EU provides billions to curb migration from Africa

When hundreds of thousands of refugees came to the EU in 2015, politicians in member states felt compelled to react quickly and efficiently. They gathered in the Maltese capital, Valletta, together with the heads of state of many African countries and decided to supply a fund of money. This money was not intended to help thousands of people who had just arrived in the European Union. The money given to the so-called EU Emergency Aid Guarantee Fund, EUTF for short, was intended to “bring under control the causes of irregular migration” so that the road to Europe, often a dangerous one, could be taken as far as possible. few Africans.

Has this goal been achieved after six years and with five billion euros? Together with the partner media from the European Data Journalism Network, Europäischen Datenjournalismus Netzwerk, abbreviated EDJNet, Deutsche Welle has made this balance:

By December 2021, when the approval phase ended, more than 250 projects have been initiated. Many of them are still unfinished, the largest amount of EUTF money, was given in the summer of 2020.

The EUTF Fund had several objectives which were presented in the first documents as equivalent: combating irregular migration, combating and reducing trafficking in human beings, protection of migrants, cooperation in the return and reintegration of migrants, and development of opportunities for legal migration.

Focus on curbing migration

The fund money was not distributed evenly, according to these intentions. Although in a document related to the situation in February 2018, it is stated that “Most of the resources will be dedicated to job creation and economic development,” only 10 percent of the resources are provided for this purpose. The goal of job creation changed two months later, in April 2018, at a meeting of the strategic presidency of the EUTF. The protocol states that President Stefano Manservisi – then head of the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development – stated that the lack of funding made it necessary to set priorities and focus projects on “returns and reintegration”. , “Refugee management”, “provision of documents and civic services”, “fight against human trafficking”, “basic efforts to stabilize Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and the Sahel area, if sufficient resources are made available” as well as the “migration dialogue”.

It is therefore no surprise that a quarter of the fund’s money, most of it, has gone to managing migration. Here it has been important that the majority of Africans who have left their homes, voluntarily or compulsorily, migrate to neighboring countries or regions. By 2020, for example, 80 percent of African migrants have left their country, but not the mainland, according to a document from the Institute for the Study of Security Issues.

Although the stated aim was to combat the causes that force Africans to take dangerous migration routes, the EUTF dealt more with Europe than with Africa, because it is more problematic for Austria to receive 40,000 regular migrants than for Uganda to receive 1.3 million refugees “, says Mehari Taddele Maru, professor at the Center for Migration Policy and former coordinator of the migration program in the African Union Commission.

Some of the experts with whom Deutsche Welle spoke stressed that the EU focus on irregular migration is not necessarily the most important aspect of this topic for African politicians as well. “A large part of migration movements in the past have been made legally, according to the history of colonization, for example from Nigeria to Great Britain, or from Francophone countries to France and Belgium, or to the Middle East, due to geographical proximity or religious rituals, ”says Mehari.

Although it was originally intended to create legal avenues for Africans in EU countries, the fund ultimately focuses primarily on irregular migration. Instead of opening up visa opportunities, the focus shifted to managing the movements of asylum seekers, refugees and people who do not have the necessary documents and permits to go to work in another country.

Fewer Africans en route to Europe

European border police, Frontex have registered fewer irregular border violations by African citizens, since the establishment of the EUTF in 2015, and generally fewer Africans have sought asylum in EU countries.

The development of figures for border crossings and asylum applications by citizens of countries benefiting from the EUTF fund show the same decline, not as great as the figures for all African countries, ie together with countries that do not benefit from the fund. This shows that at this level, the EUTF fund has not had a significant impact on migration movements in the European Union. Although fewer Africans have made their way to the European Union during this time, the number of people fleeing their homes has increased.

The number of Africans who have fled or left the country and returned as refugees within the country or refugees in other African countries has doubled from 2015 to 2020. This is shown by the figures of the High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) .

“People’s personal reasons for migrating differ from each other, as do their motivations,” said Ottilia Anna Maunganidze, who specializes in international law and migration at the Institute for Security Studies in Security Policy and wrote in 2021 an article on the topic of Migration from Africa to Europe.

“The money dedicated to this work should be cut into account.” Maunganidze says that the EUTF has done this in some, but not all cases. In regions where the European Union has long been present and relied on local expertise, money cuts have been successful.

In the case of Nigeria, says Maunganidze, the EUTF intervention has exacerbated what it had to fight. “Nigeria is one of the poorest countries on the African continent,” she said. “It is also the country with the youngest population, with an average age of 14 years. If one is to intervene in Africa, then the focus should be on early childhood development, education, integration and the conception of society. But access to the entire Sahel region has been largely a matter of EU foreign policy. The focus has always been on migration movements and not on people’s lack of chances to stay home, which makes them leave. If the approach that is supposed to mitigate migration is followed, then it also has an impact on the local economy and trade, which unfortunately has the unintended consequences of further downturn in the country, and people take dangerous roads and illegal canals. . ”

People still want to flee, but instead of using legal avenues, they have no choice but to cross the smuggling border.

Maunganidze says that not only the different demographic compositions of countries should be taken into account. “Many of the problems are structural and systematic in nature and require long-term intervention to combat them,” she said. “Therefore, it is definitely not realistic to focus on short-term success. “But if the projects are adapted for their implementation, then this can be achieved in the long run, but not with the amount of money that the EUTF has made available.”

Direct on-site measurement of the impact of EU money

Attempts have been made to address systemic and structural problems. The project that has received the most funding focuses, for example, on “state-building” in Somalia. The government received € 170 million in aid to strengthen its institutions and create services for citizens, with the aim of strengthening the trust of other states, potential lenders and the population in the government.

According to the project website, the money so far “has directly assisted or assisted in the development of two strategies, laws and measures to be taken for them”, as well as “the establishment, implementation or strengthening of four” systems for the collection of data for planning, monitoring and learning as well as analysis. ”

Another example is a 54 million euro project in Sudan, led by the UN World Food Program, which is to provide food and security for 1.1 million people. For comparison. In 2020, about 9.6 million Sudanese were at risk of acute hunger, says the Food Security Information Network.

There was also a € 47.7 million project for Ethiopia to strengthen and create economic opportunities. With the money of the EUTF, 11,000 jobs must be created in this country. About 1.7 million Ethiopians aged 15 or older did not have a paid job in 2020, says the ILO, the International Labor Organization.

Good intentions, but wrong framing

Since the EUTF was created as an emergency instrument, to start projects quickly and flexibly, it is not necessarily envisaged as long-term. Many of the experts told Deutsche Welle that the task of combating the causes of migration could not be accomplished with an instrument created to combat short-term problems.

“With its approach to combating the causes of migration, the EUTF has taken the wrong direction, especially with regard to the idea that people will stop migrating once the causes are eliminated,” said Alia Fakhry, a migration researcher at the German Foreign Policy Organization. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik. “Avoiding the causes is one thing, but conflicts and natural disasters will continue to force people to leave their homes.”

The instrument entitled “Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument”, abbreviated NDICI, successor to the EUTF, has a broader focus. Ten percent of its budget, about eight billion euros, is dedicated to migration, with a strict monitoring system. “But the idea of ​​the causes of migration seems to no longer exist,” says Fakhry. “Perhaps it has reached a point where the attention paid to the EUTF and the criticism of it are yielding results.” / DW

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