Sri Lanka’s new three-year migration implementation plan comes at a critical moment when overseas employment has become both an economic lifeline and a major governance challenge, raising the question of whether the country is adequately protecting the workers responsible for billions of dollars in foreign exchange earnings.
The National Implementation Plan for the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration 2026–2028 promises a more coordinated and rights-based system. But its success will depend on whether the Government can move beyond policy declarations and tackle the vulnerabilities embedded throughout the migrant employment chain.
Workers’ remittances exceeded US$8 billion in 2025, according to United Nations Resident Coordinator Marc-André Franche. Such earnings have become strategically important to Sri Lanka’s external sector, household incomes and balance-of-payments stability.
That economic dependence makes migrant protection not merely a social-policy issue but a national economic priority.
The GCM provides 23 objectives covering regular migration pathways, migrant welfare, trafficking, smuggling and sustainable development. Sri Lanka’s National Implementation Plan attempts to convert those international commitments into a national framework involving government institutions, UN agencies, civil society, academia, development partners, private companies and migrant organisations.
The danger, however, is that responsibility could become so widely distributed that accountability becomes diluted.
A whole-of-government approach is useful only when each institution knows exactly what it must deliver and when failures can be identified publicly. Without performance indicators, deadlines and independent monitoring, the Plan could become another policy framework whose effectiveness is difficult to measure.
Recruitment practices will be particularly important. For prospective migrant workers, the migration process begins long before they board an aircraft. Recruitment charges, employment contracts, job descriptions, training, documentation and information about destination-country conditions can determine whether migration becomes an opportunity or a source of debt and exploitation.
The Government’s efforts to strengthen the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Act therefore assume considerable importance. Legislative reform should ensure stronger accountability throughout the recruitment process and provide migrants with accessible mechanisms for complaints and redress.
The Plan’s relationship with the proposed National Policy and National Action Plan on Inbound Labour Migration also creates an opportunity to eliminate policy contradictions and strengthen institutional coordination.
Sri Lanka’s status as a GCM Champion Country in the Asia-Pacific region creates another layer of responsibility. Regional leadership should be demonstrated through results rather than international recognition alone.
IOM Chief of Mission Kristin Parco described the Plan as a commitment to safer migration, stronger protection and greater opportunity. That commitment now needs to be tested against measurable outcomes.
The Government should publicly track indicators such as recruitment abuses, migrant complaints, trafficking cases, dispute resolution, welfare interventions, returnee reintegration and the effectiveness of overseas labour protection.
Ultimately, Sri Lanka cannot afford to view migrants only through the lens of remittances. The workers generating the country’s US$8 billion-plus migration income must be placed at the centre of the system they are helping to finance.