The Courier

“It is our duty to erase the negative perceptions and to highlight the positive elements of migration,” said Sir John Kaputin, ACP Secretary General. The ‘ACP Group Brussels Resolution on Migration and Development’ adopted at the meeting will be presented to the upcoming Global Forum on Migration, in Manila, the Philippines, in October 2008. It calls for more research into why people move, including the connection with climate change and to urgently halt the dumping of toxic waste in ACP waters – a practice which induces migration. Improved management of asylum, migration and mobility by ACP governments is another recommendation.

The commissioning by the ACP Secretariat of a study by 2009 on best practices for the promotion of the integration of migrants in host countries is requested. Innovative solutions to illegal migration to arrest the ‘brain drain’ of skilled workers from ACP countries are also called for. ‘Circular’ migration – allowing greater flexibility of workers to enter overseas job markets and return to his or her country of origin with greater ease – should be taken forward, said ACP Ministers. The resolution also says governments should tackle the issue of migrants working without documentation and that ACP nations should ratify legal frameworks to tackle human smuggling. 

Responding to journalists’ questions on the recent violence in South Africa directed at Zimbabwean migrants, Senator Elma Campbell, Minister of State for Immigration of the Bahamas, who chaired the Brussels meeting said: “We urge ACP states to implement legislation to combat racism and xenophobia and increase awareness of the phenomena.”

ACP Migration Observatory

Aya Kasasa, in charge of Culture and Migration at the ACP Secretariat, told journalists that an ACP ‘Facility on Migration’ is being set up with €25M of funds provided by the EU’s 9th European Development Fund (EDF). In a first step, the ACP Secretariat’s tendering process is currently underway to choose a consortium to set up a focal Migration Observatory with a network of observatories in six ACP regions: West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Initially, its focus will be on migration between ACP countries rather than South-North movements. Migrants are often not incorporated into development projects.

The Observatory will comprise academic researchers, civil society, existing migrants’ networks and even individual migrants. It will collate facts and research on migratory flows, the nature and degree of migration, existing projects for migrants, economic and social statistics and the effects of migration on poverty, trade and health. The aim is to provide new information and fresh research and to come up with initiatives for decision-makers. “We are not interested in duplicating efforts, but rather to build on the already existing research,” said Andrew Bradley, ACP Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Human Development. Added Sir John: “as developing countries, ACP states have an active role in shaping the migration debate.”

In a later phase, the Facility will look at strengthening both regional ACP bodies and national ministries on migration issues in 12 pilot countries; Senegal, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Angola, Lesotho, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste. Another of the Facility’s components to come later is to build the role of civil society into discussions of issues affecting migrants.

Said Ndioro Ndiaye, Deputy Director General of the International Organisation for Migration invited to speak at the ministerial meeting: “… the EU’s development aid should give more attention and more merit to the efforts of the ACP diaspora in EU Member States, their potential to multiply development aid by way of remittances, transfer of knowledge and professional experience.” 

Another invitee, Belgium’s Minister for Migration, Annemie Turtelboom, welcomed the fact that the debate on migration within the EU had moved on since 2006 when “Europe looked at migration from a defensive point of view.”

“Those who think they can stop or interrupt this migration with repressive measures are mistaken.” She said that in 2050 Belgium was on course to be short of 360,000 in its working population. “If Belgium closes its frontiers to immigration, the shortage will be 984,000 persons, a shortage representing 23 per cent of its population,” she told ACP Ministers.

She called for migration to be organised and managed in a way that is beneficial for all: migrants, the country of origin and the country of destination. “It’s what I would call a triple win/win situation,” Minister Turtelboom told her ACP counterparts. She said this was encompassed in the EU’s idea for a ‘blue card’ for migrant workers. “The project to organise economic migration is an alternative to the illegal migration of migrants and is one of the measures to combat working in the black,” she told ACP Ministers.