Migration and Health

The IOM Mission in Belarus promotes comprehensive, preventive and curative health programmes which are beneficial, accessible, and equitable for migrants and mobile populations. Bridging the needs of both migrants and general population, IOM Belarus in close collaboration with its partners contributes towards the physical, mental and social well-being of migrants, enabling them to realize the right to health and achieve social well-being.

Migration Health and Development 

In Belarus, non-discriminatory access to health services is guaranteed by national legislation for all categories of population, including migrants. However, IOM considers migration as a social determinant of health and recognizes that at practical level, migrants might experience problems in getting access to services due to various socio-economic and cultural factors, including language, gender, lack of education and information. 

IOM Belarus works towards the challenge of integrating the actual health needs of migrants into national plans, policies and strategies across sectors, responding to the call to ‘leave no one behind’, stated by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve this objective, IOM engages closely with relevant government ministries, including Ministry of Health, Ministry of Interior, State Border Committee, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, non-governmental organizations, and relevant UN agencies.

In 2022, IOM Belarus launched the project “Supporting national capacities in migration health focusing on communicable diseases” which is implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Belarus and with financial support of the IOM Development Fund. The project aims to support the Government of Belarus in aligning migration health policies and programmes with empirical data and best international practices on migration health through a multisectoral and gender-sensitive approach. To contribute to the achievement of the project objective, the project aims at undertaking the following activities:

• data collection and analysis regarding the health needs of migrants in Belarus, and the capacity of the health system to address these needs;
• analysis of national and international legislation regarding the regulation of health assistance for migrants, as well as the development of recommendations to improve migrants' access to healthcare and public health measures;
• interagency capacity-building activities for government agencies regarding migrant health issues;
• activities to improve migrants' access to existing programmes for the prevention and control of communicable diseases, including vaccination against COVID-19.