Dialogue in Divergence The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration: The Cases of Nigeria, Mali, and Niger

Rahmane Idrissa Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

2 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration Dialogue in Divergence The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration: The Cases of Nigeria, Mali, and Niger Contents

Foreword 4

Introduction 5

ECOWAS 9 Mobility and development: the ECOWAS Protocol 10 From mobility to migration: the ECOWAS Common Approach 12

Nigeria 16 The political economy of migration in Nigeria: population, governance, urbanisation 17 The EU-Nigeria policy dialogue: incentivising a complex arena 19

Mali 23 Migration: a short history of the situation to date 24 The EU-Mali policy dialogue: amenable state, adverse civil society 25

Niger 29 ‘Border externalisation’: Niger as Europe’s immigration officer 30 The impact for Niger: empty rewards and hidden dangers 33

Conclusions and implications 36 On synergy: bridging incompatibilities 36 On divergent positions: structural issues and root causes 37

Recommendations 40 (1) Recommendations related to the West African Region 40 (2) Recommendations related to Nigeria 41

(3) Recommendations related to Mali 42 (4) Recommendations related to Niger 42

List of Abbreviations 44

1 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

2 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration Executive summary

This study analyses some aspects of the impact of European Union migration policies on ECOWAS, the West African regional economic integration project, and on the migration policies of three countries in the region, Nigeria, Mali, and Niger. The study focuses in particular on the divergent perceptions of the issue in Europe and West Africa. While, from the point of view of decision-makers in Europe, migration from Sub-Saharan Africa has grown since the early 2000s from a problem into a crisis, in West Africa, it is seen as a new phase in the region’s difficult history of socio-economic development. The study revisits the ways in which the EU’s relations with the region were, and still are shaped by the migration issue; reviews and discusses the migra- tion policies of ECOWAS in context; analyses the parameters of the migration issue area in Nigeria and Mali, emphasising in particular the historical perspective in which they make sense; discusses the ways in which the EU has sought to influence the policies of these countries in this connection; examines the peculiar case of Niger, a ‘transit country’ transformed into an immigration officer for the EU; and reviews and discusses the implications for the socio-economic progress of the region and of these three countries. In conclusion, the study emphasises that the EU and West African states have a divergent understanding of what is at stake, with the result that dialogue devolves into ineffective initiatives that reflect both the lack of cohe- rence and the power – in terms of resources – of the EU position. Recommended measures are suggested that may help to establish the balance necessary for dialogue and provide a way out of a questionable – or non-existent - strategy.

3 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

the consequences of this approach for ECOWAS and Foreword the already existing frameworks which do not only govern migration and the free movement of people

After around 1.3 million refugees and migrants throughout the region but are at the heart of the came to the EU in 2015 the EU performed a subs- regional integration and the development process. tantial shift in migration policy, declaring it a major The African Union Cooperation Office of the Fried- priority. Migration is no longer regarded as merely rich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) works on a number of is- part of development cooperation, but is now its sues related to European-African affairs and tries to core, in terms of which future development coope- enhance and broaden the – often – lacking genuine ration will be oriented. At the same time, in the political dialog between the relevant stakeholders. course of 2015 European priorities shifted. While In the context of migration observers have charac- initially the main focus was the Balkan route, by terized it as a “dialog of the deaf”. In order to mi- which in particular people from the Middle East and tigate and enhance this and to ensure an inclusive South Asia came to Europe, after it was blocked the dialog the FES AU Office carried out a number of focus shifted to Africa. A clear sign of this change of conferences on migration, published studies and emphasis was given by the migration summit hastily policy briefs and organized a trip of a high ranking organized in Valletta in November 2015. Underlying AU delegation to Brussels and Berlin. The delega- this shift are prognoses that by 2050 Africa’s popu- tion was made up of representatives from the AU lation will total more than 2 billion. Commission Departments of Social Affairs, Political Affairs and Citizens and Diaspora, all of which are In order to address migration the Valetta Summit re- involved in migration issues. During the trip, which sulted in a new Action Plan and the creation of the was organized in late 2016, it became clear that the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), and a bit AU is worried about the implications of the new EU later, saw the introduction of the so-called Migrati- approach on migration and its negative consequen- on Compacts. Four out of the five countries which ces for regional integration and therefore ultimately were initially designated to sign the first Migrati- African development. It is with this aim that the FES on Compacts came from West Africa and were all initiated the study at hand and hopes that it will be members of the Economic Community of West Af- able to contribute to a more facts based discourse rican States (ECOWAS). The EU defines these com- and to a beneficial partnership between Europe and pacts as a political framework for continued coope- Africa on migration. ration pulling together the different work strands and instruments and tools, in order to develop a I would like to sincerely thank the author – Dr. Rah- comprehensive partnership with third countries. mane Idrissa – for his excellent work researching Some of these instruments and measures, however, and drafting this study as well as my colleague Nina are perceived by many African countries as part of Fink for her efforts in preparing the terms of refe- a European-imposed migration agenda that priori- rence for this study. Last but not least, I would like tizes EU interests over Africans, which undermines to thank my colleague at headquarters, Elisabeth African ownership and neglects local priorities, ex- Braune, for her valuable comments on the draft pertise and capacities. Focusing on ECOWAS also study as well as the FES AU team in Addis Ababa meant that the EU tried to address migration issues and my successor, Dr. Erfried Adam, for finalizing in the most developed African region in terms of the draft study. regional integration. This raised the question about Florian Koch, Director FES AU Cooperation (2015-2018)

4 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

As early as the 1960s, European states collec- Introduction tively defined their African policy officially as a form of development aid. They set up a financi- In recent years, migration from Africa to Europe al mechanism known as the European Develop- has grown from a manageable ‘problem’ to a ment Fund (EDF) which supported a succession much less manageable ‘crisis’. The response of of agreements (conventions of Yaoundé and the European Union (EU) to the problem was of Lomé I, II, III, IV, and IV bis) that integrated in line with its prevailing policy towards Africa, sectors of African agriculture into the Europe- i.e., development aid through trade partners- an economy via trade and the removal of tariff hip. But when the situation that was once seen barriers to market entry for so-called tropical simply as a problem started to be perceived as a products from Africa. crisis, that response also rapidly started to chan- ge. As a result, the evolving EU approach to the In the late 1990s, this arrangement was challen- issues of African migration is impacting signifi- ged at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by cantly on both its partnership with Africa and actors from the American continent, including on Africa’s own migration and development the United States. As a result of WTO rulings, policies. These impacts are as yet ill-understood. a new compact was signed in Cotonou (Benin) in 2000 between Europe and its southern part- This study looks at the case of the Economic ners (the so-called ACP – Africa, the Caribbe- Community of the West African States (ECO- an and the Pacific – countries). This Cotonou WAS) and that of three of its member states Agreement enshrined some of the principles – Mali, Niger and Nigeria – in order to analyse and procedures that would also later determine some of the impacts of the European approach the development of Europe’s approach to the on the policies of West Africa’s countries and, migration issue. These include, inter alia: (1) more crucially, on their development prospects. equality of the partners and ownership of de- This introduction starts with a background de- velopment strategies, (2) dialogue and mutual scription of the evolution of the EU’s approach obligations, and (3) differentiation and regiona- and goes on to pose the research question that lisation in cooperation. emerges and to define the objectives of the stu- dy. The case selection is then justified and the In summary, these principles helped the Eu- methods used to reach the proposed answers ropeans to put in place a system of selection presented. The introduction ends by describing and a variable level of partnership, by linking the structure of the study. cooperation to flexible criteria such as ‘level of development’, ‘need’, ‘performance’, ‘develop- Context: from problem to crisis ment strategy’, ‘vulnerability and landlocked character of a country’, and so on. The Agree- There was some irregular migration from Africa ment also introduced the concept of ‘political to Europe before the 2000s, but the numbers dialogue’ into the EU’s relations with Africa. In were not significant enough to be considered addition to promoting ‘good governance’, this a problem. In order to understand how migra- concept was intended to form a mechanism tion has impacted on Europe’s African policy, whereby the EU would be able to link develop- starting in the early 2000s, it helps to have an ment aid to matters of peace and security, arms understanding of policies prior to this date.

5 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration trade and migration. Finally, trade cooperation by the Paris Cooperation Programme (2008), was to be overhauled through the Economic the Dakar Strategy (2011) and the Rome Decla- Partnership Agreements (EPAs), in which the ration and Programme (2014). These successive African states would reciprocate the opening meetings resulted in the adoption of four ‘pil- of the EU market by opening their own to EU lars’ that were to support Euro-African coope- goods. It must be noted that, alongside these ration on the issues: (1) organising mobility and formal schemes of cooperation, the EU has also legal migration; (2) improving border manage- been seeking to export its regional integration ment and combating irregular migration; (3) model to Africa by actively supporting integra- strengthening the synergies between migration tion efforts there, both at continental (African and development; (4) promoting international Union – AU) and at regional (ECOWAS, e.g.) protection. levels. However, by then the context was changing si- The inclusion of the migration issue into the gnificantly. To ‘improve border management’, ‘political dialogue’ clauses of the Agreement the EU had come to rely on the cooperation shows that by this time immigration from Africa of ‘transit countries’ in North Africa. But in was already considered a potential problem for 2011, French and British forces supported an EU countries. The principle of equality which in- insurgency against the EU’s most efficient part- heres in the concept of dialogue meant that this ner in that regard, the regime of Col. Gaddafi potential problem would be addressed by invol- in Libya – which not only prevented migrants ving African states and civil society groupings. from crossing the sea but also offered them al- It is therefore on the bases of equality and dia- ternative economic opportunities in Libya. The logue with Africa that the EU sought to secure Franco-British intervention ensured the collapse remedies to the migration problem which grew of Gaddafi’s regime, which then led to the re- more serious in the decade between 2000 and moval of its guarantees. As a result, there was 2010, when large numbers of migrants attemp- a dramatic increase of migrant flows across the ted perilous sea voyages to Spain and crossed Mediterranean towards the shores of Italy, a the Sahara desert in dire conditions. Diplomacy development which, quite rapidly, had critical led to the so-called Rabat Process which strove political and humanitarian consequences. to orient EU development aid towards a ‘syn- In this new context, migration made for alarming ergy’ with desirable migration policies. In other headlines in Europe’s mainstream press, with words, the EU would be ready to provide targe- the attendant impact on the political stage. ted development aid if African states adopted Moreover, a series of shipwrecks in the Medi- measures that would help in stemming migra- terranean in the spring of 2015 caused hund- tion flows towards EU territory. Thus, underli- reds of fatalities among migrants crossing the ning the connection between migration policy sea towards Italy and Greece. Both the influx of and development aid, the official name of the the migrants and the disasters at sea changed Rabat Process is ‘the Euro-African Dialogue on European perceptions of the issue in ambivalent Migration and Development’. but fundamental ways. It was now no longer a This dialogue progressed at a slow but steady problem to be managed but a crisis to be ur- pace between 2006 and 2015, a period marked gently dealt with. The EU therefore felt under

6 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration pressure to give some teeth to a vision that had (1) Determine if and how the current EU thus far been essentially declarative. In Novem- approach affects African migration gover- ber 2015, a summit of European and African nance and regional integration efforts, i.e., heads of state and government was organised does it complement and reinforce existing in Valletta, on the island of Malta, to decide on policies or undermines them? the concrete measures that needed to be taken (2) Provide policy recommendations for Euro- to end the crisis. Building on the momentum pean and African policymakers. from the Rabat Process, the Valletta summit led the European side to set up an Emergency Trust Justification and method Fund designed to pool resources from the EU budget, the EDF, and EU donor countries in or- The West African region is the ideal case for an der to finance a coordinated response to the exploration of the above-mentioned issues and crisis, both in departure and in transit countries. questions. The bulk of Sub-Saharan migrant flows come from West Africa and the region The emergency funding is, however, only one has a longstanding and quite advanced regional component of a more extensive effort to pur- integration project. The study focuses therefore sue connections between development aid and on ECOWAS, the vehicle of that project. Mo- migration policy, with a renewed focus on ma- reover, three countries have been selected as a jor departure countries – such as Nigeria and basis for the research: Nigeria and Mali as ma- Mali – and key transit countries – especially Ni- jor departure countries, and Niger as the main ger. On a broader level, the EU is seeking to transit country in the region. Within West Afri- redefine its partnership with African countries ca, Nigeria and Mali have very different levels within the newly developed framework of the of economic development, and the comparison ‘Africa-Europe Alliance for sustainable invest- between the two provides the variability that ments and jobs’, which intends to significantly bolsters the validity of the responses proffered expand and diversify European investments in by the study. the continent. This new vision is poised to have a strong influence on the EU’s migration appro- The research method behind the study combi- ach in the coming years. nes documentary research with stakeholder in- terviews in the three countries and in ECOWAS. In each of the countries, I have met representa- Research question and objectives tives of the EU, government, international orga- nisations and the civil society, while also consul- The question that then needs to be asked is ting local experts on the issues. Interviews were how this renewed emphasis on migration im- geared in particular towards understanding the pacts the EU’s commitment to the development dynamics that constrain or stimulate policyma- of Africa. Does it strengthen that commitment king on the ground, both on the part of the EU – as EU representatives claim – or not? And and of countries in the region. I have especially how does it interact and/or interfere with the attempted to collect information that might be Africans’ own plans for development? In see- helpful in analysing the existence of or, conver- king responses to these questions, the study sely, the lack of synergy between EU efforts and will address these two main objectives: local/regional policies and measures.

