Interrupted Flows

Marta Bo rdig no n Lo renz o Rinelli Interrupted flow s CONTENTS LIST O F ILLUSTRATIO N S 3 LIST O F FIG URES 3 ACKN O W LEDG M EN TS 4 FO REW O RD 5 PRELUDE 7 I. DEPARTURE 11 II. JO URN EY 19 III. LAN DIN G 24 IV. LIM BO 33 V. SAFE HAVEN 40 VI. LIFE 47 ACRO N YM S 51 BIBLIO G RAPHY 52 EN DN O TES 54 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 0 .1 0 .2 1 .1 1 .2 1 .3 1 .4 2 .1 2 .2 3 .1 3 .2 3 .3 3 .4 4 .1 4 .2 4 .3 4 .4 4 .5 5 .1 5 .2 5 .3 6 .1 6 .2 En marche vers, by Unknow n, courtesy of Ibrahim M anzo Diallo, Sahara 2 0 1 8 Corps, by Unknow n, courtesy of Ibrahim M anzo Diallo, Sahara 2 0 1 8 M emories, by Lorenzo Rinelli, N airobi 2 0 1 4 Kene Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of M ohamed Keita, Kanadjikila M ali Bamako 2 0 1 8 Kene Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of M ohamed Keita, Kanadjikila M ali Bamako 2 0 1 8 Youth, by Lorenzo Rinelli, N airobi 2 0 1 4 Un camion des migrants sotant d’Agadez, by Unknow n, courtesy of Ibrahim M anzo Diallo, Agadez 2 0 1 8 M erge, by Unknow n, courtesy of G iacomo Zandonini, Agadez 2 0 1 8 O mar, G ambia, by Franco Livera, SPRAR, Brindisi 2 0 1 9 In itinere Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of Simona Filippini, Castelnuovo di Porto 2 0 1 5 Back to Italy from AO I: the M eneghetti family, by G aetano Di Filippo, Selam Palace, Rome 2 0 1 8 Young boys playing volleyball in the courtyard, by G aetano Di Filippo, Selam Palace, Rome 2 0 1 8 “M igrant Lives M atter”, by Andrew Castle, JN RC Rome 2 0 1 8 Playing a makeshift checkers game, by G aetano Di Filippo, Selam Palace, Rome 2 0 1 8 Flaminio, by M ohamed Keita, Rome 2 0 1 1 Kene Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of M ohamed Keita, Kanadjikila M ali Bamako 2 0 1 8 Selam Palace at night, by G aetano Di Filippo, Selam Palace, Rome 2 0 1 8 “W hat’s Your Favorite Color?”, by Andrew Castle, JN RC Rome 2 0 1 8 Bereket and his sister, from Eritrea, in his room, by G aetano Di Filippo, Selam Palace, Rome 2 0 1 8 In itinere Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of Simona Filippini, Castelnuovo di Porto 2 0 1 5 Kene Project, by M ultiple Authors, courtesy of M ohamed Keita, Kanadjikila M ali Bamako 2 0 1 8 Via M arsala/ 2 , by M ohamed Keita, Rome 2 0 1 2 6 8 10 14 15 16 18 21 23 27 29 30 32 34 36 37 39 41 43 45 48 50 LIST OF FIGURES Table 1 .1 UN DESA, N umber of international migrants by major area of destination and major area of origin, 2 0 1 7 Table 1 .2 M o Ibrahim Foundation, Africa’s Youth: job or migration?, Ibrahim Forum Report, 2 0 1 9 Table 3 .1 M igreeurop - O bservatoire des Frontières, M ap of Camps, 6 th edition, 2 0 1 6 3 12 13 25 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the outcome of the Interrupted Flow s research project w e undertook at Temple University Rome in the academic year 2 0 1 8 / 2 0 1 9 . W e are very grateful to Dr. M ichele M asucci, Vice President for Research at Temple University w ho made available the funding for this ambitious undertaking through the Temple’s Presidential Humanities and Arts Aw ards. W e w ant to thank to Dean Hilary Link for her crucial support and patience. W e are also grateful to Shara W asserman, the Director of Temple G allery of Art for her guidance and advise w ith everything relating images. W e are also grateful to our colleague Devin Kovach for his critical engagements and long conversations on Politics of Aesthetics and his students of graduate visual arts course Pow er of Place for their responsiveness. W riting this booklet w as harder than w e thought and the result more rew arding than w e could have ever imagined. N one of this w ould have been possible w ithout the help of Connie O pondo w ho has been able to combine deep editorial revision and keen insight from Africa. For permission to reproduce images, w e should thank the follow ing individuals: Ibrahim M anzo Diallo, M ohamed Keita, M oussa, N arama, Amadou, Boikar, Barou, M ady, Adama, Boikar, Ladji, (Project Kene), G iacomo Zandonini, Franco Livera, G aetano di Filippo, Andrew Castle, Simona Filippini, Alhassane Balde, Ibrahim Saw, Boye Bah, M amadou Saliou Diallo, Traore Abdoul Salah, Joseph Eyube, Ibham M id Isaac, Lamine Senayteh, Amara Diakite, Yeli Camara, Daouda N imaga, Abdoul Aziz Diallo, Suleiman Diallo, Ibrahim Diallo, Fouseiny Sylla (In itinere Project). The book is divided in six chapter w hich reflect the six categories of the photo exhibition: Departure, Journey, Landing, Limbo, and Life. Although the authors conceived and developed this book together, Lorenzo Rinelli w rote chapter one, tw o and three w hile M arta Bordignon w rote the second section w ith chapter four, five, and six. Each chapter explores a portion of the journey and each snapshot in it epitomizes a moment along the life trajectory of each migrant. As a matter of fact, this project could not be even conceived w ithout the life accounts of those migrants w hose journey’s marks and enunciations are present in each photo and every w ord. Ultimately this w ork is dedicated to them. 4 FOREWORD Since its founding in 1 9 6 6 , Temple University Rome has been a center for interdisciplinary learning that engages the city of Rome and Italy in general as classroom, studio and laboratory. Temple Rome w as begun by Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, and visual creation, study and the artistic enterprise have alw ays been at the heart of w hat w e do. Throughout the decades, the Temple Rome curriculum has broadened and expanded to allow even more students to experience the life-altering experience of a semester studying at Temple Rome. O ver the past several years, the curriculum has evolved rapidly to address some of the major issues facing humanity today— sustainability, gender inequity, immigration and human rights. N ever straying far from our roots, w e often utilize art and artistic expression as a w indow into the study of history, politics, sociology, literature and more. Interrupted Flow s/ Safe Travels is a perfect example of how artistic expression both complements and deepens, clarifies and at times contradicts, w hat the w ritten w ord and w hat scholarly research can teach us. As Lorenzo Rinelli w rites in his Prelude to this volume, “It is art that can offer us insights in the w ays w e represent fact and describe people.” In fact, it is precisely art made by and about migrants that completely shifts our understanding of the political and personal realities of migration and of the migrant. By shifting and refocusing our gaze, by making us look hard at images from w hich w e may w ish to avert our eyes, w e begin to see, through art, a new “politics of truth,” in Rinelli’s evocative w ords. In this project, through the migrant’s gaze and the migrant’s journey, w e see difficulty and despair, death and discomfort, exile and displacement, and w e see hope and renew al and humanity. W e see the migrant-the other-and yet the goal of the exhibit and the volume is that w e also see ourselves, ultimately— in our ow n form of exile, in our ow n form of displacement, and w ithin our ow n notion of the “politics of truth.” Interrupted Flow s/ Safe Travels project is the fruit of collaboration, on many levels. The exhibit and accompanying publication w ere made possible by an exciting new partnership betw een Temple University Rome and Temple University’s O ffice of institutional Research. The exhibit is one of the first projects supported by funds earmarked specifically for Temple Rome under Temple’s Presidential Humanities and Arts Aw ards, and w e express our continued gratitude to Dr. M ichele M asucci, Vice President for Research at Temple University, w hose interest in supporting faculty research and artistic production at Temple Rome made this project, and others, possible. Finally, the exhibit and text are a true intersection betw een w ritten w ord and visual image; the project has brought together images created by migrants, former students, professionals, all of w hose perspectives and lenses change our ow n understanding of the journeys undertaken. The w hole enterprise also represents a collaboration among four Temple Rome faculty-scholars: Lorenzo Rinelli, M arta Bordignon, authors of the present publication, and Camilla Lai, each of w hom brought their extensive connections, expertise, and sensibilities to this thought-provoking project; Shara W asserman, Director of the Temple G allery of Art, has contributed to the selection and organization of the images included. The interpersonal enterprise; the melding of art, politics, history and memoir; the collaborative spirit through w hich this project came to be, and w ith w hich w e present the follow ing text and accompanying exhibit, reflect the best of w hat an interdisciplinary liberal arts education can offer, as w e aim to do at Temple Rome. W e look forw ard to more such collaborations in the future, as w e hope that this one begins to shift your ow n perceptions and long-held beliefs about the migrant’s journey. Hilary L. Link Dean, Temple University Rome 5 6 PRELUDE “I began w ondering if w e did not still need such founding w orks today, ones that w ould use a similar dialectics of rerouting, asserting [… ] the rhizome of a multiple relationship w ith the O ther and basing every community’s reasons for existence on a modern form of the sacred, w hich w ould be, all in all, a Poetics of Relation.” 1 Édouard G lissant In one of the opening images of the exhibition Interrupted Flow s/ Safe Travels, you w itness one of the most iconic images representing contemporary vessels that navigate through the Sahara Desert, follow ing the main corridor that leads from Africa to Europe via Libya and Sicily. The shot of thousands of tire marks left by trucks that depart from the Sahel, heading north through the vastness of the Sahara Desert, loaded w ith hundreds of migrants, squeezed one on the top of another, holding onto something, hoping not to fall off and fade aw ay, is haunting. Like others w ho have been w orking on the question of African migration to Europe and elsew here, I find it difficult to w itness the high volume of African lives lost along the migration journey. As part of the effort to document and challenge the causes of these deaths, Temple University w as accredited by United N ations G eneral Assembly to participate in the intergovernmental process leading to the adoption of the G lobal Compact for Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration. It w as in this capacity, and w ith the support of Dean Hilary Link, that I w as invited to participate in the High-Level Debate on International M igration and Development organized by the President of the G eneral Assembly in December 2 0 1 8 w here w orld leaders from 1 6 4 countries gathered to recognize that migration, “is a source of prosperity, innovation and sustainable development in our globalized w orld.” How ever, in spite of the promise of migration, it poses immense dangers as the voyage of crossing the largest and deadliest desert requires extraordinary resources w hich very few of those w ho embark on the journey possess, especially if w e consider that the main central corridor that goes through Libya has been constantly in the last years at the same time the most trafficked in Africa, and the deadliest in the w orld, even tough in 2 0 1 7 the top ten migration flow s from Africa accounted for less than the single migration flow from M exico to the US. The assassination of Col. G addafi in 2 0 1 1 made the situation even w orse until today w hen the country still standing structures are about to collapse in an imminent civil w ar. Continued migration through this area in spite of its harsh climatic and environmental conditions, is tied to a long history w here the desert acts as ‘a space for crossing and connecting.’ 2 Today, these crossings are seen as a kind of law less circulation leading to bureaucratic responses from the Europe Union, and individual M ember States w hose response has been to send a contingent of risk management experts to investigate the space of the desert and possibly, to revive the ancient limes Tripolitanus, the Roman fortified frontier in Libya. Accordingly, images and narratives of an imminent immigrant invasion and terrorists infiltration populate the front pages of European new spapers presenting the geographies of Italy and Libya, tw o colonially intertw ined states, as something new denying how these historically connected places have once again become linked by concerns of security, but never in the interest of human safety. This project, and its resulting exhibition, w hich includes text and images, is dedicated to those souls w ho are navigating the Sahara as w ell as those that have been lost among its dunes w here their bodies ‘instantly mummified’. 3 Throughout, the intent of the project has been to identify traces of these migrants’ journey from Africa into Europe; through data and policy analysis w hich are w oven together w ith the images and texts so as to relate fragmentary memories of the journey. G iven that w ords cannot express certain elements of the migratory condition, and statistical data can only represent the aggregations and that w hich is recorded, the images help provide the deeper insights that enable us to decipher such a complex phenomenon. 