ACIDI – Evaluation of the National Immigrant Support Centres

ACIDI – Evaluation of the National Immigrant Support Centres

IOM is currently conducting the 3rd Evaluation of the National Immigrant Support Services in Portugal (ACIDI). The evaluations have allowed to determine the relevance, the level of achievement of project objectives, and their impact. Another major feature of the evaluations is that they also feed lessons learned into the decision-making process of the project stakeholders and national partners. The first evaluation concerned only the National Immigrant support centres, but currently ACIDI decided to evaluate other support services, namely the Local centres, the SOS Immigrant Telephone Line and the Telephone translation service. Qualitative and quantitative methods and techniques have been applied, such as Interviews (immigrants associations; public agencies representatives) and surveys (immigrant’s users: 350 in Lisbon; 100 in Porto; 50 Faro). The former evaluation showed that the National Immigrant Support Centres represent a clear example of concerted and holistic action that contributes to achieve higher levels of integration. CNAI facilitate migrants´ access to services; and they create greater proximity and trust (socio-cultural mediators). Simultaneously, these centres facilitate the immigrants´ lives both at the reception period and at a later stage of their migratory courses. Nevertheless the previous evaluation found specific limitations and identified some recommendations. For example, they identified the need to:

• improve physical conditions of the CNAIs
• reduction of waiting times
• invest in broader information dissemination campaigns
• invest in the area of diplomas´ recognition and promote a more direct support in the area of labour conflicts.

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Location:

Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Portugal

Policy/practice area:

Socio-economic integration

Keywords:

Citizenship and regularization, Education, Employment, Entrepreneurship, Health, Housing, Training,

Integration Practitioner:

International Organization, Regional Organization or UN agency

Name of Organization:

International Organization for Migration

Website:

http://www.iom.int

Contact Information:

Rua José Estêvão, 137 – 8º
1150-201 Lisboa
Phone: 00351213242949
Email: talves@iom.int

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