7 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Study layout

The study is divided into six sections. The first four sections dwell on the cases of ECOWAS and the three countries under study, offering, in each case, first a survey of migration issu- es and policy in the context of the prevailing socio-economic conditions, and second, an analysis of the impact of the EU approach. The sections address in particular the question of whether the EU approach supports or un- dermines local and regional policies. The fifth section then draws the lessons of these case studies by summarising and analysing their key implications; it then broadens the perspective by discussing the long-term perspectives on de- velopment and migration that emerge from the lessons drawn from the cases studies. The sixth and final section presents policy recommenda- tions both for the countries studied and the EU.

8 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

also migrated of their own free will, especially ECOWAS from the Sahel to the Gulf of Guinea, where the colonial economy of ports and tropical products In West Africa, regional economic integration was more developed. If the colonialists sought is ancient and has always included migration. to shape migration in line with their econo- For many centuries, long-distance trade routes mic policies, there were little means to control crisscrossed the region and there was a pattern it effectively due to the vastness of so-called of whole communities moving from one locati- green borders and the longstanding (pre-colo- on to another, sometimes quite far away, as a nial) relations between communities along the refuge from hardship or war. Although in the borders. In most cases, this was circular migra- past most of the region was sparsely populated, tion, with people coming and going between much of it was governed by customs that spel- their home community and their new abode. led out rights and obligations, always including Eventually, some would return for good, while rules for receiving and integrating strangers. others would settle permanently in what then However, large-scale intra-regional migration would become their new country. Most of the- did not exist before colonialism. se, however, still kept in touch with their home community.

These diverse elements of mass mobility define Kap Niger Verde Senegal the model of intra-regional migration that still Mali Burkina characterises West Africa today, and they also Gambia Faso Guinea help to understand the nature and dynamics of Guinea- Nigeria emigration out of West Africa. Bissau Ivory Coast Ghana Sierra Leone As the colonial empires retreated, the economic Benin Togo framework on which they were based unravel- Liberia led. The newly independent states subsequent- Image: D-Maps.com; Timo Lowinger ly went their separate ways, each attempting In part, one can even say that migration was to build a national economy that would benefit a colonial ‘invention’ in the sense that local its citizens in accordance with the concept of customs were transformed by European the sovereign nation-state. As a result, they un- practices and ideas with regard to mobility. The dertook to regulate and restrict the migratory concept of migration as understood today deri- patterns that had developed over the past cen- ves from the concept of national borders, which turies and decades. Many West African states did not exist in the region before colonialism. – especially the coastal ones – went as far as On a less abstract level, in their efforts to cater conducting mass deportations of non-nationals to the needs of capital and administration, co- at several junctures, in particular in response lonialists organised the routine transfer of skil- to the structural crisis of national development led and unskilled labour from one colony to the that started to grip most African countries in other. In general, skilled labour was transferred the late 1960s and early 1970s. But such radi- from the coastal colonies to the interior and cal measures were also a sign that the idea of unskilled labour from the interior to the coast. self-sufficient national development was ques- Taking advantage of the colonial order, people

9 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration tionable. By the mid-1970s, the debate in the that would remove obstacles to the mobility Pan-African arena started to focus on the con- of ECOWAS citizens across the region while crete forms of intra-African solidarity and co- preserving border controls and respecting the operation that would help the African countries member states’ immigration laws. This resulted, cope with their state of structural economic in 1979, in the ECOWAS Protocol relating to crisis. From this new vantage point, what had the Free Movement of Persons, Residence and seemed a problem – ‘migration’ – came to be Establishment. This framework abolished visas perceived as a potential solution and was con- and other entry permits for community citi- ceptualised as ‘free movement of people’. zens but placed some restrictions on residen- ce. For instance, nationals of another ECOWAS In fact, as will be indicated later, West Afri- country may reside only for 90 days in another ca’s French-speaking states had already been ECOWAS country without needing a residence dabbling in this for some time. In the mid- permit. The Protocol was also subject to exis- 1970s, it was the Nigerian state, flush with oil ting national immigration laws and allowed a money, which took the lead and expanded such member state to deport or expel nationals of experiments throughout the entire region, mo- another member state in accordance with tho- bilising its neighbours towards the founding of se laws. ECOWAS. The new organisation conceived of development as regional rather than national, However, since the ambition was to promote and the ‘free movement of persons and goods’ mobility, the Protocol also specifies that its pro- was introduced in an agenda that also included visions do not affect ‘more favourable provisi- plans for integration of trade, economic po- ons’ already existing between some member licy, tariffs, and transports and communication states. Examples of this include agreements (ECOWAS Treaty, Chap. I, Art. 2, § 2; see also between the French-speaking states of West Chap. IV, Art. 27). Africa, which were well ahead of ECOWAS in terms of free movement of persons and goods How has this idea evolved since then? What is thanks to the institutional frameworks of the the approach that prevails today in this respect, West African Economic and Monetary Union and what role did the EU play in that evoluti- (WAEMU, comprising the eight states that sha- on? This section looks at these questions as well re the Franc CFA currency) and the Conseil de as discussing the gaps and challenges related l’Entente (‘Entente Council’, comprising five to the prevailing approach and exploring the states). Border controls between WAEMU sta- long-term implications for ECOWAS’ agenda tes are far laxer, since their own community ci- of development-by-integration, including how tizens only require a national ID card to cross it relates to the AU’s own agenda concerning the border. Besides the common currency, they these issues. also share the same business law. For its part, Mobility and development: the Conseil de l’Entente, which was founded in the ECOWAS Protocol 1959, had put in place the institutional infra- structures for freedom of movement at a quite The early ECOWAS approach was about mo- early stage, some of which were later adopted bility rather than migration. The organisation’s by ECOWAS. For instance, the Inter-State Road brief was to provide an institutional framework Transit (ISRT) convention adopted by the coun-

10 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration cil in 1975 was signed by all ECOWAS member Moreover, regional programmes of road const- states in 1982. The Higher Committee for Land ruction are envisioned with a view to boosting Transport, set up by the council in 1970, beca- commercial exchange. However, since these me an ECOWAS organ in 1984. The high level programmes have not yet taken off, West Af- of policy coordination and juridical harmonisa- rican mobility patterns remain unchanged and tion existing among the French-speaking states still largely follow the old economic lines that of West Africa thus forms a general objective of were drawn under the colonial regime. ECOWAS in the development of its own institu- To be more precise, the mobility patterns have tional framework. been impacted both by demographic changes As the case of the Francophone states shows, – the populations of West African countries are the rationale for the free movement of persons considerably bigger than they were under co- and goods is to create a regional market for lonialism – and the crisis of national develop- trade and labour. This means that its success, ment. Thus, although the most significant in- in terms of contributing to economic develop- tra-regional mass mobility still flows from the ment, depends on other measures conducive Sahel interior (Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali) to to the emergence of such a market being op- the Gulf of Guinea (Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Gha- portunely implemented. Thus, free movement na and Côte d’Ivoire), there has also been, at is linked to ECOWAS’ flagship economic policy least since the 1980s, some mass mobility in programmes in agriculture and industry, which the reverse direction. These movements fol- in recent years have been formalised as the low the model of semi-circular migration that ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy (ECO- emerged during the colonial era described abo- WAP) and the West Africa Common Industrial ve. Moreover, just as in the colonial era, roads Policy (WACIP). These programmes are based and railways generally lead to the ports instead on the fact that West Africa is the most popula- of linking countries across the region, with a ted region in Africa, with growing urbanisation, negative impact for the intra-regional exchan- the spread of modern consumer culture and ge economy. Trade among ECOWAS countries the relatively rapid emergence of a middle class. accounts for only 12% of their total external By 2020, the region will have a market of over trade, which is slightly higher than in some 400 million consumers, and integration policies other African regions but much lower than in are needed to organise this market and help it all other world regions. reach its potentials, notably in the domains of In this context, the ECOWAS Protocol appears trade and agricultural and industrial produc- as an orphan policy, in the sense that it applies tion. In that regard, the goals of programmes in isolation from the comprehensive framework such as ECOWAP and WACIP, which plan to to which it is supposed to contribute, and which connect regional value and supply chains, im- still suffers from lack of implementation, coor- prove, expand and integrate infrastructures for dination and harmonisation. Largely thanks to communication, transport and production, rai- the Protocol, the restrictions and mass depor- se the rate of local raw material processing and tations of the past have subsided, even though increase intra-community trade from less than immigration laws are as yet not harmonised 12% to over 40% during the 2020s, do requi- across the region, and in some countries, le- re freedom of movement of people and goods. gislation predating and even contradicting the

11 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Trade at the Togo-Benin Border - Image: USAID West Africa Trade Hub Protocol is still in force. Conservative estimates movement and goods more effective as it goes suggest that nearly 3% of the region’s popula- forward. tion have settled in a West African country dif- However, since the early 2000s, ECOWAS’ ferent than their own. Therefore, while waiting approach to free mobility in West Africa has for the economic integration process to move also altered in some important ways in direct forward, ECOWAS’ Directorate for Freedom relation to EU efforts to manage the ‘migration of Movement and Tourism – not coincidentally problem’. located within the Commission for Trade and Transport – focuses on supporting this mobility by combating residual obstacles. For instance, From mobility to migration: the both free mobility and the transport of goods ECOWAS Common Approach are still subject to harassment at border crossing points by immigration officers – not to mention Given the importance of free mobility in the vi- multiple checkpoints within countries that raise sion of ECOWAS, migration was not seen as a the costs of trade. There is hope that integra- problem by the organisation before the 2000s. ted border infrastructures and the promotion of The concept itself was rarely, if ever, used in its formal and enhanced (biometric) identification discourse and strategies. The EU, on the other will help to make ECOWAS’ writ on freedom of hand, viewed migration as a security problem

12 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration linked to terrorism, drug trafficking and human Approach on Migration which was the result smuggling. These EU concerns were introduced of a flurry of meetings, conferences and work- into Africa via policy dialogue with the AU; shops organised under the aegis of IOM and ECOWAS, as the ‘pillar organisation’ of the AU within the framework of MIDWA. Without min- for West Africa, also became involved in this. cing words, the Common Approach stated that The International Organisation for Migration ‘the management of intra-regional migration (IOM), which is very receptive to EU concerns, and migration to Europe in all its dimensions’ was instrumental in pointing ECOWAS toward was a priority for the organisation. It should be the conceptual paradigm of migration, despite noted here that West Africans also migrated its more traditional focus on free mobility. (The to other parts of Africa, and in fact in greater EU is a main funder of IOM, an organisation numbers, and yet the official focus as per the whose annual budget grew more than seven Common Approach was only on intra-regional times between the late 1990s and today, from migration and migration to Europe. The latter just € 240 m. in 1998 to € 1.8 bn. in 2018.) In was the more important point for the agency December 2000, under the aegis of IOM, ECO- and shaped the political will behind ECOWAS’ WAS set up a consultative process known as Common Approach – as intended by the EU – the Migration Dialogue for West Africa (MID- but given ECOWAS’ mission of ensuring free WA) with the aim of encouraging the region mobility of its community citizens within West to tackle ‘migration issues and concerns’ which Africa, the former point needed to be addres- were not taken into consideration by the indi- sed as well. vidual member states at the time. These issues The Common Approach reflected an entente and concerns were those that preoccupied the between ECOWAS and the EU on a number of EU, and after its launching phase, the MIDWA points: process suffered from the lack of interest shown • Free mobility as a priority for ECOWAS, a by ECOWAS. In 2005, IOM endeavoured to ‘re- point in which the case was made that not vitalise’ the process with a focus on two issues only is free mobility within the ECOWAS of paramount importance for the EU states: (1) zone necessary for regional integration and irregular migration within and outside West Af- integration into the global economy, but rica and (2) Return, readmission and reintegra- it also reduces migratory pressure outside tion of migrants. ECOWAS zone. If, in these ways, the MIDWA process initially • Legal migration ought to be encouraged on seemed to advance the interests and concerns the grounds that migration, when ‘well-ma- of the EU, later it ostensibly sought to create naged’, profits both host and home coun- some of the synergies between migration po- tries. licy and development which the Rabat Process • Human trafficking ought to be combated in was calling for at that stage. Moreover, IOM the name of the protection of migrants’ hu- worked to convince ECOWAS and some of its man rights. member states – including Nigeria and Mali – to develop migration policies, with much of the • ECOWAS commits itself to the harmonisati- funding for these efforts coming from the EU. on of the national migration management Thus, in 2008, ECOWAS issued its Common policies of its member states while also ex-

