inspired by the success of a similar Academy in Poland implemented in 2023 and 2024, the Council of Europe Intercultural Cities (ICC) Programme, ODIHR, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have designed a training programme for staff from a range of local authorities to address numerous aspects of migrant and refugee integration in municipalities in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

The Academy on the integration of migrants and refugees in the Baltic countries is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Latvia, the Ministry of Culture, Estonia, the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, Lithuania, Providus, Latvia and the Association of Estonian Cities and Municipalities, Estonia.

This two-part training course, conducted in English, is broadly based on ODIHR’s Good Practices in Migrant Integration manual, with its content adjusted to the Baltic context and the needs of municipal authorities. The course covers multiple aspects of integration from the perspective of cities, including the intersection of integration support and other policy domains, such as anti-trafficking efforts at the local level. It is very interactive. The trainer will actively incorporate the expertise of the participants and enable the sharing of practices and experiences within the group. They will work with case studies, analyse good practices from other OSCE countries and develop their own plans of action to take home and implement.

This second part of the training builds on the previous session, which took place on 13-14 March 2025.

The topics covered in this part of the training include:

• Case studies in local integration practices
• Facilitating access to language courses and labour market integration
• Anti-trafficking at the local level
• Effective communication about migration and integration
• Municipal collaboration with civil society and migrant communities
• Designing small-scale integration initiatives at the local level

Registration

The registration for the training is completed.

Queries

For further information about the training course, please contact: Lola.Girard@odihr.pl and see a UNHCR press release on the Academy.