The supervisory board of the Integration and Migration Foundation Our People (MISA), has approved the foundation’s budget and plan of activities for 2010. During the year MISA will be holding 23 application rounds, conducting 29 procurements and organising more than 40 different activities. Its budget for the year is close to 89 million kroons.

The Integration Foundation and Estonian Migration Fund will merge on 1 January 2010 and the new organisation will be known as the Integration and Migration Foundation “Our People” and go by the acronym MISA. The new name expresses the idea of the tasks of the two foundations coming together, focussing on the inclusion not only of Estonians and non-Estonians, but those who have migrated to the country.

On 29 October the Estonian government approved a bill drafted by the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Culture, which will lead to the merger of the Estonian Migration Foundation and the Integration Foundation by 1 January 2010.

An international conference titled “The mechanisms of European cooperation in the field of integration” will be held in Tallinn on 19 and 20 February with the participation of representatives from public departments, local governments and citizens’ associations from all 27 member states of the European Union and Norway.