13 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

pecting the aid policies of EU states to be scribes. But given the West African patterns of harmonised with their migration policies. intra-regional migration, this outcome appears Other points include respect for conventions legitimate from the perspective of West African protecting migrants, asylum seekers and refu- regional integration, inasmuch as to prevent it gees, and recognizing the ‘gender dimension’ would in effect mean to return to the situation of migration in designing policies. which ECOWAS was created to change. As a result, full freedom of mobility means, for in- The Common Approach means that ECOWAS stance, that West African citizens are free to would commit to the ‘management’ of migra- organize the transport of other West African tion (i.e. control of legal migration and repres- citizens. To define some of this transport as sion of irregular migration) if the EU commits ‘migrant smuggling’ or ‘human trafficking’ is a both to be more open to legal migration and to way of reintroducing rigid borders; and accept- reward ECOWAS countries in terms of develop- ing ‘return and reintegration’, even if from out- ment aid. It is accompanied by action plans to side of West Africa implies that the era of mass operationalize these propositions. But it also deportations is back. carries the risk that the emphasis on managing migration would overshadow the ECOWAS More generally, EU delegations in the region Protocol, which is about freedom of movement. are encouraging ECOWAS to implement the While the Common Approach claims to be ba- letter of its own law by effectively setting up a sed – in part – on the principles delineated in ‘border management’ infrastructure. There is a the Protocol, it also introduces issues and con- convergence of interests here between the EU cerns that are foreign and for all intents and and some ECOWAS states, but this has worked purposes contradictory to them. to the disadvantage of the ECOWAS project. Terrorist attacks linked to the ‘jihads’ centred Thus, the current thematic foci of MIDWA dis- in Northern Mali and North-eastern Nigeria can cussions – which are now embedded within the be perceived as taking advantage of ‘porous framework of the Common Approach – include borders’, and the smuggling of certain goods is ‘combatting trans-border organized crime (hu- a concern for policymakers in several ECOWAS man trafficking and migrant smuggling)’ and states. Such ‘security’ issues can be, and are, ‘return and reintegration’. Such language re-le- lumped together with migration and packaged gitimizes policy approaches that the ECOWAS as a set of concerns important to both the EU Protocol had delegitimized, namely rigid bor- and ECOWAS, which is then supposed to ta- ders and mass deportations. As was explained ckle them together. Efforts to combat interna- above, freedom of mobility in West Africa is not tional drug trafficking, for which West Africa ‘managed’. It is happening not so much wit- has been considered a hotspot since 2004, are hin the rulebook of the ECOWAS Protocol as in also partially linked to this. The United Nation’s the context of the removal of those obstacles Organisation on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), to mobility that came from independence era which listed West Africa as a drug trafficking policies and that were rendered obsolete by the hotspot that year, also adopted a protocol on ECOWAS project. The removal of obstacles has human trafficking in 2000 which helped in de- normalised full freedom of mobility in excess fining some aspects of West African migration of what the ECOWAS Protocol actually pre- as crimes – supposedly perpetrated by people

14 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration who were equally involved in terrorism, drug though it is higher in ECOWAS than in other trafficking and migrant smuggling if not human African regions. The main practical obstacles trafficking. The EU funds initiatives are intended to the development of regional trade are road to combat such threats through ‘Better Border and transport infrastructures and border cont- Management’ projects carried out in West Af- rols. The reduction of such obstacles has been rica by organisations such as UNODC and the shown to increase trade by multiple percentage German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusam- points, but much remains to be done. As part menarbeit (GIZ, ‘the International Cooperation of its previous history of supporting regional Agency’). Policing the borders is also supported integration in West Africa, the EU participates in the form of training and provision of equip- in funding efforts to improve this situation. In ment and funding for police units, initially from September 2017, ECOWAS launched a project development aid funds (!), and now by the Trust for the operationalization of its Mechanism for Fund and the Spanish Civil Guard. Several other the Free Movement of Inter-State Passenger Ve- initiatives – some of which are partly funded by hicles, Persons and Goods within the ECOWAS ECOWAS and implemented by IOM – may be Region. One objective is to boost exchanges in mentioned, but the gist of these developments the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor, the virtual econo- is that they have decisively reoriented the focus mic locomotive of the region, and the pilot pro- of policymaking toward the control and repres- ject includes eight countries, including Niger. sion of migration, to the detriment of free mo- Nevertheless, as we have seen, the EU is pus- bility. hing for policies that would result in restricting the free movement that it is also paying to im- In theory, this outcome should have been prove. This is especially true in the case of Niger, matched by commitment by the EU to help for reasons that will be presented in the section with the professional and student mobility of on that country. ECOWAS citizens in Europe, for instance wit- hin the framework of the Africa-EU Partners- The next three sections examine firstly the ca- hip on Migration, Mobility, and Employment ses of Nigeria and Mali as ‘departure’ countries, (MME). However, efforts in that direction have and then Niger, as a ‘transit’ country. so far been only declarative. There is, therefore, a strong sense that the EU approach has signi- ficantly ‘hijacked’ the ECOWAS project of free mobility for its own aims. This particular outco- me plays out in some clearer ways in the cases especially of Mali and Niger.

One important point in connection with the pressure to reinforce border controls in West Africa is the potential danger that it represents for the mainstay of regional economic integra- tion, namely the rate of trade which is a major wealth creation engine. In all African RECs, this rate is much lower than in other world regions,

15 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

mit to stay in the country after three months, Nigeria and the vast majority did not have such a do- cument and were not even aware of the requi- Large-scale Nigerian emigration started with in- rement – but it certainly went against the spirit dependence in a changing political economy. of regional integration. However, many of the The destination of the early flows was almost deportees returned later and West African im- exclusively other West African countries, pri- migration into Nigeria eventually persisted wi- marily Ghana. Outmigration in particular of the thout controls. Official figures for recent years Ibos, a sizable ethnic community in south-eas- suggest that there are upward to a million West tern Nigeria, was amplified by the Biafra War African immigrants in Nigeria while, according (1967-70). This was, in the main, circular migra- to the Oxford University International Migration tion. There was also some emigration to Eng- Institute, over 800,000 Nigerians are said to be lish-speaking countries in the North (the UK, the living abroad. These figures should be treated USA, and Canada) by students who sometimes as estimates that are in reality higher. settled permanently there after their studies. In Until the 1980s, Nigerian emigration general- 1969, Nigerians suffered from mass deporta- ly followed a pattern of unskilled and business tions from Ghana where the economy was in migrants mainly moving to other West African deep crisis. Later, the oil crisis of 1973 trans- countries while skilled migrants moved to the lated into wealth for Nigeria, and the country Anglophone North with a visa. After the 1980s, started to attract both investments from de- other countries in the North (including Germa- veloped economies as well as migrant labour ny, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium) and from across West and Central Africa. – for Northern Nigerians especially –the Gulf states became important destinations. Most- ly, this was regular migration. By the 1990s, however, unskilled migrants, most of them of young age, started to move beyond West Afri- ca into the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa but also Nigeria to Europe, thus engaging in irregular migration. According to the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program- me, by the early 2000s, this changing pattern of Nigerian emigration resulted in the fact that Image: D-Maps.com; Timo Lowinger 62.3% of all Nigerian emigrants were living in Emigration decreased significantly. However, other African countries – the majority in West with the economic downturn that followed the Africa –, 18% were living in Europe, 14.8% in end of the oil boom in the early 1980s, Nigeria North Africa, and 4.8% in other countries. The- returned to being an emigration country and se patterns have not changed today, and the also deported large numbers of foreigners from surge of young, unskilled migrants moving to- other West African countries. The policy did not wards Europe has continued, reaching its peak contravene the letter of the ECOWAS Protocol in the early 2010s. – West African residents need a residence per-

16 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

The latest evidence shows a decline of that par- as regards migration: population growth, go- ticular pattern of Nigerian emigration. Accor- vernance, and urbanisation. Each of these fac- ding to IOM, the number of irregular Nigerian tors is reviewed in turn. migrants arriving in Europe in the first months Population growth: With a population esti- of 2018 – mainly via the Niger-Libya-Italy route mated at over 195 million people in 2018, Ni- – was fewer than 1,300 persons. This is a consi- geria is Africa’s most populous country. It is a derable decrease compared with past years, na- young population, with a median age of 17.9, mely 37,551 in 2016, just two years ago. IOM and its tendency toward a high growth rate notes that there was an overall 81% decrease (2.6% on average) is sustained by the fact that in irregular migrants of all nationalities arriving rural culture – often considered the fount of in Italy in 2018, and Italy is virtually the exclusi- ‘traditional’ attitudes that prize child-bearing – ve ‘port of entry’ for irregular Nigerian migrants is still a major aspect of Nigerian life, with half to Europe. This is, for the most, the result of of all Nigerians living in rural areas. Historically, measures taken to combat irregular migration the economic rationale behind a large num- in Niger and Libya, not necessarily of changes in ber of offspring was that this was a guarantee the patterns of Nigerian emigration. In the fu- against labour scarcity. However, in modern Ni- ture, irregular migration to Europe from Nigeria geria, it is land and capital that is scarce, not might follow different routes leading towards labour. Such a structural configuration naturally Spain, which has seen a surge of West African leads to emigration. Thus, in all of what are to- migrants in recent months. day’s developed economies, scarcity of land and What is the context in which we should try to abundance of labour relative to capital availab- make sense of Nigerian migration? What is the le for creating jobs and other economic oppor- response of the Nigerian state and how is it in- tunities resulted in the past in mass emigration, fluenced by the EU approach? Are the ensuing in particular from the late 18th to the early 20th policy developments favourable or unfavourab- century (or even later for countries such as Italy le to Nigeria’s socio-economic progress? This or Portugal). Much of Africa is in a similar state section broadly addresses these three questions. today, and Nigeria is a particular case in point. However, it is important to note that mass The political economy of migration emigration is not the only response from Nige- in Nigeria: population, governance, rians. Two other significant reactions are rural urbanisation exodus, which is addressed below under ‘Urba- nisation’, and the return to farming, which puts Political economic trends and structures are the a renewed pressure on land. In recent years, this fundamental factors explaining mass Nigerian has led to farmers colonising land erstwhile re- emigration, although interviews in Nigeria sug- served for grazing and to many herders conver- gest that culture – notoriously difficult to assess ting to farming. Fatal clashes have sometimes – also plays a certain role. Governance failures ensued between farmers and herders, not wi- are a factor in as much as they have a negative thout damaging political fallout. As a result, the impact on economic progress. equation of Nigeria’s security governance has Three political economic factors should be ta- been greatly complicated. ken into account for their primary significance

17 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Governance: The evidence suggests that ca- ture could not attract private investment and pital may reduce mass emigration, even in cont- in many countries – e.g., the Sahel – the priori- exts of dismal governance. The historical sketch ty for public expenditure was often to prevent above, for example, indicates that Nigeria’s oil drought and starvation among poverty-stricken boom era was a period of low emigration and farmers. If, by the mid-1970s, Nigeria had the high immigration despite the fact that oil con- financial resources to revitalise its agricultural tributed significantly to the country’s abysmal policy, it still did not do so. Instead, the country governance. If bad governance does not pre- channelled its newly enlarged financial resour- vent Nigerians from making the most of the ces into industrial policy, in a context where its occasional fat years, then one can surmise that political governance framework – the decisive even marginally cleaner and better governance factor for the success of such a complex and would provide easy fixes for many of the fai- demanding project – was to prove quite une- lings that push Nigerians out of their country. qual to the task. These two moves, the retreat But despite a plethora of the skills needed to from agricultural policy and the initiating of an run a modern economy and much higher public industrial policy that ultimately failed, created revenue than in any other West African coun- the current dilemma in Nigeria’s political eco- try, poor governance has thus far made it im- nomy. The crisis in agriculture and the lure of possible for the country to provide, for examp- industrial work in urban areas triggered a phe- le, even basic infrastructure such as a reliable nomenon of rural exodus in the late 1970s. power supply to homes and businesses. The di- When Nigeria’s industrialisation efforts stalled lemma is that Nigeria has been unable to foster in the 1980s, this internal migration pattern a political and administrative class that attaches continued, creating shantytowns in the cities, greater value to managing efficient governance which were also transformed into springboards systems than to investing their energy in power for emigration. Many rural migrants do stay in games that allow them to appropriate or divert Nigeria’s cities, and this accounts for the rapid public resources illegally. Unhappily, this gover- growth of urbanisation. For instance, in the last nance quandary is rendered more intractable by ten years, Nigeria’s urbanisation rate has risen deep political rifts that run along confessional from 40.8% in 2007 to about 50% in 2018, (Muslims versus Christians) and ethno-regional with an annual rate of change of 4.3% as esti- lines. mated by the CIA World Factbook – above the already high African average of 3.5% per year. Urbanisation: Nigeria gave up agricultural But if the cities thus absorb part of Nigeria’s policy as an asset for trade and development at migratory dynamics, they also incubate the cul- a relatively early stage. While the country’s in- ture in which migration to Europe becomes at- come under colonialism and in the first years of tractive. Indeed, urban life creates expectations independence depended on agricultural rent, and aspirations of modernity which would seek the concept of agriculture-based development satisfaction in work and business within de- was in crisis across Africa in the late 1960s and veloped, well-governed economies. This part- through the 1970s, to a large extent due to ly explains the difference that exists between the deterioration of the terms of trade with de- southern Nigeria, the origin of most candidates veloped countries. In the context of cheap raw for migration to Europe, and northern Nigeria, materials that then prevailed, African agricul-