4 Recognizing the imperative to sketch out a “ new politics of truth, one founded in contingency and self-transformation,” 5 it is our aim to move aw ay from a conventional interpretation of migration, w hich relegates the discussion to the dim space betw een illegality (w ithout discerning the role of law as the source of it) and victimhood. W e also highlight elements of migration obfuscated by the econometric understandings6 w here the migrant is reduced to a mere tool to be alternatively sanctified or condemned. To this end, the text and the photography exhibition w ere conceived together to blur the artificial division betw een 7 8 fact and fiction, betw een political analysis and artistic expression. W hen read together, the photographs w ork more like an amplifier that adds an extra dimension to our understanding of the political. The aesthetic dimension in particular taps into our ethical capacity because it breaks free from the attempt to limit and reduce political understanding on a solely rational level. In other w ords, an aesthetic approach to politics can make us more aw are of the consequences of imposing our rules and defining our principles (w hich w e often take for granted) on others. O verall, follow ing Bourdieu, w e come to see how the immigrant has become an atopos, that is; displaced/ out of place/ absent and perhaps any classification w ould inevitably reduce the migrant’s human complexity. This being the case, the space of the art exhibition becomes a site of performance, analysis and expression, that suggest an espace autre?7 And as w e see in the exhibition, there are numerous recognizable moments of truth8 that emerge in each photograph as it refers to the courage of the departure, the endurance of the journey; the shock of arrival, and the proud obstinacy of survival that characterizes every migrant’s life. In setting up the exhibition, migrants w ere actively included as authors of these images so as to avoid reestablishing w hat David Campbell calls “ the iconography of anonymous victimhood” 9 in relation to African migrants. W e w anted to feature their gaze, to highlight their visual representations w ith the hope of revealing pow er relations w ithin the process of migration. The exhibition is divided into six categories: departure, journey, landing, limbo, safe haven, and life. Each category explores a portion of the journey and each snapshot in it epitomizes a moment of existence along the life trajectory of each migrant. O nly w hen w e render this essential aspect visible in this, and perhaps many other exhibitions on migration, are w e able to recognize the limits of any representation of it. The retrospective concludes w ith a glimpse of hope, the possibility of return and the potential of circularity. M ohamed Keita – once homeless in Rome but now an accomplished photographer w hose picture “ Happiness and Sadness” stands as the exhibition’s banner image – returns to Africa, to conduct a photography w orkshop in M ali w ith local teenagers. The main protagonist of the last section then, is the new generation of African youth w ho w ill, after all, according to the statistics presented here, comprise the good part of our humanity to come. In conclusion, our intent is not to unlock a truth that is somehow self-explanatory and dogmatic, but, instead, to reveal a new politics of truth. By combining images and text w e intend to complicate the representation of the reality of migration “ betw een the demand of reason and the w ork of imagination.” 1 0 O ur ultimate goal is to engage in a different discourse of migration that w ill confront the postcolonial realities of our times that w e likely tend to ignore in the hope that they w ill fade aw ay. W e w ish to invoke hope in view ers and stimulate the uncanny feeling of non-belonging, a feeling of being displaced and thus permanently in exile, and hint at a new politics of truth that has yet to be realized but that such visual interactions might eventually make possible. Lorenzo Rinelli 2019 9 10 I. DEPARTURE African migration as a field of research encounters tw o unique and related problems that condition its outcomes: first the problem of limited research funds for African scholars located in Africa and other parts of the w orld w ho are normally closely linked to the interests of donors, and second, a political economy of know ledge that leads to a proliferation of research on emigration of Africans tow ards Europe under a security lens, rather than investigating African migration in general. For instance, over the past decade or so, the most popular mantra across the w hole European political spectrum regarding African migration has been to invest money in Africa to keep Africans there. The European economic support to Africa, both in the form of development aid and investments from major European corporations has been greatly promoted (la Valletta). According to the said mantra, the money should be used to stimulate economic grow th and employment in order to boost the purchasing pow er of the African population. Evidently, there is an economic interest based on the projected return on investment. The African continent despite the high-risk conditions intrinsic to financial operations there has alw ays attracted capital ventures and speculator. There is also a crucial component linked to national politics. Every political party or force of each single nation-state in Europe is crafting a political campaign around the issue of immigration, and especially African immigration. In other w ords, immigration has steadily become the central part of every political agenda. In Italy in particular, it w as the Lega N ord [N orthern League] – today’s Lega , and the first political force in the country – w ho put immigration at the center of the Italian political agenda at the beginning of the 1 9 9 0 s, generating its first and present electoral success and thereby, defining the terms of the debate under populist slogans. 1 1 In the last twenty years or so the discourse of immigration in Europe has also been monopolized by the so-called politics of fear1 2 and in general, policy intervention has been marked by ad hoc interventions aimed mostly at securing the external borders of Europe (see Turkey for instance). The refusal to create legal migration routes, insufficient policies and weak mobility framew orks means criminal netw orks often profit from migration, which translates to an increased risk of terrorism and violation of human rights against migrants. Lastly, and most importantly, instead of being conceived as an instrument of development (UN DP), migration has been presented as a problem to be solved given that it is mainly driven mainly by poverty. Thus, the equation follow s: investing money in poor African countries of origin w ill curb migration to Europe. It is a w in-w in plan for the reasons mentioned above as it w ill guarantee a return on investment w hile enhancing the ethical dimension of intervention. That vision has been challenged by recent analysis of migration patterns that highlight how people need a certain social and economic capital to migrate. Therefore, direct investment in countries of origin will stimulate migration instead of curbing it. 1 3 This also reveals an epistemological failure especially from the European point of view w hen dealing w ith African migration as an important component of development. The purpose of this w ork of text and images is tw ofold; first, it seeks to subvert the common idea that migration is a crisis to be solved and second, to highlight the human cost and violation of human rights inherent in the implementation of externalization policies of migration control and securitization of borders. M ore specifically, w e illustrate how restrictive immigration policies are a major corollary of the current European migration crisis and call attention to the human cost in terms of thousands of lives lost and endless suffering experienced along the journey from Africa into Europe, and the stagnation of life conditions in Africa and in Europe, caused by the implementation of the same restrictive border policies aimed at interrupting human mobility. W ithin this conceptual framew ork, human mobility is understood as an element of human development. According to the Sustainable Development G oals (SDG s) adopted by the United N ations G eneral Assembly in September 2 0 1 5 , migration is inextricably linked to the development of the African continent in terms of increased household incomes, improved access to social services such as education and health services, and the empow erment of traditionally marginalized groups such as elders, women and minorities. From available data, migrants support G DP grow th in destination countries and are an indispensable part of the w orkforce. They also make remittances w hich currently represent 3 .5 % of Africa’s 2 0 1 8 G DP. Having risen from almost $ 1 1 billion in 2 0 0 0 to $ 8 2 .4 billion, remittances accounted for more than half of private capital flow s to Africa and in 2 0 1 7 they w ere higher than the net O fficial Development Assistance (O DA) and official aid received ($ 5 2 .8 billion). 1 4 11 global destinations such as the USA and the Emirates. The majority of Africans also move – if they can and w ant – w ithin the continent. In Africa 7 8 .5 of all international migrants w ere born in Africa. In other w ords, four every five international migrants in Africa come from the continent. 1 6 M ost importantly, African migration accounts only for 1 4 % of the global population much less than Asia’s 4 1 % or 2 4 % for the very Europe that presents itself as being under siege. 1 7 Due to intra-continental migration, Africa remains the first destination for the majority of African migrants – except for people of the M aghreb region – w ith Europe coming second as the destination of choice. In 2 0 1 7 , there w ere 3 6 .3 million African migrants amounting to 2 .9 % of Africa’s population. 1 8 This African stock is illustrated above in the UN Population Division’s innovative map based on a D3 -based rounded migration visualization of the international migrant stock in the w orld updated as of 2 0 1 7 . 1 9 W ithin the graph, a thicker stream of color tow ard a certain region implies a larger migration stock originating from another region. As show n, among the international migrant stock for 2 0 1 7 , there w ere more 3 6 million people originally from Africa among w hich, as mentioned above, approximately 9 million dw ell in Europe. C onversely, almost 2 0 million chose other African countries as their final destination. Therefore, it must be noted that only about a fourth of African migrants w ent to Europe and over half of them originated from N orth Africa, from populations that have a long history of interconnections w ith European countries due to geographical proximity and also cultural affinities fueled by colonial ties and the current overproduction of cultural capital originating in the G lobal N orth. This fuels the desire to move, to discover, to become as the “migrant w ants to live. It is not poverty alone that forces him to emigrate. Through his ow n individual effort, he tries to achieve the dynamism that is lacking in the situation into w hich he w as born.” 2 0 These endogenous and exogenous factors operate at the individual and also collective level. M igrants often are under a lot of pressure from the family and community of origin to leave because of the money they w ill send back once they reach their final destination. N eedless to say, there is also a qualitative difference between individual remittances and foreign investments; O ften, individual remittances are more accurately calibrated to satisfy the needs of each recipient, w hile the latter may not even reach its intended destination at all due to the w orking of the bureaucracy and multiple levels of corruption. In addition, the global N orth directly or indirectly exerts certain pressures on African markets as private firms craft and sell products to consumers, and Beyond this econometric analysis, the concept of human development has many other dimensions: from Karl M arx w hose philosophical focus includes bringing ‘the conditions for the free development and activity of individuals under their ow n control, to Amartya Sen w ho defines development as ‘the expansion of valuable freedoms enjoyed by individuals’ of a society that is the capacity to augment our ow n life choices. 1 5 This includes, of course, the possibility of not moving at all and living in one’s preferred location or area. W hen it comes to Africa and migration, it is often considered from a European point of view w hich perceives the entire continent as being on a South-N orth trajectory of human movement. The European media regularly tells the story of vulnerable families crossing oceans on precarious boats and enduring w inters in makeshift refugee camps, only to eventually become radicalized, escape the camps, and eventually intrude on and disrupt the European comfort zones. How ever, the reality of African migration is very different from w hat is presented in this narrative. For instance, the number of Africans migrating to Europe in 2 0 1 8 increased but also did migration to other 12 people. 2 2 The growth of this large youth cohort in Africa is more than that of the same youth cohort in Chinese and Indian societies. W hile similar population increases hold a potential for development – the so-called “demographic dividend” – they also raise new challenges. Africa’s demographic age structure, in particular, w ill affect the labour supply on the continent and may generate a race to the bottom in terms of w ages and large-scale unemployment among the youth and/ or large inflow s into the informal labour market which in turn will make it difficult to capitalize on their productivity or to promote industrialization. The challenge, particularly for sub-Saharan Africa, “lies in engaging the large cohort in highproductivity formal sector jobs rather than informal low -productivity, low w age jobs”. 