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Morocco and the African Union (AU) signed on Monday an agreement to set up the headquarters of the African Observatory for Migration and Development (OAMD) in Morocco’s capital Rabat.

The agreement was signed by Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and chairman of AU Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat on the sidelines of a UN Intergovernmental Conference on Migration held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

At the 31st AU Summit in July in Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania, the AU heads of states endorsed the proposal by Moroccan King Mohammed VI in his capacity as the AU leader to set up an African migration observatory in the kingdom.

The OAMD will undertake the task of collecting information and developing its exchange as well as facilitating coordination between African countries on migration issues.

The Observatory offers an important tool for analyzing the phenomenon of migration and obtaining reliable statistics that are specifically African, Faki told the press.

For Bourita, the OAMD is the beginning of the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration which emphasizes that better knowledge of this phenomenon will lead to better management.

More than 150 countries around the world adopted on Monday the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration at the UN intergovernmental conference in Marrakech.