18 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Train Station in Oshodi, Lagos, Nigeria - Image: Olusola D, Ayibiowu where people do not tend to migrate towards The EU-Nigeria policy dialogue: Europe. On the one hand northern Nigeria is incentivising a complex arena comparatively less urbanised than the south, and, on the other hand, the kind of culture Nigeria’s approach to migration was initially de- that brews in its cities does not find Europe at- termined by decisions taken at the level of the tractive. Instead, with a strong accent on Islam, Organisation of African Unity (OAU – now AU). northern Nigerians have a preference for the The Abuja Treaty that established the African Gulf countries. Economic Community (AEC) in 1991 highligh- Taken together, structures and processes in ted the importance of free movement of people these three realms of political economy exp- across the continent. The idea was that labour – lain much of Nigerian migration in general, and especially skilled manpower – was an economic emigration to Europe in particular. Migration good that would achieve its potential for Afri- appears in this light a consequence of other va- ca’s socio-economic development if there was a riables. How do Nigeria and the EU approach it rational framework for allocating it across the at the present juncture? continent’s economies, from areas of abundant labour to areas of labour shortage. In 1995-96, further meetings established that such a labour

19 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration exchange mechanism would be best developed velopment asset for their home country, and (2) initially within regional forums, such as ECO- brain drain of vital manpower is avoided. On the WAS in the case of West Africa. A number of other hand, the migration of unskilled labour migration management mechanisms were also follows routes across Nigeria’s long and poro- formally adopted, including data collection for us land borders, most of which are boundaries monitoring purposes and stakeholders’ en- with other ECOWAS countries, therefore less gagement. Finally, Nigeria is party to a number subject to official control. Generally speaking, of international conventions that seek to pro- there are no vital incentives to tap scarce gover- tect migrants – especially women and children nment resources in order to invest in the one- – from trafficking and exploitation. Taken to- rous control and policing of such movements. gether, the ECOWAS Protocol, the Abuja Tre- Moreover, Nigerian communities – like others aty, diverse subsequent decisions at AU-level, in West Africa – consider that labour and tra- and certain international conventions served to de migration is a rational economic pursuit that shape Nigeria’s migration policy – such as it was ought to be facilitated, especially since Nigeria – throughout the 1990s. itself is also in fact an immigration country, not just an emigration one. In framing a migration In the early 2000s, renewed AU commitment policy, a Nigerian government would need to to organised or ‘managed’ migration led to the take all of this into consideration. adoption of the Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) in 2006. This policy framework Like the ECOWAS Common Approach, Nigeria’s revitalises the earlier OAU/AU agenda while also migration policy was developed at the instigati- seeking to address many of the EU’s concerns on of the EU. The extensive and expensive pro- on African migration. How does all of this play cess of creating the policy was funded by the out in Nigeria’s current approach to migration? EU and supported by the technical services of IOM. However, the policy document that came We have seen, in the previous section, some of out in 2015 strongly reflects Nigerian concerns, the inconsistencies between principles and rea- arguably more so than it does the European lities that prevent the full translation of formal ones. The three main objectives are: how to re- commitments into effective policy at regional gulate migration in relation to the requirements level. Such disparities also exist at country level of economic progress; how to manage migrati- in the case of Nigeria. For instance, if Nigeria on flows, especially in relation to the issues of does ‘export’ skilled manpower to some other irregular migration and national security; how African countries – especially Anglophone to protect migrants’ rights and welfare. These middle-income countries – much skilled labour objectives are shaped by the patterns of Ni- migration goes to the North. On the other hand, gerian emigration as described above, which most of Nigerian labour migration to other Af- present specific challenges to the designers of rican countries is of the unskilled or ‘informal’ the policy. Thus, though the emigration of skil- kind. Aware of this reality, Nigerian policyma- led manpower is potentially profitable in terms kers are keen to establish formal cooperation of attracting foreign investment and receiving with countries in the North so that (1) skilled la- social remittances from a well-off diaspora, it bour migration is channelled in such a way that is also detrimental in terms of brain drain and the resulting Nigerian diaspora become a de- loss of much-needed workers in priority sectors

20 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Ghana-Togo border at Aflao -Image: Enock4seth such as healthcare. Similarly, irregular emigra- the case since remittances represent a greater tion should be reduced, especially in the direc- financial contribution to the Nigerian economy tion of Europe. But the rather onerous political than all official development assistance. Howe- implication is that substantial resources would ver, the national migration policy requires Nige- need to be spent on law and order measures ria to combat irregular migration – a concept which, ultimately, would appear to deprive the that essentially means migration towards Euro- disadvantaged of the hope of remittances from pe – and to accept return and readmission of abroad. migrants from Europe.

Remittances are indeed a major factor un- In Nigeria, the EU is helping to create the con- derlying Nigeria’s caution in its approach to ditions for the enforcement of these commit- migration. The country is the largest recipient ments by offering a cooperation which, accor- of remittances from migrants in Sub-Saharan ding to the EU Delegation in Abuja, includes Africa, with receipts of about 65% of official- the principle of reciprocity and, as one EU of- ly recorded remittances into the region and a ficial (who wishes to remain un-named) put it, significant 2% of global flows. Moreover, the a ‘holistic approach’. The latter phrase means income from remittances is on the increase. that EU cooperation with Nigeria will come in a While it stood at just $5.8 bn. in 2005, it had package that includes pro-growth investment, more than tripled less than a decade later, rea- migration and mobility, and security. The thin- ching $20.7 bn. by 2013. The positive impact king is that since the ‘root causes’ of irregular on the socio-economic well-being of Nigerians, migration are economic, Nigeria should be ex- with no demand on the public purse, works as pected to cooperate on controlling and stem- a development asset which the Nigerian state ming it if the EU demonstrates a commitment is not keen on impairing. This is all the more to tackle these root causes. Thus, the European

21 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Investment Bank (EIB) and other European fi- in West Africa, Nigeria is not bereft of options nancial institutions are providing loans to the in terms of economic partnership. This is true Nigerian financial state in a bid to stimulate even in Europe, with the changes that will be borrowing and financing in the private sector. brought about by Brexit – a notable point here Such financial backing targets not only private being that the UK is Nigeria’s former colonial banking institutions, but has also contributed master. to the founding of a Nigerian Development In principle, EU investments are not just a ‘car- Bank – with further support coming from the rot’ to induce Nigeria to implement elements in African Development Bank (AfDB), the Agence the European wish list on migration. They are Française de Développement (AFD) and other also described as a pro-poor and pro-growth international lenders. Within the new and am- agenda that would address the root causes of bitious framework of the Africa-Europe Alli- emigration in the economy. However, the EU ance, EIB is preparing bigger investments that Delegation is also focusing on cultural factors, would cater for Nigeria’s pressing needs for in- given the observed variation within Nigeria in frastructure and the overhaul of its productive terms of regions of origins. While the poorest capacities. ‘This,’ according to the EU official, region of Nigeria is the North, northerners do ‘is a big country with big ambitions. We are not tend to migrate to Europe, as noted above. counting on the fact that it has all these needs, This fact appears to support the theory that it if it wants to move forward’. However, he ad- is people from the more ‘well-off’ regions that ded, ‘the EU isn’t China’ and any long-term migrate the most (at least towards Europe). commitment of European capital would require Other explanations offered at the EU Delegati- improvements in Nigerian governance systems on in Abuja are cultural in nature, especially as to avoid the wastage that comes from corrupti- regards Edo State, a region of southern Nigeria on and mismanagement. More importantly, it considered as the national epicentre of migrati- is subject to the above-mentioned principle of on to Europe. Cultural factors that are alleged reciprocity. This means, in particular, that the to play a key role in Edo State include, for in- on-going ‘dialogue’ between the EU and the stance, charms used to bind the will of women Nigerian government on ‘return and readmissi- who then enter prostitution rings in Europe. As on’ (i.e., potentially, mass deportations of Nige- a result, particular efforts are deployed in Edo rian nationals from Europe) must be successful State, both in diplomatic overtures towards the if the more impactful investments from the EIB pontiff of Edo culture, the Oba, and in the set- are to be deployed. ting up of organisations such as the IOM-gran- For a variety of reasons, an accord is not pre- ted Migration Resource Centre of Benin City ordained. Nigeria has, by and large, a functio- (the capital of Edo State). Such efforts are il- ning democratic system, which means that elec- lustrative of EU’s search for the ‘root causes’ of tions are a key factor in decision-making, and migration, which will be analysed in the final sundry stakeholders and civil society groups, section of this report. not all of whom are favourable to the outcome The next section examines the case of Mali, ano- desired by the EU, are involved in the proces- ther ‘departure country’, which may, by way of ses leading to an international agreement of comparison and contrast, help in making sense this nature. Moreover, as a leading economy of some of the observations about Nigeria.

22 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

glorieuses era of full employment was in full Mali swing, although the majority of them migrated to Côte d’Ivoire, closer to home and where the Mali belongs to the group of the three land- economy was also booming. locked countries of the Sahel region of West The pattern of migration that then developed in Africa – the two others are Burkina Faso and Mali is peculiar. Most internal migration in Mali Niger – where migration, often circular rather was urban, i.e., from smaller towns to bigger than permanent, is a necessity in the context of ones, especially Bamako and Segu. Rural migra- the modern political economy. tion to urban areas was mostly female, and ur- ban areas were not a springboard for interna- tional migration, as often happened elsewhere. Instead, the main destination of Malian (male) Mali rural exodus was a foreign country. Often, this was geographically determined. The main des- tinations were – and still are – Côte d’Ivoire (440,960), Niger (69,790) and Burkina (68,295) in the country’s immediate vicinity, and Nige- ria (133,464) and France (68,786) farther afield

Image: D-Maps.com; Timo Lowinger (these are IOM figures from 2013 and are very In the early colonial era, low population densi- probably under-estimates, especially for Côte ties were considered to be the main reason why d’Ivoire). Most rural migrants from Kayes move the agricultural potential of the Niger valley – to Côte d’Ivoire and those from the Gao district the river has its longest course within Malian move to Niger. territory – was not exploited to capacity. The Since the late 1990s, Mali has become a coun- French even attempted to import workers from try of both transit and origin for trans-Saharan the neighbouring colony of Upper Volta (Burki- and trans-Mediterranean migration to Europe. na Faso) to make up for the dearth of labour in Flows towards Europe tapered off due to Li- the French Sudan (Mali). However, by the end of bya’s role (under Gaddafi) as a bulwark of the the colonial era, population growth had turned European continent and a provider of jobs to labour into a surplus factor relative to capital in sub-Saharan migrants in the late 2000s. But the country. In 1960-68, Mali’s first indepen- they were revived after Gaddafi’s fall and Libya’s dent government attempted so-called socialist descent into chaos in 2012. These fresh flows techniques of labour mobilisation that, ideally, initially followed the Niger-Libya-Italy route. But would have supervened reliance on capital for with the crackdown on irregular migration in the development of a productive economy. But Niger, the ancient route through the Sahara to this largely backfired and led to years of severe Morocco and Spain has come back to life. In food shortages, worsened by the great Sahel early assessments for 2018, Malians account drought of the early 1970s. In that period, many for 12% of registered arrivals in Spain, totalling farmers in the hardest-hit region of Mali, the 3227 persons according to IOM. arid district of Kayes, found a lifeline as labour migrants in France where the so-called trente

