The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) was founded in 1993, upon the initiative of Austria and Switzerland. The organisation was created to serve as a support mechanism for informal consultations, and to provide expertise and efficient services in the newly emerging landscape of multilateral co-operation on migration and asylum issues.

ICMPD today is an international organisation with twelve Member States (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland), sixty staff members at its Vienna Headquarters, a mission in Brussels and regional offices and representatives throughout Europe, CIS, Northern Africa and the Middle East. ICMPD holds UN observer status. The purpose of ICMPD is to promote innovative, comprehensive and sustainable migration policies and to function as a service exchange mechanism for governments and organisations.

ICMPD''s working philosophy is based upon the conviction that the complexities of migration challenges can only be met by working in partnership with governments, research institutes, international organisations and civil society and its organisations.

This approach is reflected in ICMPD''s working method and structural set-up, based on three interlinked pillars:

•Intergovernmental dialogues: with the aim to foster governmental discussion and enhance inter-state dialogue in the current debate on international migration, ICMPD acts as Secretariat to the consultative Budapest Process (50 European and Eurasian states), and to the Dialogue on Mediterranean Transit Migration, which brings together European as well as Mediterranean Arab states.

•Capacity building: with the aim to contribute to good migration governance and to strengthen national and regional capacities in order to deal with the current challenges in various fields of migration, ICMPD develops and organises training and capacity building programmes, facilitates international and interagency co-operation, and supports governmental and administrative bodies in their institution building efforts and legal reform in areas such as asylum, visa, human trafficking and integrated border management.

•Research and documentation: with the aim to facilitate co-operation and synergy within and beyond the research community and to respond to an increased demand for a more policy relevant research, ICMPD conducts policy oriented, empirical research with a comparative, interdisciplinary and international approach. The ICMPD library offers one of the largest collections of migration-specific literature in Austria.

Together with profound understanding of our partners'' working environment ICMPD provides cutting-edge expertise, sound and policy-oriented research, proficiency in establishing information exchange mechanisms, strong programme development and implementation skills and wide-ranging international networking capacities.