2 3 W ith increasing global connectedness, the youth is exposed to different realities, new opportunities and ideas w hich can bring innovation and motivation for change w hile raising their expectations. How ever even if technology allow s youth across the globe to communicate, youth belonging to w ealthy societies tend to be generally more mobile across borders and w ithin communities in comparison to those from poorer backgrounds. If this important fact on one hand challenges the common view of mobility being directly proportional to poverty, on the other hand it says a lot about the quality of mobility for those from relatively poor societies w hich include slavery, deportation, unauthorized detention, diffuse violation of human rights and appalling living conditions. Despite being the African continent’s biggest resource of creativity, energy and innovation, the youth often feel trapped betw een a rock and a hard place. At the demographic level, Africa has the highest dependency ratio in the w orld at 7 8 %, w hich is projected to be the low est in the w orld at 5 8 % by 2 0 6 0 due to the increase in the proportion of w orking-age adults. In theory, according to strictly econometric diagrams, this phenomenon could lead to an increase of Africa’s G DP thereby also create desires. Due to demographic shifts in the G lobal N orth, African youth are needed at a micro and macro levels w here they provide services that the w elfare states can no longer sustain or in order to maintain the agricultural production that the global market demands more of. Each of those elements w ould deserve an in-depth analysis that simply goes beyond the scope and nature of this publication. M oreover, it w ould be naïve to overlook the risks linked to migration, not only in relation to the negative economic outcomes such as brain drain, but also the risks related to massive urbanization in African cities. According to the United N ations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, eight cities in Africa are expected to more than double in population size in the next 1 7 years as a result of overall population increase and increased rural-urban migration. 2 1 Both deserve a short reflection because they define the fertile terrain of departure. Simply put, almost 6 0 .0 % of Africa’s population is under the age of 2 5 making Africa the w orld’s youngest continent. According to demographic projections, betw een 2 0 1 9 and 2 1 0 0 , Africa’s youth population is expected to increase from 4 4 7 .1 million to 1 .3 billion 13 14 15 16 w ith subsequent social benefits. The reality is that 1 5 .7 million young people in Africa (around 1 3 .4 % of the total labor force of 1 5 -2 4 -yearold), are facing unemployment in 2 0 1 9 . Young w omen are more severely affected, w ith a rate of 1 4 .7 % compared to 1 2 .3 % for young men. In theory, this should constitute a great problem w hen young Africans enroll in programs that prepare them to enter the job market, because the reality in Africa is one of a w idening mismatch betw een education and employment, w ith the sub-Saharan African youth especially lacking access to educational programmes that prepare them for the transition from school to w ork. According to UN ESCO data, only 1 .1 % of 1 5 -2 4 -year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa participated in a vocational education program in 2 0 1 7 . The youth unemployment rate in Africa is expected to exceed 3 0 % this year, and young people w ill continue to be 3 .5 times more likely than older adults to be unemployed, or more precisely, to be underemployed and lacking decent job conditions. The second important element that deserves scrutiny is the rapid pace and scale of urbanization of Africa. The United N ations Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects that the w orld’s 1 0 fastest grow ing cities, betw een 2 0 1 9 and 2 0 3 5 , w ill all be in Africa. 2 4 Still, as evident from the chart below, Africa is projected to be the least urbanized continent in the w orld in 2 0 4 0 . These tw o elements are not in contradiction. W hen considered together, they lead to the conclusion that w e w ill continue to face grow ing rural- urban migration and further migration from the cities of one country to those of another w here a young and extremely mobile African population seeks new opportunities and change. G iven that most of the African informal labour sector is in agriculture, ameliorating agriculture labour conditions and improving agricultural productivity necessitates new land policies to develop land tenure systems w hile raising investments in new farming techniques. In particular, it w ould be beneficial to devise policies that advance the skills needed to develop high-productivity methods of farming as w ell as policies that help to build the infrastructure necessary to connect farmers to markets. The right approach in terms of policies can lead to balanced economic grow th, preservation of natural resources, and poverty reduction. 2 5 This could also lead to increased African food production in a continent w here, according to the Ibrahim Foundation, “ Eight African countries fill 9 0 .0 % of their demand w ith imports (Botsw ana, Cabo Verde, Djibouti, G ambia, Lesotho, M auritania, Seychelles and Somalia)” w hich are expected to grow from $ 3 5 .0 billion in 2 0 1 5 to over $ 1 1 0 .0 billion by 2 0 2 5 .” 2 6 If there is any w ill to deal w ith migration in a holistic w ay, a revised partnership betw een Africa and Europe should directly tackle this issue. The notion of co-development w ould be based on the “understanding that, now more than ever before, the best migration policy for developed nations is one that seeks not to block but to smoothly regulate the circulation and recirculation of the majority of foreigners and immigrants”. 2 7 Put differently, circulation appears to be interrupted, unsafe, and ultimately, based on a defeatist orientation tow ards Africa. The heightened restrictions on crossing borders and reduced legal channels out of and w ithin the continent have led migrants to use increasingly precarious routes, w hich render them progressively more vulnerable to smugglers and traffickers, and to human rights abuses. 17 18 II. JOURNEY It is w idely accepted that all the violations of human rights that occur along and through the border along the migration routes from Africa heading north tow ards Europe are to be blamed on smuggling netw orks. This is the proof and justification that Europe needs to keep fighting criminal activity that takes advantage and makes money out of the desperation of migrants, especially w omen and children. Accordingly, the inadvertent failure to secure the borders justifies efforts to reinforce migration control and systems geared tow ards fighting the perpetuation the said criminal activity. Secondly, and through the humanitarian aspect of this salvific operation, European nation-states and N orth African states that act as the gendarme of Europe can operate freely in each other’s territory w hile disregarding of any presumption of sovereignty. Last but not least, according to this reasoning, migrants are simply paw ns at the mercy of criminals w ho operate and dispose of their bodies as they please in a regime of semi-slavery and\ or, are themselves criminals w ho must be intercepted due to violation of the law. How ever, a more complex picture emerges w hen w e consider that the “ discursive formations that uphold and propagate the notion of migrant ‘illegality’ more than mere ‘consequences’ of a more elementary (prior) violation persistently serve as veritable conditions of possibility for the larger sociopolitical procedures that generate and sustain this ‘illegality’.” 2 8 It is ironic that the law w hich is the basis of the same illegality essentially disappears from any debate surrounding migration. Let us consider the case of Agadez as the center of current European discourses of externalization of migration control and as the crossroads of trans-Saharan caravans, a major trading center and the capital of the Tuareg. Today these people of the desert have lost the exotic aura found in European literature and arts of the last century, only to be replaced by the more pragmatic costumes of the unscrupulous smugglers and traffickers. Stories of death and abandonment in the Desert abound and reinforce the criminalization of every migrant activity across the desert and the necessity of Europe to intervene to stem the flow and save humanity in despair, in the same manner that colonization w as justified and sanctified in the Berlin conference of 1 8 8 4 . If w e pay attention to the role of law and the geopolitics of the area, w e see a different story play out. In the 1 9 6 0 s, the area w as consid- ered an important economic center as the w orld’s largest uranium deposits thus attracting miners from Africa and engineers from Europe w ith little benefit to the local population. The end of the cold w ar saw the crash of uranium prices and the Tuareg rebellion as they demanded state recognition. 2 9 In the end, the inability of the N iger state to integrate the Tuareg led the government to legalize and encourage subSaharan migration, to discourage them from further armed activity and banditry, thus allow ing them to open the first official trans-Saharan travel agencies – the so called agencies de courage 3 0 – specialized in accompanying sub-Saharan migrant to Algeria and Libya, w here oil fields and political ties w ere developed by the G addafi regime. Repeated and w idely advertised promises by the colonel that sub-Saharan migrant w orkers w ould be w elcomed as brothers obviously, w as a good reason to leave.Thus, Agadez became the hub of smugglers or coxeurs, w ith drivers, intermediaries, and travel agents sometimes being the same people w ith different roles at once. M igrants became a source of income for both state officials and private entrepreneurs in a blossoming local migration economy. Agents from many W est African states opened agencies in Agadez to manage the various aspects of the journey of their fellow countrymen leading to the emergence of the M alian ghetto, the G hanaian ghetto, the N igerian ghetto and so on, w here migrants interacted w ith locals w hile w aiting for the next leg of the journey. At the beginning of 2 0 0 0 s the European Union started pushing its borders southw ard tow ards the sea. They asked the M aghreb state to patrol their coastlines and then, inexorably pushed further southw ard into the desert, introducing visa orders w here free movement w as the norm. Installing the Saharan borders and draw ing lines in the sand, the states w ere acting in a manner reminiscent of the 1 8 8 4 Berlin conference w hile seeking to interrupt trans-Saharan circulation under the [false] assumption that every migrant w as crossing the desert w ith the intention of reaching Europe. Under this regime, the EU and individual M ember states invested a considerable amount of financial resources and tools to secure the external borders. For instance, FRO N TEX, as the European Agency for the M anagement of O perational Cooperation at the External Borders of the M ember States of the European Union, came to operate through meticulous risk assessment, deployment of the most 19 advanced technologies to bolster local police, and the de facto delocalizing of the dirty job of migration management. From 2 0 0 4 to 2 0 1 3 the Aeneas program ran w ith a budget of half million of Euros and since then, projects like EUCAP (in 2 0 1 2 ) starting w ith an annual budget of 1 0 million Euros, have been developed.Together w ith many N G O operations, African authorities eager to please their European counterparts in exchange for diplomatic considerations and financial gain have also been active in migration control. For instance, ECO W AS changed its approach from fostering the free circulation of people as a tool of development w ithin the area, to a measure of control of its external borders. 3 1 Even though these operations w ere not clearly coordinated and w ere shaped by different goals, they contributed to further securing of the border. A case in point is the current repatriation effort by the IO M and local authorities, w hich involve returning migrants intercepted in Algeria back to N iger and further dow n to their countries of origin under very inhumane conditions. At the international level, African and European representatives met at La Valletta in 2 0 1 5 . Together w ith other IG O s, an emergency trust w ith an initial budget of 2 .5 billion Euros w as initiated to stem the flow of migrants. At the local level, the N iger government in a bid to please the EU passed a new law review ed by the members of EUCAP criminalizing any form of smuggling. The new law w as enforced in 2 0 1 8 and immediately caused a backlash leading, for the first time, to jail sentences for many people and the seizure of many vehicles. As a result, many local businesses closed down impacting on the local economy. 3 2 In spite of these changes, a few smugglers still afford to bribe local police, w hich has led to an increase in the cost of the journey thus leading to new, longer, and more dangerous routes. The result has been that more dead bodies are found in the desert, but few er deaths are reported or counted. Similarly, the increased militarization of the M editerranean seascape and criminalization of rescuing operations continue to render both spaces sacred (a la Agamben) w here people die but no one is held responsible. 3 3 The Kafkaesque presence of the law, its calculated interventions, and instrumental effects, simply disappear from the analysis of most observers, including scholars, journalists and politicians. At the same time, the law remains inaccessible to the majority of migrants w ho might seek to navigate it. Take for instance the role of implementation of visas to enter the Schengen area. It can be said that this constitutes the first form of externalization of migration control, or in other w ords, a remote control to filter out economic migrants w ho w ant to reach Eu- rope from Africa. 3 4 O nly w hen w e comprehend the magnitude of the visa and its implementations in terms of pow er relations among different states can w e account for the ubiquity, multiplicity, and mobility of the border that goes w ell beyond the designated crossing points into Europe. For instance, the potential lifting of visa requirement for Turkish citizens w illing to travel w ithin Europe w as central for the M arch 2 0 1 6 accord betw een the EU and Turkey in the context of the refugee crisis. Visas, alongside passports, have been key instruments of migration and population control w hich signal the passage into modern states as their interests move from territory to population. 3 5 Furthermore, after 9 / 1 1 and 3 / 1 1 in M adrid, terms such as ‘terrorist’ and ‘clandestine’ often overlap in a continuum of securitization efforts that “effectively links visa application procedures and entry and exit procedures at external border crossing.” 