23 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

This section examines the socio-economic con- assets. As a result, Mali attempted voluntarist text in which those migration patterns have economic policies based on the notion that the emerged, the response of Malian governance state was the central development asset of the and the ways in which that response is influen- country and ought to wean it from dependence ced by the EU approach. on cash crops. With enhanced developmental capacities – for instance, a state-controlled de- velopment bank and a state-controlled retailing Migration: a short history of the network that distributed consumer goods whe- situation to date re private business was loathe to operate, etc. – the Malian state sought to form the basis of a In Mali, as elsewhere, emigration is the result modern economy, with a modicum of industrial of the simple equation of surplus labour and policy. It also tried to shore up agricultural assets scarce capital. In such a context, but perhaps in the Niger valley (rice) and the cotton-produ- even more so than in other parts of West Africa, cing areas through projects supportive of pro- the state itself was the key development asset. ducers. In the 1990s, however, its developmental capa- These ambitions faltered in the face of extre- cities were dismantled under the aegis of the me capital scarcity, in particular the fact that (1) Bretton Woods institution and the Washington Mali was not attractive to foreign investments, Consensus to make way for the market. Not (2) the tax income was paltry given the pover- coincidentally, it is during that period that irre- ty of the population, and (3) at the time, there gular migration flows towards Europe started were no alternative sources of revenue in mi- for good. ning. Migration therefore remained a necessity Surplus labour in Mali stemmed from populati- for a majority of the population. A study con- on growth. Although Mali’s population is com- ducted in the early 1990s found a slight decline paratively small – standing at about 18 million in emigration in the late 1980s, but this was in 2018 – it is much bigger than in past centu- against a background where close to a milli- ries, when labour was so scarce that slavery was on Malians were involved in forms of circular an important form of (coerced) labour mobilisa- migration in neighbouring countries. For instan- tion, and long-distance trade was the only via- ce, in 1993, 10.5% of Mali’s total population – ble means of capital accumulation. Colonialism a staggering 735,000 people – was residing in was in fact a system of capital extraction rather Côte d’Ivoire. This considerably reduced pressu- than of capital formation, and in particular, it re on Mali’s faltering economic structure while did not form the basis for industry in the coun- also transferring wealth through remittances try. From the outset – in the 1960s – Malian and diaspora investments (mostly informal or political economy was therefore characterised small-scale). by the predominance of non-productive capital The economic crisis that gripped much of the (merchant capital), although this was connected region in the 1990s rapidly put paid to this equi- to the production of so-called tropical products, librium. Structural adjustment compelled coun- i.e., groundnuts and cotton. These are commo- tries to renounce the concept of the state as a dities with volatile prices on the world market, development asset and to reduce its capacities and they were inherently fragile development

24 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

– which were deemed wasteful and unecono- comes were virtually ground to dust. mical – so that they could repay the debt they It is in this context that Malians, cut off from had incurred in their earlier efforts to finance their major traditional destination – Côte d’Ivoi- development. Given the importance of the state re – and facing acute social and economic crisis in the regional economies, its rapid and exten- at home, started to look in new directions. This sive retrenchment led to social crisis everywhe- included other parts of Africa, and also Europe. re, including in Côte d’Ivoire. This country, the biggest recipient of Malian migration, gradually moved from social to political crisis, especially The EU-Mali policy dialogue: as the leader who had ruled it since indepen- amenable state, adverse civil dence, and who had built the Ivoirian economic society model on the basis of openness to immigration, died in 1993. The new leaders stoked xenopho- The Malian state has long recognised the im- bia against Sahelian migrants in order to sco- portance of emigration in the country. It is the re points in the political struggles that ensued, only West African country to have a ministry causing tens of thousands of harassed Malians dedicated to its diaspora, the Ministry of Mali- to leave the country. Even those who chose to ans Abroad, created in 2004. In the post-struc- remain were later forced to flee as Côte d’Ivoi- tural adjustment era, migration had come to be re eventually descended into a full-blown civil considered a development asset, albeit one that war in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, the eco- was perceived to be lacking a proper governan- nomic position of Mali was also deteriorating. ce structure. In 2018, Mali was ranked tenth The fiscal crisis was racking the state, which among Sub-Saharan African countries in terms was compelled to accept structural adjustment, of remittances from abroad, with about 1 bn. terminating thousands of jobs and drastically USD in officially recorded receipts according to scaling down its administrative capacities, in- the World Bank. However, until 2015, Mali did cluding those in social sectors. The country had not have a national migration policy. Just as Ni- just adopted a democratic constitution – the geria, it relied on largely out-dated immigration first in its history – in 1992, but the violence of laws, regional integration pacts (ECOWAS and the economic reforms unleashed waves of soci- WAEMU), the AU migration policy framework, al protest movements on the fledgling regime. and international conventions as its general po- In April 1993, the National Assembly was set on licy. fire, as well as the residence of the newly elec- The Ministry of Malians Abroad – which also ted head of state, and crowds threatened to at- has ‘African integration’ within its remit – of- tack the embassies of donor countries, seen to fered a compact to the Malian diaspora in the be supporting the reforms. To make things wor- name of the state. The ministry expects the di- se, in 1994, the French Treasury and the West aspora to be involved in national development African States’ Central Bank slashed in half the policies and offers in return a number of ser- value of the common currency CFA Franc. Mali vices. Some of these services aim at helping had acceded to the currency about a decade the diaspora to remain invested in national life before at the cost of significantly reducing the and development, while others would support pay rates of salaried personnel. Now, wage in- migrants in their projects, as well as in the fai-

25 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Displaced people crossing the border - Image: UK Department for International Development lure of such projects. Thus, for instance, the explain the remarkable success of these ven- ministry would help in the recruitment of Ma- tures. But if the Malian diaspora is to become lian workers for labour migration schemes but a real development asset, much remains to be would also provide humanitarian assistance to done, as is shown by the achievements in that stranded migrants or repatriation to migrants regard of countries such as Israel and India. from troubled countries. The ministry has acted However, Malian views on migration as a de- on some of these promises. It has recently built velopment asset soon had to take into account a large centre in Bamako intended as tempo- the European view of African migration as rary accommodation for returnees while also a problem. In the spirit of the Rabat Process, serving as the headquarters of the High Council attempts were made to transform this diver- of Malians Abroad, a stakeholder’s organ that gence into some kind of synergy. In 2008, the dates back to 1991, is present in 62 countries European Commission (EC) earmarked € 10 m. worldwide and has a significant financial and from the 9th EDF for the creation of a Cent- electoral weight. On the other hand, the dias- re d’Information et de Gestion des Migrations pora from Kayes in particular has invested he- (CIGEM – Migration Information and Manage- avily in the region’s development by building ment Centre), a pilot organ that was to collect schools and hospitals as well as mosques, and data and offer guidance and support to poten- injecting capital into productive activities. The tial and returning migrants as well as to Malians ministry offers institutional support that helps residing abroad, and generally work to promote

26 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration legal migration and discourage irregular migra- now turning into a department of the Ministry tion. The EC funding was intended as seed of Malians Abroad, burdening its already over- money for an institution that was to become stretched budget with new financial responsi- a Malian institution attached to the Ministry of bilities. Malians Abroad, and that would also pave the CIGEM did provide an institutional base for the way for the development of a national migra- implementation of at least one proactive Euro- tion policy. Moreover, CIGEM was intended to pean policy. In 2007, a year before the creati- be a pioneer project for similar institutions to be on of the organ, Spain had signed an agree- installed in other ECOWAS countries. Mali, in ment with Mali on the basis of the principles the view of the EC, was an ideal ground for the that had emerged from the Rabat Process, such experiment given ‘the evolution of the relations as equality in partnership and the linking of between Mali and the EU through the Cotonou migration and development. The agreement, Agreement, dialogue in the framework of the which highlighted that Mali and Spain would Franco-Malian Committee and the robust expe- reciprocally encourage the lawful employment rience in matters of co-development’ (to quote of their nationals in each other’s countries ba- from CIGEM’s operational note). sed on the analysis of labour markets comple- Although CIGEM was intended as an indepen- mentarities, enabled Spain to propose a guest dent organ, it received a three-year financing workers programme to Mali. The programme of €10 m. from the EC. That sum was six times was implemented by CIGEM. However, the higher than the annual budget of the Ministry agreement also included clauses that allowed of Malians Abroad and made CIGEM accoun- Spain to repatriate Malian migrants with the table to the EC. As such, its main mission was cooperation of the Malian government. It ulti- to help stem irregular migration rather than to mately proved unpopular in Mali because the help migration work for development. Whereas guest workers programme rapidly stalled, while the Malian idea of migration as a development Spain was able to expel a much greater num- asset is to establish the institutional and regu- ber of Malian migrants than France and Italy in latory mechanisms that would enable diaspora the years following its signing. In interviews in Malians to invest productively in their country’s Mali, it appeared that episodes such as this had economy with the cooperation of host coun- alerted Malian civil society to what was percei- tries, CIGEM essentially worked to deter poten- ved as European deceit and an undue zeal from tial migrants from undertaking the journey to Mali’s governments to cooperate with their Europe, notably by sensitizing them about the cash-wielding European counterparts. Malian perils of migration and offering support with officials responded at the time that Spain had finding jobs or gainful occupation in Mali. In not been deceitful, but had to renege on its the Malian context, this initiative has proven commitments due to the post-2008 European unrealistic given the fact that there is a scarcity economic crisis that hit it harder than countries of jobs and credit to finance enterprise and the to the north of the Pyrenean Mountains. But institutional environment of the country lacks the spat that had ensued shows that, unlike the technical sophistication and resources to in Niger for instance, a strong network of civil relay CIGEM’s actions. When European finan- society organisations and activists exists in Mali cing ended, CIGEM lost most of its staff and is that supports migration and migrants and that

27 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration includes advocacy groups such as the polemi- pes d’Action Rapide – Surveillance Interventi- cally-named Association Malienne des Expulsés on), includes the participant countries of the G5 (AME – ‘Malian Association of the Expelled’) Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Ni- and influential public voices such as former cabi- ger) plus Senegal. It is presented as a means net minister and African nationalist intellectual to implement the section of the Valletta Action Aminata Dramane Traoré. It also suggests that, Plan that seeks to ‘prevent irregular migration, while the Mali government is ready to coope- migrants trafficking and the trade in human rate with the EU along lines favourable to EU beings’. Mali’s GAR-SI unit was created in 2017. views and concerns, the civil society groupings Second, on the ‘development’ side, in the same have succeeded in promoting Mali’s own views year the EU emergency trust fund awarded a € and concerns in the public square. For instance, 20 m. funding to the Dutch cooperation agency in 2016, a public outcry forced the Malian go- SNV for the design and implementation of pro- vernment to refuse entry for two migrants that jects aimed at creating economic opportunities were being deported from France with a Euro- and jobs in high emigration zones – namely, the pean laissez-passer (but no Malian passports). districts of Bamako, Gao, Kayes, and Koulikoro. The episode demonstrated how sensitive the issue of ‘return and readmission’ is in Mali, in- However, on the all-important issue of return stilling caution in the government. and readmission, Mali remains reticent, with a civil society that is suspicious of European In 2014, Mali eventually adopted a migration policies. More generally, Malian civil society is policy, the Politique Nationale de Migration highly critical of European conceptualisations of (PONAM), at about the same time as Nigeria. migration, which they accuse of making light Like Nigeria’s policy document, the PONAM of structural causes, conflating migration with attempts to combine the country’s optimistic criminal activity in a somewhat indiscriminate views on migration with European concerns. way, blithely overlooking the negative impact PONAM achieves this rather unlikely synergy of restrictive European policies on the potenti- by aiming to manage migration in Mali within al benefits of migration, harming the regional the framework of international norms while compacts on free mobility and residence, and also addressing the root causes of migration th- creating tensions between ECOWAS member rough development. This language reflects the states. These complaints are listed in a study discourse of the Rabat Process, but what is im- published by AME in April 2018. portant is how it is interpreted and implemen- ted. Two European initiatives may be flagged in The next section focuses on the very different that regard. case of Niger, which is a transit rather than an origin country for migration to Europe, and First, building on an earlier Spanish experiment which exemplifies those tensions. in the policing of irregular migration which fo- cussed on the targeting of so-called human trafficking in the Sahel, the EU earmarked €41.6 m. to set up a multi-country project to train gendarmerie units across the Sahel region. The project, given the acronym GAR-SI (Grou-

28 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

an area in what was then the budding German Niger colony of Togoland.

