The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), will need at least GHS473 million to implement its newest strategy, aimed at effectively managing global challenges in migration.

At the launch of the 5-year strategic plan in Accra last Wednesday, Deputy Commissioner, GIS, Eric Afari, said the plan, formulated for 2018-2022, will enhance staff welfare, provide adequate infrastructure and review international laws to be in line with international best practices.

The 60-page document covers issues on law, human resource, equipment and funding for ICT among others.

“The EU has been our long standing partner and so we are counting on them for some aspect of funding for this project,” Afari said.

The strategy among other things, is expected to help curb the menace of irregular migration, smuggling, while providing services which respond to evolving international migration trends.

Unveiling the document, Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, said the 2018 annual report of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) points to a global increase in the size of international migration population from 153 million people (or 2.9 percent of the world population) to 244 million (or 3.3 percent of the world population).

Of these, about 75 million lived in Europe in 2015. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), also indicates that there were 417,642 international migrants in Ghana as of 2017, an increase of nearly one-quarter ( 23.9 percent) from the 337,017 recorded in 2010 (UN DESA, 2017).

Between 2010 and 2017, the number of Ghanaians living outside Ghana increased by 15.5 percent from 694,009 to 857,603 which is the highest estimate, reported since 1990.

Dery maintained that the Plan presents a change and modernization agenda for the GIS in all its functional areas as he called for attitudinal and cultural change to ensure success in the implementation of the strategy.

The five-year long project is expected to be funded by the European Union, ECOWAS, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) as well as other consortiums.

Out of the GHS473 million, the GIS will expend about 83 percent of the funds on equipment and infrastructure.