3 6 A recent and clear example is President Trump’s executive order issued at the end of January 2 0 1 7 banning the entry into the USA of the citizens of seven specific countries w ithin the propaganda of a M uslim ban, thus creating the impression that border security w as under control. 3 7 To date, the role of visa policies affecting quantity and quality of African migration has not been studied extensively leading to lack of reliable data on the subject. How ever, w ith the implementation of the DEM IG VISA database, 3 8 w e can draw some preliminary conclusions: First, the entry restrictions implemented by former colonial countries tow ards African migrants have steered those w ith the necessary skills tow ards new destinations around the globe, namely the Emirates, Asia, and the USA and tow ards fast grow ing economies in general. That is the so-called spatial substitution impacts migration flow s as migrants move aw ay from the ossified colonial channels. W est African countries experience relative ease in moving among countries that belong to ECO W AS, regardless of the organization’s recent adoption of a more cautious language reminiscent of a European approach. Countries of the M aghreb implemented a more restrictive visa policy for other African nationals from 6 9 % in 1 9 7 3 to 8 9 % in 2 0 1 3 , w hich in part mirrors the European externalization policies of migration control in those countries. 3 9 Also reflecting the European Schengen visa imposition on N orth African countries is the O ECD visa restriction that increased to 9 8 % in 1 9 9 3 . How ever, in general, visa restriction trends for Africans traveling w ithin Africa, as w ell as for those traveling to Africa from other continents has changed. The reasons vary from the formation of decolonized African states and the resulting demarcation of the new borders, visa introductions also act as a foreign policy tool – in retaliation 20 21 against non-African countries imposing visa restrictions. It is w orth underscoring here that in general, visas can be imposed via government decrees or other administrative orders that do not require long legal procedures. The effects of visa restrictions on migrants is not only a spatial diversification in the journey, but also, and more important for our discussion, it causes categorical substitution “through a re-orientation tow ards legal and other illegal channels” w ith the consequence of taking a more dangerous path that w ill likely present risks of personal abuse and diffuse violations of human rights. 4 0 In other w ords, w hile both restrictive asylum regulations and visa refusal low er asylum applications, they also generate a deflection into clandestine alternative scenarios leading to irregular stay w ithin the country of arrival or irregular entry routes to reach their destination. 4 1 The question after many years of increasing restrictive migration policies is w hether those policies are effective in curbing unw anted migration, and at w hat cost. W hat is clear is that in Europe, both the Schengen and Dublin treaty that regulate the entry and circulation of migrants and the asylum system need to be reformed. The thousands of African migrants w ho have lost their lives along this treacherous path – crossing the Libyan territory and the Channel of Sicily – thus making it the deadliest among any migratory route, is a fact that cannot be ignored. As Alessandro Leogrande notes, one day those w ho come after us w ill find thousands of cadavers at the bottom of the M editerranean and they w ill w onder in w hich battle they had perished of w hich there is no trace in the annals of history. 4 2 Against this backdrop, w e should consider the spectacle of the undocumented migrants’ journeys and the fascination of the national audience w ith it together w ith a mounting desensitization and depoliticization of the public sphere on the same. This includes the criminalization of N G O s patrolling the M editerranean Sea and the decision by the Italian M inistry of the Interiors to seal off every seaport in order to halt the business of human trafficking. 4 3 W hilst the total number of people arriving in Europe via the M editerranean has decreased, the rate of deaths has risen sharply. In M ay 2 0 1 9 , Charlie Yaxley, the UN HCR global spokesperson for Africa and the M editerranean declared that “the route from Libya to Europe, 1 person has died for every 3 that have made it to European shores. There is no safe haven in Libya, but no State or N G O boats carrying out search & rescue.” 4 4 M eanw hile, military operations patrol the high seas officially seeking to dismantle traffickers’ netw orks but not to save human lives. W henever military vessels stumble upon a w reckage of migrants’ boat the imperative is to escort them back to a Libyan ‘safe port’ w here the migrants w ill be detained in horrifying detention centers. The interception of African migrants acquires then a different significance and is accordingly considered humanitarian intervention. Externalization of European migration control acquires a significance then that extends beyond and deepens the evident geographical dimension of the M aghreb and the Sahel. It also signifies a departure from the idea of a community of people as defined by politics, to a community of institutions shaped by policies that rely on an intricate apparatus w hich M ichel Foucault delineated as: “a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, law s, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions”. 4 5 O nce the African migrants land on the European shore then, they must to deal w ith different elements of the apparatus of migration control that greatly affects their experience in/ of Europe such as detention centers that are disguised as hospitality centers and architectural pretensions of urban alienations also know n as ghettos. 22 23 III. LANDING “Imagine this space. Visualize the M editerranean Basin as a vast blue plaque.” 4 6 N ow, imagine the apparatus of migration control, freezing migrants’ motions in an endless temporary limbo: a zone that is inside as well as outside the water. This is a space “in which the intention is not to treat people neither as subjects (of discipline) nor as objects (of elimination)”. 4 7 The plan is to render undocumented people’s existence “invisible and inaudible”– therefore, to transform the sea into a clear plaque, w iping out migrants’ presences by absorbing their motus and not allow ing them to be recognized as subjects.” 4 8 The conditions in w hich African migrants find themselves upon entry in Europe mostly depends on how they reached their destination and the kind of policies that are implemented by the host state at the point of entry. Today, the border is not located only at the gate. Borders are diffuse, mobile, and multiple: performing in varied w ays, at different times, and spaces in response to contemporary migrants’ trajectories. Therefore, w hen she goes through the gate and perhaps temporarily dw ells there, 4 9 neither her proper name nor nationality makes her presence distinctive. She is a clandestine, a M uslim, a prostitute, a scumbag, a tomato-picker, an alien non-resident, a black, or anything else depending on how and w hen she moved through the gate. Those forms of capture/ identification recall early Foucauldian reflections over the origin of biopolitics as a form of state governance aimed at defining individuals w ho transit and dw ell in the state’s territory. W hile at the daw n of the modern state, the scope w as the indoctrination and formation of population via schools, barracks and prisons, nowadays, the contemporary European state is not interested in the incorporation of African migrants but instead, on the traceability of their presence. The lack of interest in a proper and structured integration has tw o possible results: First, their abrupt expulsion from the territory and second, their marginalization w ithin it. The former appears to be extremely expensive and difficult to attain as it requires bilateral accord of repatriation betw een the host state and the state of origin. As a result, the latter is the most common and represents in itself the raison d’être of the diffuse anxiety that European societies feel tow ard African migrants. The contemporary multiplication, over-determination, and ubiquity of the border have caused a short-circuit betw een the territorial and the relational process w ithin European societies. The sudden increase of racist at- tacks and further marginalization against African migrants is a clear symptom of it. N owadays European ghettos where African migrants are stuck living in deplorable conditions without access to proper social services and economic perspectives have mushroomed literally next door to a grow ing network of structures for migrants’ capture. As shown in the map below, these structures w ere already present in different parts of the European Union5 0 and have different denominations that reflect the multiple forms of European border capture aimed at selecting and differentially including or ejecting African migrants. It is w orth noting that those facilities are common all around the global N orth. How ever, Europe possesses an intricate netw ork of detention centers for migrants arriving on the continent. M ore than a decade ago, the official charged w ith implementing immigration policies w ithin the M inistry of Interiors in Italy anticipated that “as there is a prison, a prefecture, a central police station, people w ill get used to the idea that there w ill be a detention center for immigrants.” 5 1 As illustrated in the map below, w e have centres d’attente in France and Ausreisezentrum in G ermany among many others dispersed centers around the old continent. Italy, w here this w ork betw een text and images is focused on, initially had the Temporary Centers for Permanence – CPT – then translated into C enters for Identification and Expulsion, w hich recently turned into Return Detention Centers – CPR. The ethical and legal paradox of detention centers for migrants w as already evident w ithin w hat seems like a contradiction in terms (temporary permanence) that signaled an apparent antinomy betw een tw o opposite concepts that nullify each other. W hat remains is a void, a limbo that sets apart African migrants’ life in Italy. It is w orth noting that a center-left government passed the law that established CPTs in Italy for the first time in 1 9 9 8 . The law introduced the central role of expulsions and legitimized the detention of irregular migrants before the expulsion. The possibility of holding a migrant in custody responded to an exigency of public order and security in case the migrant did not have any documentation or there w as the concrete possibility that he\ she w ould not leave the country voluntary. Therefore, the management of immigration became intricately intertw ined w ith questions of public order. Still, this law introduced a 24 permanent sojourn document for those immigrants w ho had lived regularly in the country for five years and family reunifications w ere made easier and sponsorship w as possible. Then, in 2 0 0 2 , the new centerright government passed a legislation to regulate immigration in more restrictive and security-oriented w ays. According to the new law, the possibility for a migrant to enter regularly into the Italian territory w as reduced both through the reduction of the number of w orking visas in the case of family reunification, and absolutely linking the permit-to- 25 stay in the country to a pre-existing w ork contract. This meant that w here the latter ends, the former w ould have to follow. In addition to marginalizing migrants, their life on the territory w as rendered inherently precarious as a result of this new legislation w hich also introduced the new crime of irregular permanence and entry. Before its elimination in 2 0 1 3 , this law clogged up the judicial system thus contributing to increased costs for the state w hile criminalizing the existence of many migrants who feared to be reported whenever they went to hospital or reported their new born children to the civil registry. For asylum seekers, detention also became the norm, even w hen international standards considered detention of asylum seekers only as an exceptional act of last resort. In reality, asylum seekers are people w ho more often than not have already been subjected to detention and other traumatic experiences. Detention centers for asylum seekers w ere often designated as Centers for Identification and should have been clearly distinguished from the one examined above. Unfortunately, this w as not the case and the tw o institutions/ infrastructures have become confusingly similar, w ith the people detained in them having different needs and biographies. Furthermore, w ith the introduction of this law, the issuing an order of expulsion for those w ho land on Italian shores before they even have a chance to formulate an asylum request, has become the norm. Forced mass expulsions have been carried out by the Italian state or interception in high seas and externalization of asylum seekers in violation of international refugee law 5 2 for w hich Italy has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. In 2 0 1 8 , the new rightw ing government issued a new legislation that is even more stringent thus further marginalizing immigrants in Italy. W ith the changes introduced by the decree 1 1 3 / 2 0 1 8 , particularly for those subjects in need of protection, the system of protection that w ould provide for services, inclusive programs, and w orkshops, is no longer intended for asylum seekers, but only for refugees and unaccompanied minors. Today the reception system in Italy operates on tw o levels: first reception, w hich includes Hotspots and first reception centers w here only basic services are provided (first aid etc.); and second reception, w hich includes the System of protection for holders of international protection and for foreign unaccompanied minors – which w ith the decree 1 1 3 / 1 8 replaced the SPRAR, the System of Protection for Asylum Seekers and Refugees – the CAS, Extraordinary Reception Centers and the CARA, specific Reception Centers for Asylum Seekers. O nly those hosted in the SPRAR are recipients of specific active pro- grams aimed at integration and social inclusion w ithin the Italian territory. The decree, among other things, cracks dow n on asylum-seekers’ rights by abolishing “humanitarian protection” residency permits issued to asylum-seekers w ho do not qualify for refugee status but are deemed vulnerable and therefore permitted to stay in Italy. This change in the Italian legislation directly affected the center of Castelnuovo di Porto (next to Rome) w hich is the second largest in Italy. As a matter of fact, the sudden closing of C astelnuovo di Porto last January 3 1 , 2 0 1 9 , is a direct result of the above mentioned “security decree,” (also know n as the “ Salvini decree” ), w hich w as adopted in N ovember 2 0 1 8 and is named after far-right politician M atteo Salvini, Italy’s Interior M inister and leader of the right-w ing League party. O ut of 5 5 0 guests w ho w ill be sent to other smaller structures around the country, 2 5 0 w ere left w ithout any other alternative but irregularity. This brings to an end successful integration programs and life trajectories not only among Africans but also Italians w ho w orked and lived w ith them. Some of them feature prominently in the exhibition Safe Travels\ Interrupted Flow s with a few photos and a live performance that took place during the opening. It is important to note that Castelnuovo di Porto Center had been hailed for their quality integration programs that facilitated cohabitation w ith African migrants. It is here that Pope Francis had chosen to perform the ritual w ashing of the feet that occurs every year on the Holy Thursday before Easter, one of the most significant ceremonies in the Catholic religion. 