This southward movement continued and ex- Niger is the Sahel country par excellence. Loca- panded during the colonial era, when it de- ted farther east than Mali, it is a more arid veloped into a circular migration of labour and country where communal migration in search trade, fanning across the Gulf of Guinea. It in- of fertile land and security had been part of life cluded the southern regions of Nigeria, Benin, for centuries as there were no empires and very Togo, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Some of this few states in the area in historical times. Ne- migration was fuelled by the oppressive taxati- vertheless, mobility did not mean rootlessness; on regime installed by the French in their impo- it often took place within a very circumscribed verished colony, but most of it was determined geographic area. Even in pre-colonial times, by geography, as in Mali. In effect, most Nige- there was a strong dynamism pushing Nige- rien emigration originated, then as today, from rien populations southward, especially when the more arid Sahel/Sahara band that includes they could rely on military force. In the 19th the Zarmaganda and Ader districts. Nigeriens century, for example, the kingdom of Zinder from the comparatively more fertile south-cen- conquered fertile land in Daura, inside what is tral districts either preferred internal migration now Northern Nigeria (the kings of Zinder were towards the capital (Niamey) or seasonal/tem- consequently very dissatisfied with the early porary emigration into northern Nigeria, closer 20th century Franco-British agreements on the to home. Later, in the early 2000s, with Côte border between Niger and Nigeria that stripped d’Ivoire collapsing in a civil war, labour migrati- them of their conquest). on from Ader in particular found an alternative major destination in Libya. In that period too, a phenomenon of mendicant migration towards Algeria developed from the south-central re- Niger gions of the country. In the early 2010s, with the collapse of Libya into chaos but a reviving Côte d’Ivoire, that country was restored to its status of main host country, together with its Gulf of Guinea neighbours.

This cursory description of Niger’s migration Image: D-Maps.com; Timo Lowinger patterns shows that they have a historical depth The Zarma, inhabiting the parched Zarmaganda that seems to have entrenched them in a cer- region of what is now western Niger, took over tain direction in West Africa, towards the bro- the Dallol Bosso valley more to the south and ader Gulf of Guinea area. Only once was there then, in the late 19th century, created by force a swerve in another direction, namely, Libya, of arms a colony much further south, in what is and this was brief – although it would certain- now northern Ghana, where they were expel- ly have become entrenched were it not for the led only by the advancing British colonial forces. fall of Col. Gaddafi’s regime and its aftermath. They later managed to secure an entente with Indeed, as recently as 2017, IOM helped in the another colonial power, Germany, and settled

29 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration repatriation from Libya of over 3,500 Nigerien Mali in 2012-13 (another consequence of the migrants and many still live in the Libyan towns fall of Gaddafi). of Sebha, Tripoli and Benghazi. Very few Nige- As a result, the EU started to focus on ‘migrant riens crossed or attempted to cross the Medi- smuggling’ and ‘human trafficking’ in Niger – terranean to Europe. For all practical purposes, new tag names for a migrant transport industry Niger is not an origin country for migration to that was now in a process of becoming crimi- Europe. nalised. It is in this context that we should make In the early 2000s, the main migrant routes from sense of the policies pursued by the EU in Ni- West Africa to Europe transited through Mali. ger, and of the response of Niger’s government However, there was already then a migrant rou- to such policies. This section starts with the EU te that went through Niger and ended in Libya. policies which, in Niger more than in the two Most of the migrants who took that route were other countries studied in this report, have play- seeking, or eventually found opportunities in Li- ed an agenda-setting role; and it ends with the bya. As an outcome of this, a migrant transport Nigerien response to these policies. industry developed, especially after 2009 (with the end of a Tuareg rebellion that broke out in ‘Border externalisation’: Niger as northern Niger two years earlier), that centred Europe’s immigration officer on the city of Agadez and the town of Dirkou, in northern Niger. Although there were already In the case of Niger, the EU approach draws then strong European concerns about irregular from a different toolbox of European policies, migration, this transport industry was ignored the one that is defined by so-called borders by the EU because the Gaddafi regime offered a externalisation and that was developed in the bulwark against trans-Mediterranean migration past with Libya or in more recent times with and Libya accepted the migrants in a bid to use Turkey, in connection with migration from trou- their labour for the many development projects bled spots in the Near East. that were then underway in the country. Niger was initially a country of interest for the After the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, this rapid- EU as it seemed an ideal place in which to ly changed. In the chaotic situation that then headquarter EU efforts to tackle security pro- developed in Libya, migrants either returned, blems in the Sahel. These were defined princi- or dug in, or decided to cross the sea towards pally at this time by the post-Gaddafi chaos in Europe. Most Nigerien migrants chose the two the Sahel and the apparent rise of terrorism. In former options, but many migrants from other 2012, the EU set up a ‘mission’, EUCAP Sahel West African countries preferred the latter one. Niger, which was to reinforce the capacities of The transport industry that went through Aga- Nigerien security forces, and which was due to dez and that was organised by people from cease work sometimes in 2013. EUCAP’s lease Niger’s northern communities (the Tuareg and of life was, however, extended and its mission Tubu) therefore not only survived, but in fact expanded to include migration control as the grew more profitable given the fact that the Nigerien route started to grow in importan- Malian route to Europe had been shuttered by ce. Between 2012 and 2017, EUCAP’s budget the rebellion and Jihad that gripped northern grew from less than €10 m. to €26 m. This evo-

30 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration lution took a decisive turn when migration was ded approximately € 640 m. to Niger for the defined as a crisis in 2015. The gatherings that period 2014-2020 and, after further review, ensued led to the formulation of the Valletta supplemented this with an additional € 95 m. Action Plan in which Niger was the only West Segments of the Niger border control apparatus African country to be specifically mentioned – – security forces in the north and judges tasked three times – as a key partner in the design of with hearing human smuggling cases under the EU strategies in the region. new law – received equipment and well-paid training sessions. Remote border posts that The Valletta Action Plan is a smorgasbord of did not even have electricity in the past were projected initiatives covering anything from job connected to the Internet through the agency creation and support for private investment to of the German GIZ. Donations of flatbed trucks, Erasmus scholarships for African students and off-road vehicles, motorcycles and satellite pho- projects bringing aid to refugee camps. It also nes dramatically improved the working condi- stresses the need to ‘establish and upgrade nati- tions of Niger’s gendarmerie and military in the onal and regional anti-smuggling and anti-traf- hitherto challenging northern wastes. Between ficking legislation’ through policies and action 2016 and early 2018, Nigerien military person- plans tailored to countries in terms of whether nel in the country’s desert bases increased from they are transit or origin countries. Such poli- 200 soldiers to 450. cies and action plans were designed to train or ‘reinforce the capacities’ of local security forces Despite these improvements, controlling all and jurists in the repression of ‘human smug- points along border of 350 km in a sand desert gling and trafficking’, i.e., migrant transport. remained impossible and new routes were able To move the policies forward, the EU planned to cross through to Algeria, with which Niger to resort to ‘effective incentives’ with a view to has a much longer border. Other measures were creating the legislative framework in which such therefore introduced. In October 2017, Italy si- policies could be securely developed and imple- gned a memorandum of understanding with mented. In Mali and Nigeria, the result was the Libyan militias, whereby the latter agreed to in- adoption of migration policy documents with tercept migrants on the Libyan coastline and at an essentially declarative – rather than perfor- sea and keep them in detention centres on their mative – significance. In Niger, however, the EU territory prior to returning them to their home successfully pressured the country into adopt- countries. At about the same period, the EU ing legislation that criminalised migrant trans- opened a Frontex liaison office – only the third port in late 2015. Niger quite rapidly started to outside of Europe, and the first in Africa – in implement this law in 2016, a remarkable feat Niger in order to beef up control of the border in a country with a proverbially lethargic rule of with Libya. law apparatus. That uncharacteristic vigour was The results are not easy to interpret. Arrivals to the result of massive funding from the EU. Italy have dramatically decreased in 2018, but Until 2014, only 1/3rd of EU aid to Niger went arrivals in Libya have not. If many known routes into direct budget support. In the new cycle have been shut down by the Niger-Frontex ef- that started after 2014, 75% of EU aid was in- forts at border control, new or old and non-mo- jected straight into state coffers. The EDF awar- nitored routes and tracks are now being used.

31 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

IOM in Agadez, Niger - Image: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken

According to IOM, the number of migrants the decrease in the numbers of those crossing in Libya grew from 432,574 in October 2017 the Mediterranean, even if that decrease is per- to 704,142 in February 2018, meaning that haps temporary. 271,568 new arrivals were recorded. Not all The compact that was offered to Niger for its of these were Sub-Saharan Africans, but that cooperation included aid destined to offer new group represented 93% of new arrivals. Some economic opportunities for those whose liveli- of the migrants came from the Sudan and cros- hood was tied to the migrant industry in the sed through areas controlled by Tubu militias northern desert. The migrant industry that had across Niger, Libya and Chad, therefore in areas developed in northern Niger since 2009 appro- that fell outside of the remit of Niger’s securi- ximately was not defined solely by transport. ty personnel. And, even if many (most?) of the People in Agadez organised accommodation, migrants travel with the intention of crossing food and many other services for migrants, re- the sea to Europe, a fraction – especially those kindling a prosperity that had deserted the town from Niger itself – aim in fact at staying in Libya. since the demise of tourism following the Tua- For the EU, however, what counts ultimately is

32 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration reg rebellion of 2007 and the later rise of Saha- Niger’s reasons for cooperating in the ran terrorism. Niger’s state workers – executive repression of migration: Interviews with elected officials, security personnel – also levied Nigerien officials both at HACP and at the Mi- forced contributions and bribes on migrants. To nistry of the Interior stress that Niger agreed suppress migration meant to dismantle an eco- to cooperate with the EU on the repression of nomy that profited the region in many ways, migration for two reasons. The first reason is at the risk of fostering social instability within humanitarian. Migrants were dying in the Saha- traditionally restive communities. To limit those ra and on the Mediterranean and were falling risks, the Trust Fund is financing a project, the prey to brutal exploiters in Libya, and there was Plan d’Actions à Impact Economique Rapide à a case for stopping flows that were leading to Agadez (PAIERA, ‘Actions Plan with Rapid Eco- such outcomes. The second reason is financi- nomic Impact in Agadez’) through a govern- al. The EU offered funding to Niger, IOM and ment-sponsored institution, the Haut Conseil à the United Nations High Commission for Refu- la Consolidation de la Paix (HACP). PAIERA aims gees (UNHCR) to reduce the flows and return at sensitising migrant transport workers to the migrants; in the words of HACP’s chairman, policy of the state, to the risks they will be ta- Col. Abou Tarka, ‘in the best possible condi- king in pursuing their activities, and to the ‘re- tions given the circumstances’. Moreover – offi- conversion’ opportunities that are on offer. Just cials at the Ministry of the Interior who wish to as the Trust Fund itself, the PAIERA is a stopgap remain un-named acknowledged quite frankly project that does not aim at addressing structu- that the EU dangled the prize of development ral economic issues in the region. While the EU aid, which Niger needs more than ever at the promises more wide-ranging support, the facts present juncture. Due to wars and terrorism in on the ground still beg the question as to why surrounding countries, Niger has been compel- Niger chose to cooperate with the EU in the re- led to devote a significant portion of its tight pression of migration to this extent. resources to security, at the expense of priority social sectors such as health and education. The This question is explored in the next subsection country also hosts hundreds of thousands of re- in relation to the impact of this cooperation on fugees from neighbouring Mali and Nigeria. It the country’s socio-economic well-being and to is therefore now in a state of chronic economic the ways in which it is shaping both the Nigeri- crisis. en context and Niger’s relations with its neigh- bours in West Africa. There is also a third reason in addition to these two. Unlike Mali and Nigeria, Niger is not a sig- nificant origin country of migration to Europe. The impact for Niger: empty The government does not, therefore, face the rewards and hidden dangers counter-pressures from public opinion and the civil society that are evident in Nigeria and Mali. In this subsection, the three aspects mentioned Only one major civil society group – Alternative at the end of the previous one are examined in Espace Citoyen – is critical of the conduct of the turn. government on the grounds that it is imperil- ling regional integration, treating migrants with indignity and disrupting fragile economic net-

