The overall goal of IOM's project in Moldova is to create enabling conditions for Moldovan diaspora’s systematic engagement in their homeland’s socio-economic development through sharing technical expertise and knowledge they acquired abroad and cultivating Romanian language skills among the second generation of migrants.

This will be achieved by:
a) consolidating a framework for diaspora-homeland partnerships where diaspora representatives engage with providing consultative and advisory inputs to Moldova’s socio-economic development initiatives, and
b) supporting innovative initiatives aimed at fostering a sense of national identity and cultural links between second-generation Moldovans and the homeland.

As a result of the first project component, the enhanced Diaspora, Migration and Development (DMD) collaboration framework will facilitate the involvement of Moldovan professionals and highly qualified members of the diaspora in Moldova’s development, volunteering their expertise and knowledge to strengthen the Government’s national development undertakings.

The project will enhance the capacity of the national institutions to identify and implement in practice effective diaspora engagement initiatives, in particular through establishing and maintaining Diaspora Excellence Groups – informal virtual unions of likeminded proactive diaspora representatives, who will volunteer their time and knowledge to enter into a durable diaspora-homeland partnership with the Government on particular thematic policy development areas.

The second project component will provide the DMD stakeholders in Moldova with tools and methodology for fostering Moldovan diasporas’ socio-cultural links with the homeland, in particular by cultivating their language skills and, therefore, targeting the emerging second-generation of Moldovans born abroad.

In order to maintain the Diaspora’s identification with the homeland and enhance its propensity to engage in development activities in/ for the home communities, it is important to foster their cultural/ linguistic identity. This component will strengthen capacities of the personnel of diaspora cultural and language training centres, to be soon established in some countries on a voluntary and poorly equipped basis, in providing improved services, certified language training and expanding their local outreach. The action provides for the creation of training curricula and complementary didactic sets for the personnel of the abovementioned centres, certified by the Ministry of Education and based on international best practices of adult learning.