5 3 Among those projects at the center is In Itinere, a w eekly photography and image education w orkshop for migrants led by the photographer Simona Filippini in w hich the young Africans have learned to make portraits of each other using professional equipment. This exercise has helped to consolidate their friendship and to increase their self-esteem. Fillippini states that “O n several occasions w e w ent to take pictures outdoors, taking the same path they took to reach the capital. W hat interested me w as to understand w hat struck their gaze and w hat mental map they had of the territory. In the three years of w ork I have know n about 1 0 0 girls and boys, many of them participated in the Box2 1 project at the Castelnuovo Photography Festival, and in Emerging Talents, at the M acro M useum of Rome, creating portraits of local villagers and visitors.” It is w orth noting that, compared w ith the security approach of previous legislations dealing w ith immigration, the current trend seems to aim at dismantling any possibility of establish a human community that differs from the supposed national aesthetics carried on by the current Italian government. 26 27 Among other things, decree 1 1 3 / 1 8 w hich turned into Law 1 3 2 / 1 8 , provides for a change that affects the mode of personal address registration by foreign subjects at the Registry O ffice. N ormally, a foreigner in Italy w ith a valid permit to stay has the right to obtain a residence certificate as much as any Italian citizen. The registration is necessary for the issue of the residence certificate and the identity document. These tw o documents are the prerequisite for the access to some public services, in particular social services, such as the assignment of family doctors, social w orkers, access to the public housing lottery, and the granting of subsidies or loans. N ow, according to the new law, the temporary residence permit granted to those w ho have applied for asylum, even if it is a recognized document, cannot be used to enlist in the registry. The holder of a residence permit for asylum request can only obtain the registration data by show ing to the Registry O ffice another document valid to demonstrate the regularity of their stay in Italy. This limits the registration of personal data by creating a different treatment regime betw een foreigners based on the type of residence permit held. These documents are normally required for the provision of services and services by private parties like for example private banks to open a bank account, driving schools to obtain a driver license and most importantly perhaps, by landow ners to sign a regular renting contract. The latter case affects the life of thousands of Africans w ho find themselves in Italy but remain outside the support network provided by the state as described above, while being denied the possibility of signing a regular renting contract in the private market because they are basically invisible to the bureaucracy of the state. In light of Italy’s record of poor reception of migrants and refugees, those w ho are stuck and live in the city have to come up w ith tactics and strategies of survival, while those who attempt to settle in other EU states have to devise w ays of avoiding arrest and/ or returning to Italy. O ften in an urban space, the solution is either joining the army of homeless people in the streets and trying to find a temporary job in the morning or sleeping in spontaneous ghettos in the vicinities of the farms w here Africans are w orking in semi-slavery conditions as tomato or fruit pickers. Alternatively, migrants squat in empty buildings in the outskirts of major European cities sometimes opting for the historical center of cities. This was the case a few years ago when homeless Somali nationals occupied the former Somali Embassy in Rome located in the upmarket area of the city. Consider, for instance, the experience of more than 1 0 0 Eritrean refugees in Rome w ho a few years ago created a semistructured urban environment within the city now raised to the ground by city authorities in M ay 2 0 1 5 w ithout any w arning nor alternative solutions. 5 4 N ot too far from the subw ay station of Ponte M ammolo, they built shacks with tin-plated roofs and doors that during the day stay shut. The heat and cold are hard to bear; hence, the refugees fabricated a more solid masonry building as the recreational area at the center of the settlement. They consider it the bar/ restaurant area and have painted the w alls pink. You may even spot a Koran next to a Bible on a shelf. Different cultures indeed share the same space and the burden of the precarious life condition. Every person w ho is employed supports five or six others, and those who are unemployed cook and take care of the communal areas. The majority of refugees find seasonal employment as fruit and tomato pickers in the south of Italy only to come back in w inter at the end of summer. In a very simple w ay, these individuals, then, have organized their own existence, between labor and dwellings and their social relations, despite, or because of the multiple boundaries that exist betw een them and the host societies to create a new transversal social space of camp-villes, in betw een the refugee camp and the city proper. As w e move, then, southeast, tow ard the liminal part of the city of Rome the city meets the countryside. O ver there w ithout electricity or heating system lives a community of 1 ,2 0 0 people most of them – 9 5 % – w ith different types of international protection, all of them from the Horn of Africa. The tall glass building once hosted a library of the department of Humanities of the second university of Rome, and today everybody know s as Selam Palace. 5 5 Selam in Aramaic means peace and a few images featured in this exhibition gaze into their lives. Among the many migrants mostly from the Horn of Africa there are hundreds of w omen – 2 8 % – and many children. Some of them w ere born during the exodus through the Sahara Desert and then across the M editerranean Sea and are lucky enough to have survived the strenuous journey5 6 only to be eventually crashed against the indifference of the post-political contemporary Europe. Here w ithin the peripheries of the metropolis is the very last frontier of Europe: its most internal one and probably the most difficult to decipher. In December 2 0 0 5 , w ith the support of Action, a local political group, the building w as occupied but, almost immediately, the refugees w ere cleared out. It is w orth noting here that the occupation of Selam Palace is the offspring of a previous long-term occupation in Rome called Hotel Africa. Like contemporary urban nomads, African migrants and refugees take advantage of the cracks w ithin the city and by doing so, they intervene in the general distribution of the urban space and redraw the line reterritorializing the city. How ever, as w e mentioned, the 28 29 30 process of externalization operates through the combination of legislation of migration control, the residency law, and its rental market. Therefore, as African migrants and refugees declared Selam Palace as their residence, the occupation w as declared illegal, so that the residence status became void. As a matter of fact, the art. 5 D.L. 4 7 / 2 0 1 4 , converted into law n. 8 0 / 2 0 1 4 , reinforced provisions that potentially hinder the registration for those (Italians or foreigners) w ho illegally occupy a building, establishing that “anyone illegally occupies a untitled property cannot request residence or connection to public services in relation to the building and the documents issued in violation of this prohibition are null and void the effects of the law ”. Consequently then, people in Selam Palace w ere forced to declare virtual residency at the headquarters of institutions and N G O s like the JRS, the Jesuit Refugees Center, located in the historical city center. It follow s that Selam’s dw ellers could not make use of social services, schools and hospitals in the vicinity of the building and had to embark on the strenuous daily journey to the city center. In the last few years, dw ellers of the Selam Palace have tried to accommodate and compromise w ith the bureaucratic logic of regulating residency w ithout success. Because the majority of immigrants share their habitats w ith more than one other family, the apartment w ill most likely not fulfill the hygienic and safety standards set by the law and the residence w ill be refused. This is reflected on the glass facade of that building where one can recognize the silhouette of the urbanscape around but know s that sadly, the city only exists as a reflection on the outside. Something that is at once extremely close and absolutely unreachable. 31 32 IV. LIMBO “Africa is a continent w here borders are open for refugees, w here refugees are protected. It’s an example for the w orld, it’s an example of solidarity that the rest of the w orld, especially the richest parts of the w orld, should be able to follow. [… ] There are more African migrants in other African countries than in Europe, contrary to w hat many people think, and in Africa this has been managed in a much more humane w ay” . 5 7 António G uterres The follow ing paragraphs highlight the hypothetical stages of a migrant’s journey; namely Limbo, Safe Haven, and Life. First, on the international scale, w here global commitments are taken and supra-national organizations are the leading policy-makers: a compass reflects an unclear and pending situation – a limbo – for the main actors, namely migrants – w ho are directly affected by all the legal tools and policies proposed and implemented in the field of migration. Second, Safe Haven reflects the perception that migrants leaving Africa have of the European continent a place w here it is possible to rebuild their lives. Finally, the third stage marks the end of such a challenging journey: Life. This could be read as the arrival after a long trip beginning in Africa thousands of kilometers aw ay, or as the first moment of renaissance after the return home. According to the International O rganization of M igration (IO M ), nearly half of all international migrants w orldw ide in 2 0 1 5 w ere born in Asia, primarily from India, follow ed by C hina and other South Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. M exico w as the second largest country of origin follow ed by a number of European countries that have sizable numbers of emigrants. 5 8 How ever, nearly 2 5 million Africans w ere living outside their countries of origin, 5 9 even though more than 8 0 % of them are intra-regional and inter-regional migrants, namely from W est Africa and Eastern Africa, to Southern Africa. 