33 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration works in the north. Other civil society groups in not, nor will be limited to the emergency fun- fact work with both the government and IOM in ding provided by the Trust Fund. EU representa- migration control and in the social reintegration tives interviewed in Niamey appeared convinced of returnees. A government official admitted in that migration to Europe will not abate – the an interview that ‘we obviously do not include current decline being, in their view, just a tem- groups that are critical of our policies in our de- porary lull – and that, as a consequence of this cision-making process’. This attitude, for all its presumably, support for Niger was long-term. ‘obviousness’, is possible only because, in Ni- International media reports also stress that Ni- ger, public opinion would not mobilise against ger has become the single largest recipient of these policies, as is the case in Mali. (IOM also EU aid in the whole of Africa. The European shuns civil society groups that are averse to the Commission forecast that EU assistance to Ni- current policies, as was explained by Hassane ger would reach the unprecedented sum of €1 Boukar of Alternative). Government officials bn. by 2020. Significant portions of these funds do recognise that they face criticism from their will directly support the state’s 2017-21 Social peers in regional arenas, but so far this has not and Economic Development Plan. translated into threats that might easily target the large Nigerien diaspora communities across The impact, so far, is unnoticeable in the coun- the Gulf of Guinea. More worryingly, Niger’s try. Officials at the Ministry of the Interior com- security personnel have internalised the notion plained in interviews of the fact (hard to verify) that a migrant – and not just the so-called hu- that the Europeans were dragging their feet in man trafficker – is a criminal, leading to routine providing the funding for social sector initiati- violations of the ECOWAS Protocol at Niger’s ves that had been discussed in the negotiations border, even at times, according to anecdotal leading up to the compact. More generally, Ni- evidence from Mali, involving individuals who ger is currently facing the most radical austeri- have no intention of migrating to Europe. ty policies of its history since those that came Migrants whose destination is Libya and Alge- with the structural adjustment programmes of ria, not Europe, also get caught in the nets. In the 1980s and 1990s. While the government general, these are Nigeriens from the impover- has spent lavishly on grands travaux (big works) ished rural areas in the centre-east regions of projects (building of interchanges, hotels, a the country. These people form a disenfranchi- thermal power plant, and a third bridge in the sed group whose plight is typically not covered capital), it has passed an unpopular appropri- in Nigerien national media and can be safely ation bill that created a host of new taxes and ignored by the government. raised the price of electricity and water to levels barely affordable to the country’s small middle In the spring of 2018, the government was thus class, let alone the underprivileged majority. It able to adopt a national strategy for the repres- has also struggled to pay salaries on time for sion of irregular migration with no reaction several months since the last elections (2016). from public opinion. Citing the imperatives of security and the needs Impact on socio-economic conditions of the military, it has reneged on earlier com- and the configuring of the Nigerien mitments to improve conditions in the social (political) context: In interviews at the EU sectors. Predicable protests are met with hea- Delegation, it was said that EU aid to Niger is

34 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration vy-handed reactions, with civil society leaders ways that are favourable to their own appro- being jailed and media that are critical of the ach. Unlike the Schengen zone, ECOWAS – government being shut down or subjected to though not WAEMU – implements border con- judicial harassment in order to effectively silen- trols for community nationals. However, it has ce them. Many in the Nigerien commentariat created a status quo in which, while waiting see this behaviour as an attempt to establish for member states to establish the infrastruc- the dictatorship of one party in the country ture for border control, the region has become with the collusion of Western powers, including effectively borderless. Now, the EU is pushing the EU. If the Nigeriens have so far not tasted for ECOWAS to respect the letter of its rules the benefits of cooperation with the EU, they in terms of border controls, thereby imperilling have observed the advantage accruing to the the status quo which constitutes an important ruling party from the high level show of support stage in the region’s integration process. Given that the Niger government is receiving from Eu- the current capacities of ECOWAS (and of most ropean leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and individual member states) on the one hand, and Angela Merkel. In a country where the rhetoric the migration patterns within West Africa on of struggle against neo-colonialism is still ali- the other, installing by-the-book border cont- ve, this is seen as a loss of independence that rols is both impractical and a potential source further undermines the fragile legitimacy of the of a regional crisis. In Niger, however, the Eu- state. ropean conception of ECOWAS’ borders can be used to make life more difficult for migrants Regional relations: As mentioned above, and their ‘smugglers’ in conformity with the let- Niger has come under the criticism of its ECO- ter of ECOWAS’ rules. The case of Niger is thus WAS peers at regional meetings for the treat- evidence that the migration rules of ECOWAS ment of their nationals on its territory. Niger’s now exist, in the Sahel at least, under a regime uneasy defence hinges on the humanitarian largely defined by the concerns and interests of reasons referred to above, but its position is the EU. protected by the fact that ECOWAS itself co- operates, on a different level, with the EU.

In theory, Niger must allow the free circulati- on of ECOWAS nationals across its territory and the interception of such individuals in the desert north are violations of the ECOWAS Protocol. In practice, Niger’s agreements with the EU, deri- ving as they do from the wider framework of the Rabat Process and the Valletta Action Plans, supersede ECOWAS’ writ in two ways. First, ECOWAS member states participated in the Ra- bat Process and have thus individually agreed to the implementation of policy measures that derive from it. And second, ECOWAS rules offer opportunities for the EU to configure them in

35 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

to harness that opportunity, reflection on migra- Conclusions and tion in the EU started almost a decade later with implications the question of how to manage that problem. Achieving synergy between such incompatible This section draws some conclusions from the perspectives was, from the beginning, a tall or- case studies and analyses the longer-term impli- der. The outcome would be either a feat of lea- cations of these conclusions. dership whereby ‘political dialogue’ genuinely occurred and AU and EU jointly shaped a new On synergy: bridging reality out of the conundrum, or one vision sub- incompatibilities merging the other to all intents and purposes. The case studies suggest that, at it is juncture, it is the latter outcome that is prevailing. The ECO- The case studies show a dramatic evolution of WAS Common Approach reflects the attempt European development aid policy in Africa in to achieve synergy, while the national migration line with the EU’s migration approach. Alongside policies of Mali and Nigeria give pride of place this, the AU has also been developing a Migra- to Malian and Nigerian perspectives. Only Niger’s tion Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) which, national migration strategy is exclusively inspired though it cannot be defined as an ‘approach’ in by the EU’s approach. However, the EU largely the same way as the EU’s, forms the basis for ignores the agenda in the policy documents of such an approach. ECOWAS, Mali and Nigeria, and pursues objecti- Adopted first in 2006 and recently revised in view ves defined by the repression of irregular migrati- of an action plan for 2018-2027, the MPFA ser- on and the targeting of the ‘root causes’ of such ves as a guideline for regional economic commu- irregular migration. It seeks to integrate individu- nities and member states in preparing their own al West African states into this process through policies. ECOWAS explicitly referred to the MPFA a ‘political dialogue’ which, in essence, means in the design of its Common Approach, and both the provision of development aid in exchange for Nigeria and Mali took inspiration from it in their active cooperation in stemming irregular migra- own national migration policies. Together, these tion. With a more complex and comparatively various African instruments form a discourse on more developed economy, Nigeria is generally migration that is profoundly different from the unforthcoming, prompting the EU to step up its one coming from Europe. While they all have efforts and offer more attractive deals through sections emphasising the need to combat irre- the EIB. Less developed Mali has agreed to im- gular/illegal migration and human smuggling/ plement the EU approach in the hope of increa- trafficking, they also offer a longer-term vision sed aid, but this has proved so far to be high ex- in which migration could contribute in a variety penditure for little results, as the case of CIGEM of ways to development and should therefore be demonstrates. Moreover, if the penurious Malian organised and promoted in ways that best rea- state shows readiness to enter into agreements lise that potential. Both the EU’s discourse and with the EU and its member states on the succes- approach lack such a long-term perspective on sive projects that they propose, the potentially migration. While reflection on migration started more effective cooperation of Mali’s civil society in the AU in the 1990s with the question of how will remain unforthcoming given their commit-

36 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration ment to an agenda that is spurned by the EU. In ‘Structural issues’ versus ‘root causes’: contrast, Niger, where the civil society is by and African and European policy-makers have diver- large indifferent to the issue, is more zealous- gent understanding of the underlying causes ly embracing the EU approach. But as the case of migration. This divergence can be heard in study on this country shows, geography defeats their discourse as it transpires both in interviews much of the goodwill of its state agents. and in policy documents. African policy-makers

As mentioned in the introduction, migration is emphasise the structural issues of development now shaping the entire EU approach to develop- while their European counterparts seek the root ment in Africa, evidenced by the newly launched causes of migration. For African policy-makers, Africa-Europe Alliance for sustainable inves- the primary issue is development, with migration tments and jobs. This policy framework seems being a factor in that issue – a factor that can to denote a shift toward taking into account be negative or positive, depending on whether it the African discourse, which is about structural promotes or obstructs development. For Europe- issues of development – whereas the European an policy-makers on the other hand, migration is discourse has essentially been about ‘the root the primary issue, and is overwhelmingly negati- causes of migration’. In the next section, this dis- ve. In this discourse, development appears only tinction is reviewed and discussed, since the case as a possible solution to migration. studies prompt us to wonder whether, in the This divergence of understanding can be illustra- long-term, African concerns about the structural ted using elements in the case studies. For in- issues of development in the age of globalisation stance, as was shown in the first section of this will be recognised by the EU through a genuine study, ECOWAS’ conception of free movement partnership, or whether the EU concerns about made sense in the framework of an agenda for migration will continue to overshadow its de- the structural transformation of the West African velopment policy on the continent. economies. This agenda aims at streamlining ag- ricultural policy and developing a regional indus- On divergent positions: structural trial policy. The West African project of structural issues and root causes transformation planned to invest in what is po- tentially the biggest labour and consumer market Official instruments – such as the MPFA and in Africa. However, and regardless of the daun- other migration policy documents – show that ting governance issues inherent in the member African discourse on migration links the pheno- states’ political systems, West Africa lacks both menon to structural issues of development, whe- fluid capital – especially credit – and the social reas European discourse relates it to root causes safety nets that are essential for risk-taking. In having to do with culture and poverty. Moreover, this context, migration is seen as one way to and partly for this reason, the African position help jumpstart what may be called a ‘primitive appears more coherent, albeit weaker in terms accumulation’ process at the societal level. In this of resources capable of supporting an executi- scenario, migration would ideally be a win-win ve approach, while the European position lacks partnership, whereby the host country would be- coherence but is strong in terms of resources, nefit from the labour and taxable income of the allowing the EU to develop a more aggressive migrant, while the origin country would benefit approach. In this subsection these two points are from capital influx. However, for such a partners- discussed in turn.

37 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration hip to work, forms of legal migration need to be of migration toward Europe (as opposed to other set up in agreements between European and Af- African countries) – albeit for different reasons. rican states. Proposals for this do in fact exist in Niger’s reference to humanitarian reasons is not the various policy documents stemming from the just self-serving hypocrisy. Migration to other Af- Rabat Process, but have not, as yet, been taken rican countries, though more significant in num- up by the states – apart from isolated attempts bers than migration to Europe, has never resul- such as the failed agreement between Mali and ted in the humanitarian disaster represented by Spain described in the Mali case study. This West the large numbers of deaths in the Sahara and African vision is not without its pitfalls, some of the Mediterranean and for that reason, ‘irregular which are delineated in Nigeria’s national migra- migration’ appears problematic to state agents tion policy document – for instance an exodus of both in Europe and in Africa. In Mali, the Minis- development-sensitive skilled labour. However, it try of Malians Abroad defends the Malian state’s corresponds to the perception of Africa’s difficult cooperation with the EU on the grounds that development equation of abundant labour and most ‘irregular migrants’ lack the skills needed to penury of capital. enter the labour market in Europe, which would

Such a perception is certainly shared by organisa- turn their projects into a burden for European tions in Europe’s civil society, but does not seem societies, and be a failure for the migrants them- to prevail at the European decision-making level, selves. Admittedly, however, African reasons for where African emigration tends to be defined in opposing ‘irregular migration’ are weaker than terms of poverty and culture, in addition to war the European ones. This emerges in particular in and bad governance. In order to address these the reluctance of African states to agree to the ‘root causes’, poverty-reduction solutions, and mass return agreements proposed by the EU. culture-impacting sensitisation campaigns are The point here seems to be that as long as sta- being developed and implemented, while poli- tes in Africa and Europe have not reached a tical dialogue seeks to address bad governance. consensus about what needs to be emphasised Both types of intervention are ‘targeted’ (to spe- as the macro-level cause of African emigration cific regions and groups) instead of being holistic – i.e., structural issues of development or root as would be the case if structures were taken into causes – synergy will elude them. This explains account. From an analytical point of view, these the present situation, where formal agreements perspectives are not contradictory. Poverty can mask disagreements that are ultimately shaped be considered as less of a ‘cause’ than a symp- by the different positions and resources of states tom of structural problems of development, and in Africa and Europe. culture adapts to contexts, which, in turn, are Active and passive approach: It became shaped by economic structures. Therefore, this is clear during fieldwork on this paper that EU dele- a divergence on where the emphasis is put, and gations in individual countries are territorial and which solutions are envisioned as a result. executive agencies with no regional perspective, Despite this divergence of understanding, there especially in the realm of political economy. At are areas in which a convergence of interests may the centre, in Brussels, decision-making depends create some synergy. Both European and African on agreements between states and countries decision-makers are opposed to ‘irregular migra- that are deeply divided on the issue of migration. tion’ –defined in terms of its underlying meaning ‘Frontline’ countries such as Italy, Greece, and

