For the workers whose livelihoods depend on moving between Africa and the Arab States, the promise made in Dar es Salaam this week was simple: cooperation that people can actually feel in their daily lives.
That framing came from Ruba Jaradat, the International Labour Organization’s Regional Director for Arab States, who led the organization’s high-level delegation at the second Doha Dialogue on labour mobility, held on 7 October 2026 in Tanzania’s largest city. “The Doha Dialogue gives us a powerful opportunity to build on the progress already made and turn shared commitments into results that people can feel in their daily lives,” Jaradat said. When labour mobility works well, she added, workers gain access to decent jobs and new skills, employers find the talent they need, and countries of origin and destination both benefit from stronger, more dynamic labour markets.
The two-day meeting, hosted and chaired by Tanzania, gathered Member States of the African Union and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, alongside Jordan and Lebanon. It ran under the theme “From Commitment to Action: Advancing Fair and Sustainable Labour Mobility between Africa and GCC+,” with the stated aim of converting shared priorities into practical cooperation benefiting workers, employers and economies in both regions.
For working people, the agenda touched the questions that decide whether a move abroad is safe and rewarding or precarious. Discussions explored how to connect workers with jobs where their skills are needed, how to ensure qualifications are recognized across borders, how to support fair recruitment and decent working conditions, and how to help workers keep their social protection when they move or return home. Bilateral labour migration agreements and better labour-market data were also on the table as tools to make mobility more predictable for governments, employers and workers alike.
The meeting carried forward the Doha Declaration on Labour Mobility between GCC Countries, Jordan and Lebanon and African Member States, adopted after the inaugural Dialogue in Doha, Qatar in 2024. That Declaration set a shared framework between countries of origin and destination, with priorities including skills mobility and recognition, fair recruitment, wage and social protection, access to justice and labour-market information. This year’s edition focused squarely on implementation, and perspectives from employers, workers and regional and international partners informed the discussions.
Delivering the keynote address on behalf of Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, President of Zanzibar Hussein Ali Mwinyi pointed to the complementary strengths of the two regions. “Africa and the GCC plus countries […] have a strong basis for partnership,” President Hassan said. Africa, she noted, has a large and growing working-age population, a young generation and significant human-capital potential, while GCC plus economies continue to diversify and transform, generating demand for workers and skills across different sectors. “This complementarity presents an opportunity that we must manage strategically and responsibly.”
Qatar’s Minister of Labour, Ali bin Samikh Al Marri, reflected on the progress since 2024 and reaffirmed his country’s commitment to sustaining the interregional process. “The State of Qatar affirms its readiness to continue consultation and cooperation with all participating countries and international partners, and to build on what has been achieved in Dar es Salaam in a way that maintains the momentum of the Dialogue and enhances its practical outcomes, while respecting the particularities of the national policies and legislation of participating countries,” the Minister said.
Behind the scenes, the State of Qatar through its Ministry of Labour, the African Union Commission and the GCC Executive Bureau have played key roles in advancing the process. The ILO brought technical expertise across the agenda, supporting discussions on the Africa-Arab States labour migration corridor, skills mobility, fair recruitment, wage protection, access to justice, social protection and the portability of benefits, and backing tripartite preparations among governments, employers and workers. Further detail on the organization’s role is available at https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/ilo-backs-action-advance-sustainable-labour-mobility-between-africa-and
That engagement rests on established regional and interregional programmes. The FAIRWAY programme, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, is the ILO’s flagship interregional programme on labour migration between Africa and the Arab States, supporting cooperation on fair recruitment, access to justice, bilateral labour migration agreements, labour migration statistics, skills mobility, wage protection and social dialogue. The ILO also contributes to the Joint Labour Migration Programme, the African Union’s flagship labour migration programme, funded by the Swiss agency and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and jointly implemented by the African Union Commission, ILO, IOM and GIZ. It supports labour migration governance, social protection, skills development and institutional capacity across Africa.
For Jaradat, the measure of success now lies beyond the conference room. “Our shared task now is to deepen cooperation across the Africa-Arab States corridor so that mobility creates lasting opportunities for workers, families, businesses and economies in both regions,” she said. Whether the commitments made in Dar es Salaam translate into safer recruitment, recognized skills and portable protections for the workers who move along that corridor is the question the next edition of the Dialogue will have to answer.