6 0 Against this backdrop, the main objective of this part of the paper is to analyze the current political framew ork set out by international and regional organizations such as the United N ations (UN ), the European Union (EU), and the African Union (AU) in order to handle the so-called migration crisis. M ore specifically, the externalization of migration control – especially in N orth Africa today – built on the existing nexus betw een migration, development, and security w ill be examined. Such an approach is favored as it prevents the arrival of potential terrorists w ithin the EU territory, and, on the other side, it reinforces the authority of some African regimes through the implementation of development cooperation projects aimed at managing the movement of local populations. To complete the puzzle of this complex migratory policy framew ork, the follow ing sections analyze some of the main policies applied both at global and macro-regional levels. The N ew York Declaration for Refugees and M igrants w as adopted at the United N ations (UN ) Summit on 1 9 September 2 0 1 6 . It w as aimed at improving the governance of migration and setting out steps tow ards the achievement of a G lobal Compact for Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration (hereinafter G lobal Compact or G CM ), Based on the UN 2 0 3 0 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 6 1 the G lobal Compact w as expected to do a number of things: first, to provide a range of principles, commitments and understandings among UN M ember States regarding international migration in all its dimensions; second, to make an important contribution to global governance and enhance coordination on international migration; third, to present a framew ork for comprehensive international cooperation on migrants and human mobility; and, finally, deal w ith all aspects of international migration, including humanitarian, developmental, and human rightsrelated. W ith the aim of collecting inputs from all the relevant stakeholders, the UN G eneral Assembly called on the UN Secretary G eneral to present a report on the zero draft of the G lobal Compact. Among the contributions received, the recommendations by the African Regional Consultative M eeting w ere directed to AU M ember States, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the IO M and other international partners and are divided into six thematic areas namely; human rights, the drivers of migration, international cooperation and governance, the contributions of migration to sustainable development, smuggling and human trafficking, irregular migration and regular pathw ays. This paper examines three of those recommendations that resonate the most w ith this particular issue namely: the implementation of the existing international legal framework aimed at protecting migrants’ human rights; the promotion of migration as a choice and not as a necessity, by addressing the root causes of migration; and the considerable development potential of migration, thanks to its role as a driver 33 34 of know ledge and ideas, trade and investment, and cultural exchange and mutual understanding. The effective implementation of these recommendations could lead to the recognition and promotion of migrants as catalysts for economic grow th and development of both countries of origin and destination. O ne of the main goals of such regional consultations w as to adequately reflect Africa’s narratives and priorities for migration in the G lobal Compact, seeking to shift the perception of African migration as a phenomenon driven by poverty, violence, a lack of employment and livelihood opportunities, and very often criminalized in popular discourse. Since all these negative factors have influenced migration policy responses at global and macro-regional levels, a w ider aw areness and focus on intra-African migration has not received due attention in discourse and policy agenda on international migration, despite being the dominant form of migration on the continent. To this end, an African migration story should drive the international and regional governance of migration for Africa. The consultation phase w ithin the UN system and w ith a w ide array of stakeholders led to w riting of the UN Secretary G eneral’s report presented to the G eneral Assembly on 1 7 December 2 0 1 7 . The report contains a series of considerations directed at the M ember States and reflects the results of the survey conducted at regional and international levels. In particular, the UN Secretary G eneral sought to maximize the benefits of migration rather than obsessing over minimizing risks w hile strengthening the rule of law, considering security matters, and finally, preventing and mitigating the natural and human forces that drive migration flow s. In light of these four actions, M ember States w ere invited to apply a human-rights based approach that recognizes migration as a tool for reducing inequality w ithin and betw een States, and furthermore for addressing economic and social disparities and gender inequality. The G lobal C ompact should thus serve to recognize the contributions of migrant w omen and address their roles, needs, and vulnerabilities. 6 2 W ith the Resolution adopted by the UN G eneral Assembly on December 1 9 , 2 0 1 8 the G lobal Compact for Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration w as endorsed. The document paved the w ay for the drafting and adoption of a cooperative framew ork that lists tw entythree objectives and commitments based on a unity of purpose and a set of cross-cutting guiding principles, among w hich are; human rights, sustainable development, gender-responsive, child-sensitive, rule of law and national sovereignty. Among these objectives, number 1 9 is specifically concerned w ith the creation of conditions for migrants and members of diasporas “to fully contribute to sustainable development in all countries”. In order to achieve such a goal, the Parties’ intention is “to empow er migrants and diasporas to catalyze their development contributions, and to harness the benefits of migration as a source of sustainable development” w hich is also in accordance w ith the 2 0 1 5 Addis Ababa Action Agenda by “fostering and facilitating the positive effects of migration for the realization of all Sustainable Development G oals.” 6 3 These ambitious action points could be analyzed through the redefinition of the terms ‘migrant’ and ‘diaspora’, the concept of mobility— both from the country of origin and the country of destination, an inclusive political approach to be applied by G overnments, and a future implementation agenda. Through the lenses provided by G CM in relation to the concept of mobility, some interesting and challenging aspects emerge. For instance, some human rights issues arose in relation to the possibilities of freedom of movement at a regional level due to dual citizenship arrangements or visa portability, and the related issue of facilitation of portability of rights (including social security, earned benefits and skills). 6 4 By initially privileging the perspective of the country of origin, the provisioning of dual nationality has become extensive on a global scale. Together w ith the increase in visafree travel betw een regions or sub-regions (e.g. ECO W AS or in other Regional Economic Communities— RECs), such policies tend to benefit and address highly skilled professionals or business people. The same does not ease mobility for the majority of the less-skilled migrants w ho often end up in low -w age professional sectors, and in many cases, their potential is severely constrained by highly restrictive migration policies. O n the other side, policies aimed at facilitating mobility in a transnational space concern country of origin as w ell as countries of destination. From a governmental perspective, the former need to implement citizenship provisions in the form of inclusive citizenship for all, especially in countries w here rule of law is not completely guaranteed, otherw ise, protecting the fundamental rights of overseas residents w hile neglecting the same rights for non-citizen migrants may result in social conflict and exclusionary policies over time. G overnments should consider the migration dynamics in specific countries in order to avoid the instrumentalization of migrants and diasporas for development, thus putting equal responsibility on developed countries to commit to realizing the potential benefits of migration for development. Against the content of the G CM , the prospects of such a document in Africa and the consideration as to w hether it w ill be “adapted to the 35 36 37 realities and peculiarities” 6 5 of movement in the region should be explored. First, African countries have show n commitment in many international and regional fora on both migration and refugee issues such as participating at the G CM regional and sub-regional consultative meetings or the drafting by the African Union of the Common African Position on the M igration Compact. The latter is primarily aimed at “ensuring that Africa has a common voice and its concerns are properly reflected tow ards the development [of] the G lobal Compact on M igration”. 6 6 Despite these efforts, many issues relevant to African migration are not sufficiently addressed by both the content and actions provided by the G lobal Compact. Another key issue for migration governance in Africa that has not been adequately analyzed by the G CM is the connection betw een migration and regional economic development. Theoretically speaking, the migration-development nexus should be a core point of the M igration Compact (para 6 ). How ever, the text reflects States’ concerns w ith security and border control w ith many African States w orrying about the emphasis put by G CM on irregular migration due “to security and border control considerations rather than by broader development framew orks.” 6 7 This is suggested by the document’s title w hich refers to a “safe, orderly and regular migration” thus highlighting the existing links betw een migration and security some of w hich emerge from the variety of meanings accorded to the concept of ‘security’. As is w ell know n, perceptions around migration involve culturally diverging con- cepts of security. For instance, Europeans often associate migratory flow s w ith a threat to their security and identity, w hile Africans consider migration as an opportunity for humanitarian protection and economic security. This being the case, the commitments contained in the G CM and directed to the entire International Community, are mainly focused on the ideas of shared responsibility and international solidarity and the support for ‘home-grow n’ solutions to migratory issues. W hile the former w idely refers to refugees, the latter is applicable to both migration and refugee issues and has w orked as a playing-field for adopting and setting up policies and regulation aimed at strengthening the African policy framew ork at macro-regional levels and at implementing the G CM related provisions. W hile the Compact is a ‘soft law ’ instrument according to International Law and is not legally binding, it could provide the basis for more meaningful interactions in the future. This is because it could serve as a concrete commitment by States to internationally support Africa’s home-grow n solutions to migration-related issues, and, particularly for those w ho move w ithin the continent. Similarly, the main initiatives taken by the European Union (EU) and applied through continental, regional and bilateral levels of action should be analyzed more closely w ith specific focus on the concept of externalization. This is because externalization as recently applied by the European Union in its relations w ith the African continent has far reaching implication for life and other possibilities in the domains of migration, development, and beyond. 38 39 V. SAFE HAVEN According to some scholars, the European Union is currently acting w ithin, and in cooperation w ith African states and regional organizations in relatively complex w ays. For some, the EU is perceived as a player that could play a more substantial role w hile others highlight how the relations betw een the EU and the African countries are currently at a crossroads. O n one side, a key political priority at EU level is the drafting of a new roadmap grounded on mutual engagement and cooperation w hile taking into account even the past relations and the huge transformations that have happened both w ith the EU and among the African countries over the last tw o decades. O n the other side, the policy should also consider all the so-called “(false) dilemmas” of the European-African relations, in order to deconstruct them and implement new and long-term sustainable policy tools. 6 8 Against this background, and according to the survey conducted by some scholars of the European University Institute w ithin the M EN ARA Project related to the current geopolitical dynamics in the M EN A region, there are six aspects that could become the starting points of an additional discussion. These include : the idea that the EU could be a more proactive actor w ithin the African continent by acting better and follow ing specific priorities; the expectations of the EU’s engagement that differs among countries – being 2 .1 5 in the M aghreb and 1 .8 in Egypt (3 means more active and 1 less active); key issues that should attract the EU’s interest for more meaningful involvement in the region, such as in human rights, security, and migration; EU as a different kind of player, sometimes even in a negatives sense: the EU institutions are perceived as a player promoting multilateralism on the continent, instead of acting only for economic reasons; the perception of the EU as the most reliable actor, even though it is not the most present and influential one; due to the fact that terrorism and conflicts are mainly considered by the Africans as high risk issues, the EU’s role w ould probably focus not only on the prevention and mitigation of such risks, but also on the seizing of the existing opportunities. O w ing to these socalled (false) dilemmas, the recourse to bilateralism and/ or multilateralism as a political tool should be looked at more closely. This is especially so given that the, the European Union has traditionally applied a multilateral policy-making approach w ith a view to expanding bilateral relations w ithin the multilateral framew ork. Even though in the last years, and especially after the Arab uprisings in N orthern African countries, the EU has seemed to shift in favor of a bilateral approach, the multilateral fora still exist and can enhance trust among the various players. As a result of the increasing geopolitical complexity of the continent, EU is seeking to overcome the traditional M editerraneanbased view w ith the inclusion of other African macro-regions— such as the Sahel and other potential actors, particularly Civil Society O rganizations (CSO s) in its strategic objective. Consequently, a w ider geographical political approach should be encouraged at the EU level w hich is in line w ith the aspirations and missions posed by the EU G lobal Strategy. 