The Philippine Government is nominating and recommending the appointment of Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary (Deputy Minister) Sarah Lou Arriola for the position of Deputy Director General for Management and Reform of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Currently, Undersecretary Arriola serves as the head of DFA’s Migrant Workers’ Affairs and is known as an adept and accomplished migration management practitioner and human rights specialist. She also advocates for change management and ethical and decent work within the department that are anchored on core IOM operational characteristics of agility, transparency, and accountability.
In her sterling years in public service, Arriola is a results-oriented leader who is renowned for her fast, responsive, and dynamic actions, especially in concerns of migration and other IOM issues, citing her expertise in handling institutional challenges and reformation.
Under the Duterte administration, the Philippines is one of the first countries in the world to mainstream the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), an intergovernmental negotiated agreement, and prepared under the auspices of the United Nations (UN).
The Philippine Government emphasized that Arriola’s nearly 23 fruitful years in service reflect the scope of her engagement in the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to migration governance.
In 2017, Arriola was the youngest and first woman appointed as Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs of the DFA. She also facilitated the unprecedented and continuing mass repatriation of more than 380,000 distressed Filipino migrants in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For operational accomplishments, she has been tapped to manage US$20.8 million assistance to National Fund for the needs of distressed Filipino migrants including repatriation, medical assistance, financial assistance, granting of flexi-visas, payment of overstaying penalties, and other forms of assistance that she could extend for the welfare of our fellow Filipinos abroad.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte conferred the Grand Cross (Gawad Mabini, Dakilang Kamanong) on Arriola in June 2019 for her magnanimous contribution to the Philippine contingents during the GCM negotiations as she led the team to present the accomplishments of the government in ensuring labor mobility, fair and ethical recruitment, anti-slavery, and anti-trafficking provisions accorded to the compact.
Since 2017, Arriola has represented and led the Philippine government in various international migration governance forums, and multilateral and bilateral negotiations that testify her achievements to sustain the change in the migration sector. (Media Release)