38 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

Spain feel the full brunt of what some describe – repression, ‘targeted’ projects, and sensitisati- as an invasion, while a minimal consensus on a on campaigns. In order to be able to act on the pan-European management of arrivals appears pledges, EU member states need a consensus on impossible, especially after the failure of Germa- migration that does not currently exist. While the ny’s proposal in that direction. Unsurprisingly, Africa-Europe Alliance has announced a move in frontline states are more active than other Euro- that direction, it remains to be seen whether the pean states. Italy has adopted agreements with EU can actually mobilise resources and political militias in the Sahara and in Libya, and Spain will beyond those that are needed for repression, tried importing labour from Mali before initiating control and tackling the ‘root causes’. the training of border agents and paramilitary By contrast, the African position appears more personnel in the Sahel. Meanwhile, the failure coherent and rational. The concept of migration and/or incapacity to devise a pan-European po- which it incorporates is based on the balanced licy on arrivals has further stoked fears of ‘inva- view that migration could be valuable or adverse, sion’ amongst the European public and imbued depending both on circumstances, and on how European national politics with a degree of pas- one manages to harness it for socio-economic sion that renders the development of a rational progress. The kind of passion and subjective ani- and coherent approach across nation-states even mus that plays a key role in Europe exists in some more arduous. of the host countries in Africa, but its political The current European approach reflects these significance is far more limited. In West Africa, difficulties. The level of engagement and part- ECOWAS may be credited for helping to contain nership which African states request from the xenophobia – even if it did have explosive con- EU, including the terms of the Rabat Process, sequences in Côte d’Ivoire in the late 1990s and is unforthcoming because the EU member sta- early 2000s. The MPFA, the ECOWAS Common tes disagree so much on how to respond to so- Approach and the national migration policies of mething which would, otherwise, might not have Nigeria and Mali all reflect this position in a sig- turned into a crisis. The EU is therefore only able nificant measure, even though they try to con- to mobilise resources for intervention in Africa, ciliate it with European concerns. However, Af- and only in line with the view – defined by the rican states and integration bodies have proved European context – that migration is a problem. incapable of mobilising the resources that would

This lack of coherence in the European position turn their position into an active approach to explains the contradictions in its agenda in West migration – meaning, an approach which would Africa. We have seen, for instance, that the EU produce results. Consequently, it is the European claims to support the free movement of peop- approach that has played the decisive role in this le in the ECOWAS region, sometimes with fun- issue so far, though not without some adverse ding, while, again with significant funding, also impact on the prospects for economic progress pushing for policies that restrict such free mo- in West Africa, as well as in the countries of Ni- vement. More generally, there are contradictions geria, Mali, and Niger. between ambitious partnership pledges – better development aid, investments for job creations, openness to provision of more legal channels of migration – and subpar on-the-ground policies

39 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

its restriction through the promotion of border Recommendations controls and the implementation of repression of migration in the Sahel. This new European The EU approach to migration has had at least orientation favours the emergence of a restricti- two significant impacts on West African regio- ve regime on free mobility that undermines the nal integration. existing regime based on the ECOWAS Protocol and the developmental agenda described in the First, the issue area of migration is now the key section on ECOWAS. driver of EU development policy in the region. As we have seen, Europe has historically linked Overall, it appears advisable for the EU to chan- development aid with trade. Since the end of ge course, despite the difficult political condi- the 1990s, it had been pushing for new econo- tions in Europe. Recommendations to this effect mic partnership agreements that included sup- may be offered both in relation to the context in port for African RECs but also greater opening West Africa, and to issues specific to the coun- of the African markets to European goods. Ac- tries studied in this paper. These recommenda- cording to the EC, West Africa is Europe’s lar- tions are defined by the fact that while the EU gest trading partner in Sub-Saharan Africa whi- has far more resources than ECOWAS, it is the le the EU is West Africa’s biggest trading partner European states that need the cooperation of overall. But despite signing interim agreements ECOWAS’ states in this issue area. Moreover, with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the EU has not recommendations related to the countries all been able to convince ECOWAS to accept the imply that the EU should abandon its present EPAs, owing to the refusal of the region’s big- approach to ‘political dialogue’, which consists gest economy, Nigeria, to get on board with in devising policies and then attempting to ‘sell’ the proposal. Given this outcome, the policy them to states and friendly civil society grou- approach in which partnership is based on de- pings in West Africa by fostering ‘ownership’. velopment and migration now defines the EU Instead, the EU should take into account the relations with the ECOWAS states. Increasingly, concerns of the West African public as expres- the EU is subordinating support for regional sed in documents whose production it has fun- integration to cooperation in the issue area of ded (national migration policies) and accept the migration, despite the fact that such cooperati- input of voices which it deems to be unsympa- on is viewed by ECOWAS states as detrimental thetic to its positions. to regional integration. To achieve its aims, the EU has been able to play the weaker states of (1) Recommendations the Sahel against the leading players, especially related to the West African Region Nigeria.

This is particularly obvious in the direction taken u European leaderships should attempt to sell by the EU as regards free movement in West to their public the need to build a real part- Africa. Under the previous conditions, the EU nership with African states, one which res- supported free movement by funding the buil- pects the pledges made in the framework ding of roads and the development of trade of the Rabat Process. The EU cannot obtain corridors. In contrast to this, it now pushes for the genuine cooperation of the West African

40 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

states in controlling irregular migration and (2) Recommendations return and readmission without giving them related to Nigeria in return some of the things which they have requested in the dialogue with the EU and in The EU should negotiate on the broad issue of their national migration policy documents – reducing and stemming irregular migration to which should be taken more seriously by the Europe on the basis of Nigerian national migra- EU than they are at present. This is largely tion policy. The national migration policy docu- due to the fact that, as the case studies show ment has identified ‘excess manpower’ as the – and with the Niger case being a proof a defining characteristic of Nigerian emigration, contrario – West African states may want the and calls for a ‘management’ of that excess aid of the EU, but they still remain accoun- manpower. The EU should work with Nigeria to table to their civil societies in this issue area. achieve such management, which, in the me- u Emergency measures – such as the repres- dium and long-term, would be more beneficial sion of migration –, while perhaps warran- than border management. Based on Nigeria’s ted given the political upheavals in Euro- national migration policy document, one can pe, should not overshadow the long-term adduce the following key recommendations: solutions, which are solutions to issues of u Developing an information system on the la- development, not to migration. Therefore, bour force as a basis for understanding and such measures should not be a condition forecasting migration trends. for EU development policy in West Africa, u Regulating such trends not through repressi- as they are at present. This is not, however, on, but through services (skill development, a recommendation for the EU to abandon credit, scholarships and guest workers con- all attempts to control and contain irregular tracts, etc.) that would lead either to legal migration. circular migration, or to staying at home. u Nevertheless, the EU should indeed aban- Repression leads to evasion and fraud, while don its attempt to impose a new regime services would attract targeted individuals. of restricted mobility in West Africa. Given u In turn, the focus on services rather than the regional context, this is a futile attempt repression requires a form of multi-layered that will only result in tensions in the region international cooperation that would impli- without the expected ‘benefit’ of a degree cate dedicated European and Nigerian state of border controls that has never existed in agencies, civil society actors, and business West Africa, even under colonialism. stakeholders instead of bodies that are speci- u The EU should work with the grain of West alised only in border management and cont- African economic dynamics, in particular by rol and repression of migration. actively supporting the emergence and orga- u Tying EIB support to Nigeria’s socio-economic nisation of the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor, the development not to agreement on return best candidate for an alternative to extra-re- and readmission, but to results that effecti- gional migration in West Africa. vely and positively impact wealth/job creati- on.

41 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration u Supporting policy discourses and program- home-based prosperity and, in particular, an in- mes that promise the establishment of social flux of productive capital in the rural areas. The security, since the lack of social safety nets more rapidly that end is reached, the shorter is a major deterrent to risk-taking and local the means to it would last. investment by the most vulnerable economic agents. Such discourses and programmes are (4) Recommendations now part of Nigeria’s overall political discour- related to Niger se and take salience in electoral contexts.

Civil society critical of Niger’s involvement in the (3) Recommendations EU policy in the country should be integrated related to Mali into policy formation. In the present context, the EU is undermining the legitimacy of the The EU should negotiate on the broad issue of Nigerien state and ignoring alternative voices reducing and stemming irregular migration to that can foster the ‘ownership’ which it claims Europe on the basis of Malian national migra- exists only because Niger’s authorities are doing tion policy. Mali’s PONAM reflects problems its bidding. In contrast to the two other coun- that are somewhat different from those in Ni- tries, Niger’s problem is how to govern migrant geria, in particular the centrality of migration flows, especially in the conditions that persist in the economy after the end of state-led de- since 2011-2012. The option followed by the velopment and the fact that the bulk of Ma- EU-Niger combine is repression of migrants and li’s international migration is a form of rural targeted aid in the northern region. This is not exodus. Moreover, Malian migration is a large working, and it is hard to see how it can work. phenomenon in which migration to Europe is In this light, the governance of migration flows only one strand, one which, quantitatively spe- must become smarter, both from the EU policy aking, is quite marginal. The PONAM strongly perspective (point 1 below), and on the side of expresses the desire to protect the assets and the Nigerien state (point 2 below). investments of the diaspora – including that in (1) The EU should retain Niger as a partner for Europe – and develop their impact on economic the control of Europe-bound migration when progress in the country. Mali – both the sta- the flows persist, but control is in fact more effi- te and the civil state – will be more inclined to cient when it is based on services – thus attrac- genuinely cooperate with the EU if systems of ting its target – than when it rests on repression legal mobility conducive to this outcome are on – prompting the target to look for escape rou- the negotiation table. The EU should also sup- tes. Partnership with Niger should be broade- port initiatives – for instance the Bank of Mali- ned to include civil society groups and local bu- ans Abroad – that could help to reach this out- sinesses capable of organizing accommodation come from other destinations, especially Côte in humane conditions of migrants who reach d’Ivoire, which is the biggest recipient of Ma- Agadez, and coordinate with IOM and UNHCR lian migrants. Ultimately, as the very existence for safe return plans. While this will not prevent of national institutions supportive of migration many from crossing into Libya, it will change/ shows, migration is not seen as an end in itself, improve contacts with migrants and possib- but as a means to an end, that is, a modicum of

42 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration ly have an impact on their project. This policy from the Niger government). The only other op- should be conducted in combination with: tion is greater integration with southern Niger, a viable option, moreover, in terms of domestic (2) A Nigerien policy integrating the economy trade for cattle and agricultural produce and of Agadez Region into that of southern Niger. jobs – possibly via a temporary affirmative acti- No amount of development aid to Agadez Re- on programme. As things stand now, the road gion will be able to reorient “smugglers” to- linking Agadez to Tahoua, the next city south, is ward productive activities within the region, impassable – an apt metaphor for a region set because it is not a self-sustaining entity. Aga- adrift and grasping for any lifeline it can find. dez Region suffers from limited economic inte- EU aid would be more fruitfully spent on such a gration both with Algeria/Libya and southern structural change than on the stopgap projects Niger. Greater economic integration with the that are now the trend. northern countries would be to its benefit but is not on the cards, given the chaos in Libya and the reluctance of Algeria (and lack of overtures

43 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration List of abbreviations

AEC African Economic Community AFD Agence Française de Développement AfDB African Development Bank AME Association Malienne des Expulsés AU African Union CIGEM Centre d’Information et de Gestion des Migrations EC European Commission EDF European Development Fund ECOWAP ECOWAS Common Agricultural Policy ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States EIB European Investment Bank EPA Economic Partnership Agreements EU European Union EUCAP European Union Capacity Building Mission GAR-SI Groupes d’Action Rapide – Surveillance Intervention GIZ Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit IOM International Organisation for Migration ISRT Inter-State Road Transit HACP Haute Autorité à la Consolidation de la Paix MIDWA Migration Dialogue for West Africa MME Africa-EU Partnership on Migration, Mobility, and Employment MPFA Migration Policy Framework for Africa OAU Organisation of African Unity PAIERA Plan d’Actions à Impact Économique Rapide à Agadez PONAM Politique Nationale de Migration REC Regional Economic Communities SNV Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime WACIP West Africa Common Industrial Policy WAEMU West African Economic and Monetary Union WTO World Trade Organisation

44 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration About the author

Dr. Abdourahmane (Rahmane) Idrissa is a Nigerien political scientist and historian. He is assistant professor at the African Studies Centre of Leiden University, Humboldt researcher at the University of Göttingen, and a senior researcher at the Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur les dynamiques sociales et le dévelop- pement local (LASDEL) in Niamey.

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45 Dialogue in Divergence: The Impact of EU Migration Policy on West African Integration

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