6 9 The other dilemmas related to the policy and decision-making mechanisms and tools available w ithin the EU system that are mainly based on a bureaucratic interactions and dialogue among a series of institutions holding different tasks should be deconstructed. Thanks to the establishment of the European External Action Service by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2 0 0 9 , most of the pathw ays for more easily and effectively implementing the EU geopolitical strategy have already been already set out. The three levels of intervention that the EU has applied to address the migratory phenomenon should be analyzed w ith the aim of understanding the extent to w hich they could be considered as a failure or a success of the EU political action so far. Until the early 1 9 9 0 s, Europe-Africa relations had been mainly focused on the economic and development dimensions, not including security and peace issues. In the early 2 0 0 0 s, the emerging global debate about counter-terrorism pushed for the inclusion of a securitized approach to international cooperation and this is reflected by the European N eighboring Policy adopted in 2 0 0 3 -2 0 0 4 . At that time, the responses and feedback coming from the European Union w idely reflected the needs and expectations of the African countries w hich w ere based on business and security issues. W ith France and Italy taking leadership of the bilateral promotion of commercial and energy relations, there w as a re-orientation of the strategic approach w hich had since shifted tow ards more intense bilateralism. As a result, the previous region-building efforts w ere undermined and this has been particularly clear in N orth Africa w hich has experienced the collapse of the Arab M aghreb Union, and the outbreak of the Arab uprisings. Against this backdrop, the latest 40 41 round of revisions to the European N eighborhood Policy (EN P) in M arch 2 0 1 5 , set out in the Joint Consultation Paper on the EN P Review by the European External Action Service and the European Commission, highlighted migration and mobility as key areas of co-operation for the EU and its partners. It also emphasized the need for ‘re-prioritization’ and focusing on ‘stabilization’ in order to stem the spread of security challenges and address the root causes of instability. In addition, the paper also reaffirmed the concept of ‘diversification’, w hich in effect means approaching the specific challenges and opportunities each partner country presents to the EU using the socalled incentive-based mechanisms. According to the revised EN P, the EU relations w ith its neighbors are based on three generic categories: political and security affairs, economic and financial affairs, and social and human affairs. If security, including migration, is the cornerstone of the EU’s approach, it is still unclear w hether EU policy in the region provides a good balance betw een security and stability, as w ell as political and socio-economic reforms. In any case, the EU-Africa relations have been improved by the 1 1 and 1 2 N ovember 2 0 1 5 La Valletta Summit that took place on in M alta. The summit brought together European and African Heads of State and G overnment in a debate w ith a view to strengthening cooperation and addressing the challenges and opportunities of migration. Dominated by the EU’s migration agenda, the meeting maintained a strong focus on security aspects. M ore specifically, the leaders agreed on a political declaration and an action plan, along w ith 1 6 implementation actions. For illustrative purposes, w e w ill outline some of the actions and their implications for the issues at hand. As one revisits the meeting agenda, it is clear that it focused on the follow ing: addressing the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement; enhancing cooperation on legal migration and mobility; reinforcing the protection of migrants and asylum seekers; preventing and fighting irregular migration, migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings; and w orking more closely to improve cooperation on return, readmission and reintegration. The European Agenda on M igration, launched by the European Commission in its Communication in M ay 2 0 1 5 , already provided for an immediate action and a sw ift response of the EU to the emergency of rescuing people at sea and saving lives through the deployment of navy operations, by targeting criminal smuggling netw orks, implementing resettlement and relocation schemes, and w orking w ith third countries to tackle irregular migration. 7 0 Furthermore, the Agenda set out the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, made up of € 1 .8 billion from the EU budget and European Development Fund, combined w ith contributions from EU M ember States and other donors, including non-EU M ember States. 7 1 It is w orthw hile to note that the Fund is an innovative mechanism under the EU’s Financial Regulation used in the field of development cooperation and is directed to a w ide range of countries across Africa that encompass the major African migration routes to Europe, and that w ould benefit from the EU financial assistance. The projects that would be funded by the Trust Fund would be aimed at promoting employment opportunities, supporting nutrition and food security, improving migration management and preventing conflicts. O n a different note, the Agenda also proposed the idea of setting up a possible Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) operation in the M editerranean to dismantle smuggling networks and combat trafficking in persons (the so-called EUN AVFO R M ED - EN FM - O peration Sophia). The operation focused on disrupting the business model of migrant smugglers and human traffickers and contributed to EU efforts for the return of stability and security in Libya and the Central M editerranean region. EN FM has other supporting tasks such as training the Libyan Coastguard and N avy, long term monitoring of training efficiency, contributing to the implementation of the UN arms embargo on the high seas off the coast of Libya, conducting surveillance activities and gathering information on illegal trafficking of oil exports from Libya, in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions. It is against this policy backdrop that one should read the decision by the EU Council on 2 1 December 2 0 1 8 to extend the mandate of the EUN AVFO R M ED O peration Sophia until 3 1 M arch 2 0 1 9 , and further decisions such as that of 2 9 M arch 2 0 1 9 that extended it until 3 0 September 2 0 1 9 while temporarily suspending the deployment of the naval assets. So far, O peration Sophia has widely failed. This is because the military role in tackling illegal migration and trafficking activities involves soldiers who lack legal mandate to enforce laws and are not authorized to arrest smugglers. Similarly, they hold a mere supporting role to EU agencies and institutions in the search and rescue operations and the military’s role should probably be limited just to crisis response in future. The disembarkation and resettlement policies which should be accompanied by a strong political commitment taken by EU M ember States at civilian level should not take place at military level and EU initiatives should be applied in a coordinated manner within both CSDP and Freedom, Justice, and Security domains. O n the w hole, the launch of O peration Sophia is part of the externalization of European migration policy and the obstacles arising in im- 42 43 plementing the operation’s original mandate demonstrate the extent to w hich some aspects of the external dimension of migration policy are at odds w ith the sovereignty of its neighbors and, in some respects, also w ith international law. M aybe in future, in order to be more effective, CSDP missions should be geared tow ards supporting civilian actors and, in any case, a political agreement directly linked to any new military mission to succeed O peration Sophia w ould be needed to establish the disembarkation and resettlement processes. W ithin the framew ork of initiatives on migration, the EU started improving external border controls through EU States’ coastguards and naval services assisted by the European Agency for the M anagement of O perational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRO N TEX). Additionally, a strong legislative action by the European Commission has been put in place by strengthening the mandate of FRO N TEX, establishing an evaluation mechanism to verify the correct application of the Schengen rules, and intensifying coordination betw een border surveillance authorities (through the European Border Surveillance System – EURO SUR). O n a regional level, the EU action has operated through policy dialogues w ith countries along the W estern migratory route (the so-called Rabat Process) and the Eastern migratory one (the so-called Khartoum Process) w hich are underpinned by concrete action plans and financial resources. The Rabat Process w as officially launched at the first Euro-African M inisterial Conference on M igration and Development in July 2 0 0 6 in Rabat (M orocco). It brought together fifty five European and African governments – from N orth, W est and Central Africa – together w ith the European Commission and the Economic Community of W est African States (ECO W AS). 7 2 The Process w as aimed at enhancing a broader dialogue and cooperation on migration (specifically on legal migration and mobility, prevention of irregular migration and measures to counteract it, migration and development, international protection), as w ell as at identifying common priorities in order to develop operational and practical cooperation. Further, this EuroAfrican dialogue w as centered on the common principle of shared responsibility and w as even reiterated during the 2 0 1 7 EU-AU Summit in Abidjan. The Rabat Process draw s a key component of the EuroAfrican cooperation on migration, meaning a dynamic founded on a series of political and financial commitments taken at different levels by EU and African leaders (such as the Declaration on M igration and M obility adopted by the EU-AU Summit in 2 0 1 4 ). N otw ithstanding the great effort demonstrated by both these regional organizations, as w ell as by other European and African players, and the intensification of implementing actions since 2 0 1 7 , the existing challenges on migration and development are numerous. In particular, the recent shift of the EU policy in relation to the externalization of the migratory crisis, as exposed in the first part of this publication, has w idely impacted the consensus previously built on migration management, eradication of poverty, freedom of movement and development benefits of migration, also through the revision by the African Union of the framew ork of their migration policy for Africa (2 0 1 8 2 0 2 7 ), the commitment to SDG 1 0 .7 to “ Facilitate orderly migration and mobility” and to the negotiation of the G lobal Compact on M igration during the La Valletta Summit. Along w ith the Rabat Process, another EU policy tool launched at a M inisterial Conference in N ovember 2 0 1 4 in Rome is the EU/ Horn of Africa M igration Route Initiative or Khartoum Process. 7 3 The cooperation platform mainly focused on the migration route betw een Europe and the Horn of Africa and w as aimed at establishing a continuous dialogue for enhanced cooperation on migration and mobility, at identifying and implementing concrete projects to address trafficking in human beings and the smuggling of migrants, and, finally, at giving new impetus to the regional collaboration betw een countries of origin, transit and destination. In terms of funding, the Khartoum Process w ould be directly supported under the “ Support to Africa-EU M igration and M obility Dialogue” program (€ 1 7 .5 million under the Pan-African Program). Since 2 0 1 6 , the platform has convened thematic meetings, such as, w omen and girls’ protection, law enforcement, human traffickers and smugglers, international protection and asylum. How ever, as already mentioned above, the increasing public concerns about a migratory ‘crisis’ have recently created fear amongst many political leaders and policy-makers due to the increased support for far-right political parties spread all over Europe, w hich has led to the notion that human trafficking and migrant smuggling are solely African issues. As a matter of fact, the Khartoum Process has obliged States to cooperate in many fields that they otherw ise w ould not. It has also facilitated the rise of regional barriers by reinforcing borders as a w hole approach to migration. It is thus clear that a new model of cooperation involving actors at national, regional and international levels is required, in order to avoid the adverse impact such initiatives may have on migrants, and to provide a legal w ay for entering the EU from the Eastern route. Finally, the EU is also acting on a bilateral level w ithin the framew ork of the EU Agenda on M igration, w ith specific political agreements 44 45 concluded w ith some African countries, matched by concrete actions. These include a w ide range of programs and project supports that aim at contributing to institutional and legislative reforms and capacity building. For example, in N ovember 2 0 1 5 , the EU and Ethiopia signed a joint Declaration for a Common Agenda on M igration and M obility (C AM M ), reflecting the importance of Ethiopia as a key country of origin, transit and destination of irregular migrants and refugees from the Horn of Africa. The tw o parties agreed to cooperate on issues of international protection and refugees’ needs, legal migration and mobility, irregular migration, smuggling and trafficking in human beings and development policy. Funding for concrete activities w ill be provided through the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. By summing up all these EU initiatives, the human rights and development lenses should be refocused. Although the EU Agenda on M igration acknow ledges the need to improve the international protection of human rights, the emphasis has been put on issues related to security and border control, and limited attention is paid to the drivers of migration beyond the idea of “ promoting sustainable development in countries of origin and transit in order to address the root causes of irregular migration.” 