OREANDA-NEWS. In addition to the first batch of projects to be financed under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa the EU is going to implement another six actions (with a total budget of  €41.6 million) focused on improving migration management in developing countries and to maximise the positive impact of migration on the development of partner countries.

The Commission is a leading donor when it comes to migration and development; over €1 billion has been spent on more than 400 migration related projects between 2004 and 2014.

For 2014-20, migration features prominently under the Commission's funding instruments. Amongst others, €344 million are dedicated to migration under the Global Public Goods & Challenges (GPGC) programme for the seven-year period. The six actions announced today correspond to the 2015 programme of the GPGC on Migration and Asylum.

Summary of the actions announced today:

  • Pilot action on voluntary return and sustainable, community-based reintegration (€15 million): the overall objective of the Action is to promote sustainable voluntary return and reintegration by building national capacities to enhance and facilitate a sustainable return and reintegration process.
  • Call for Proposals for the implementation of the Rome Programme (Rabat process) (€15 million):       The objective of the call for proposals will be to finance actions implementing the Rome Programme adopted in the framework of the Rabat process in November 2014 with the focus on promoting effective governance of migration and mobility flows in all their dimensions.
  • Global action to improve the recruitment framework of labour migration (€8 million): The overall objective of the proposed action is to improve the recruitment framework of labour migration, in particular to allow governments, social partners and other stakeholders to effectively govern and manage recruitment within the overall labour migration process.
  • Addressing Mixed Migration Flows in East Africa (€1 million, top up of an already approved initiative of €5 million): The proposed action aims in particular to increase the budget of the project "Addressing Mixed Migration Flows in Eastern Africa" currently under preparation and foreseen to be signed before the end of 2015. The overall objective of this action is to support countries in Eastern Africa / Horn of Africa to address mixed migration flows.
  • Guidelines on Mainstreaming Migration into Development Policy (€2 million): The main objective of the action is to contribute to effective mainstreaming of migration into development policies. In particular, the initiative aims at developing practical and concrete guidelines for mainstreaming migration into development policy in the context of EU development funding in all relevant policy sectors and to test the guidelines in practice in selected partner countries.

In addition, a set of Support Measures (€605,380) will contribute to activities related to the preparation, follow up, monitoring, evaluation and audit activities related to the implementation of the Migration and Asylum component of the Global Public Goods and Challenges Programme. These measures will in particular help to provide support to EU delegations,  headquarter services as well as beneficiary countries to design and deliver evidence based, high quality, value for money support projects and to engage in effective policy and political dialogue.

Migration also features prominently in geographical programmes (Pan-African Partnership instrument, regional envelope for Southern Neighbourhood, West Africa and Central Africa cross-regional envelope for Eastern & Southern Africa), as well as in some national programmes in countries such as Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Niger.

The overall objective of development cooperation related to migration is to maximise the positive impact of migration on the development of partner countries. Development cooperation can help partner countries improve their migration governance and in this way tap into the development potential of migration. Also, by addressing political, economic and social instability, development cooperation in a number of sectors contributes to address the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement, helps to ensure that migration takes place in an orderly, safe and regular manner and is a choice rather than a necessity.