7 4 The absence of a sufficient level of ‘development’ – often expressed in terms of poverty and a lack of economic opportunity – has been w idely considered as the principal driver of irregular migration to Europe. Yet, the commitment of European governments mainly focused on security and border control has been associated on one hand, w ith a failure on the part of the EU to guarantee access to rights for refugees and migrants, and, on the other hand, w ith unconditional support for governments such as the Ethiopian one, recently accused by some international N G O s of arbitrarily detaining and torturing people as w ell as forcefully repressing some political demonstrations. A greater coherence for various policies concerning (sustainable) development and migration should be guided by the passing of the above-mentioned issues and the management of such a complex nexus. 7 5 By recognizing the need for a more structured dialogue w ith CSO s and other involved actors at both European and African levels, some w eaknesses of the existing EU policies could be pointed out, such as the securitization of migration and development policies as w ell as the externalization of migration control thus impacting on the already fragile Sahelian countries. These tw o aspects have led in the last years to a criminalization of migrants and N on-G overnmental O rganizations (N G O s) committed to saving lives at sea in some EU M ember States along w ith an increasing risk of political and social instability at the inter-regional level. 46 VI. LIFE According to some international scholars on migration, African policymakers should focus on actions and initiatives aimed at enabling Africans to freely remain within the continent, and not because they are blocked – or in any case prevented – from migrating elsew here. 7 6 Additionally, even though the recent migration policy effort has been framed w ithin the context of concepts such as fragility and conflict, African policymakers should address not only all those kinds of forced migration (such as the ones induced by a crisis) or irregular migration (due to political, environmental, or ecological factors), but also non-induced or regular migration. This calls for a closer reading of how African policymakers, and in particular the African Union (AU) could design their migration policies. First, policy action should be taken w hile considering the needs of at least some of the follow ing four categories of actual and potential African migrants w ith a view to supporting and financing their mobility, specifically w ithin Africa. These include: those w ho have already migrated because they had the resources to do so (e.g. diasporas); those that w ould have been able to migrate but have not done so yet; those w ho, although have no resources for migrating, still try to migrate; and, finally, the so-called “ involuntary immobility” , meaning those w ho aspire to migrate. Among the tools and initiatives that could be adopted for designing migration policies one could consider implementing Africa-Centric migration framew orks w ithin the framew ork of the African Union Agenda 2 0 6 3 and improving the flagship Africa Visa O penness Index (AVO I). This w ill also involve expanding the access to travel documents through the issuance of an AU passport. This is w ith recognition that Africa has negotiated, participated in, or signed onto many international agreements and conventions related to migration w ithin the United N ations framew ork, not considering the AU initiatives launched and implemented on its ow n. 7 7 W hile these agreements w ould potentially be relevant for Africa, especially for their political and ideological value, there is still a lack of political w ill that implies a limited capacity to enforce them even on the African continent. A case in point is the lack of ratification of international conventions that provide protection of rights for migrant w orkers. N evertheless, the adoption in 2 0 1 8 of the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic C ommunity Relating to Free M ove- ment of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment is evidence of Africa’s renew ed commitment to facilitating intra-Africa trade, investment, and mobility. Although the Protocol on Free M ovement and the Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) are not fully ratified and in force in many RM Cs, they remain outstanding and effective instruments for advocacy and financing on the continent. As such, African policymakers should assist in the implementation of such tools adopted from 2 0 1 5 onw ards by ensuring funding to the AU and by elaborating relevant migration strategies that w ould ensure the protection of migrant nationals abroad, the return of migrants fleeing crises in regional and non-regional destinations, the establishment of designated offices in ministries of foreign affairs, and the launch of training programs that w ould facilitate the return of African skilled nationals in order to fill gaps in the labor market. In July 2 0 0 1 during the 7 4 th O rdinary Session of the O rganization of African Union Council of M inisters, the need for a migration policy framew ork w as recalled. This resulted in the so-called AU M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa (M PFA), w hich w as adopted in Banjul (G ambia), in 2 0 0 6 . Since migration trends and patterns faced different dynamics in previous years, in 2 0 1 6 the AU Commission (AUC) conducted a first assessment of the M PFA regarding its efficiency and implementation challenges, to find out if revision and a follow -up w ere necessary. In line w ith the recommendations coming from the AU M ember States and the Regional Economic Communities to the AUC, the “M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa and Plan of Action (2 0 1 8 – 2 0 3 0 )” is a revised and strategic tool that builds on the achievements and challenges of the previous M PFA and a guide for all the involved actors in the management of migration. The document takes into account AU priorities, policies, the AU Agenda 2 0 6 3 , the UN Sustainable Development G oals and other international migration management policies and standards. Essentially, it provides AU and RECs with comprehensive policy guidelines and principles to help in formulating and implementing their ow n national and regional migration policies, in accordance w ith their priorities and available resources. In addition to eleven cross-cutting issues, the revised M PFA identifies eight key pillars namely: migration governance, labor migration and education, diaspora engagement, border governance, irregular migration, 47 48 forced displacement, internal migration, and migration and trade. As far as free-visa policy is concerned, the Africa Visa O penness Index (AVO I) measures the openness of African states to nationals of other countries on the continent. Some scholars have also pointed out a possible correlation betw een the inaugural issue of the AVO I in 2 0 1 6 and the subsequent policy shift on visa-free intra-African movement, of which nearly four years ago, only five African countries had adopted liberal visa policies for all African nationals, w hilst to date that number has increased to eleven. 7 8 For example, after more than a decade of negotiations, in 2 0 1 7 the Central African Economic and M onetary Community (CEM AC), composed of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial G uinea, G abon, and the Republic of Congo, agreed to visa-free movement of their citizens. Similarly, South Africa and Angola agreed to visa-free reciprocal arrangements for each other’s citizens. According to this data, despite the adoption of some regional protocols providing for free movement of persons, labor and services, Africa remains one of the least economically integrated regions of the w orld and extremely restrictive for intra-African mobility. In this regard, the AVO I could be more meaningfully used as leverage for the abolishment of visa requirements altogether, thereby enabling the rights of entry, residence, and establishment for African nationals in host countries. G iven such a background, resources allocated for the AVO I could be significantly increased in order to introduce stronger and more effective measures, such as a comprehensive examination of procedural impediments to free movement and statistical evidence on how visa liberalization has affected security. Finally, AVO I should also include recommendations for how countries can improve their rankings, at least until RM Cs can ratify and implement the recalled Protocol on Free M ovement. For African migrants, securing adequate identity documents is a major hurdle. Therefore, one of the first initiatives that could be adopted by African policymakers is the reduction of the cost of biometric national identity documents (such as passports) and civil registry documents (including birth, marriage, and death certificates). These documents as are critical in facilitating access to public goods and key services such as healthcare, education, banking, remittance platforms, and emergency assistance. Improving access to travel documents specifically, w ould also lead to additional advantages such as reducing statelessness, contributing to census data collection, and shaping innovative sustainable development plans. According to the information disclosed during the 3 2 nd Summit of the African Union (AU) in February 2 0 1 9 , the AU passport is scheduled to be released in 2 0 2 0 and w ill give citizens of AU M ember States the right to travel across the continent w ithout a visa. This passport and the potential for a truly mobile continent could also subvert historical know ledge of W estern countries that consider African States as overdetermined by their colonial history and lacking democratic longevity. N evertheless, the AU passport has been labeled as the first step towards the implementation of the AU Agenda 2 0 6 3 , a “strategic framew ork” designed on seven specific aspirations for the “Africa w e w ant”. Among the planned objectives to be reached by 2 0 6 3 are a PanAfrican integrated, peaceful and secure continent grounded on economic grow th, inclusiveness, sustainable development, rule of law and democracy, human rights protection, justice, and the empow erment of w omen and youth. Finally, as has been discussed in several meetings and high-level conferences, among the fundamental rights recognized to all citizens and at the core of pan-African ideals, the freedom of movement stands as a basic human right that is central to facilitating the free movement of people w ithin the continent, even though the abovementioned AU Passport and as part of the 1 0 -years implementation plan of AU Agenda 2 0 6 3 . As underlined by the conclusions of the study on the ‘Benefits and Challenges of Free M ovement of Persons in Africa’ commissioned by IO M and the African Union Commission, the advantages of free movement exceed any challenges that may rise from a free-visa, and thus free-movement policy. Furthermore, possible solutions to those challenges rely on AU M ember States individually and collectively w orking to address the key challenges. In conclusion, looking ahead to the future of EU-Africa relations, they w ill likely be influenced by both parties’ ability to boost opportunities and mitigate the risks in order to stimulate a greater Euro-African cooperation as a reaction to external threats. In addition, the issue of human security w ill arise, both in the sense of eradicating possible threats and of promoting education, w omen’s empow erment and civil participation. O ne of the most challenging aspects that should be taken into account by the EU going forw ard, is a renew ed concept of resilience, as a driving tool of its relations w ith Africa. This approach should be implemented w ithin the EU G lobal Strategy dimension and through an enhanced intra-regional cooperation involving all the players at the regional, municipal, as w ell as civil society levels. Summing up, a redefinition of the rationale and the main goals of the EU policy tow ards Africa could be helpful, since globalization, the spread of economic opportunities and the emergence of conflicts have led the African continent to diversify its partners and interlocutors, while seeking new actors to coordinate with. 49 50 LIST OF ACRONYMS AfCFTA AU AUC AVO I CAM M CARA CAS CEM AC CPR CPT CSDP CSO DEM IG ECA ECO W AS EN P EU EUCAP EURO SUR G CM G DP IG O IO M M PFA N GO O DA O ECD REC RM C SDG SPRAR UN UN DESA UN DP UN HCR USA African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement African Union African Union Commission Africa Visa O penness Index Common Agenda on M igration and M obility Reception Centers for Asylum Seekers Extraordinary Reception Centers Central African Economic and M onetary Community Return Detention Center Temporary Center for Permanence Common Security and Defense Policy Civil Society O rganization Determinants of International M igrations Economic Commission for Africa Economic Community of W estern African States European N eighborhood Policy European Union European Capacity Building M ission European Border Surveillance System G lobal Compact for Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration G ross Domestic Product International G overnmental O rganization International O rganization of M igration M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa N on-G overnmental O rganization O fficial Development Assistance O rganization for Economic Cooperation and Development Regional Economic Community Regional M ember Country Sustainable Development G oal System of Protection for Asylum Seekers and Refugees United N ations United N ations Department of Economic and Social Affairs United N ations Development Program United N ations High Commissioner for Refugees United States of America 51 BIBLIOGRAPHY Anzaldúa, G loria. 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Zandonini, G iacomo. “ After C rackdow n, W hat Do People Employed in M igration M arket Do?” Accessed M ay 6 , 2 0 1 9 . https:/ / w w w.aljazeera.com/ indepth/ features/ crackdow n-people-employed-migration-market-1 9 0 3 0 3 1 1 4 8 0 6 2 5 8 .html. 53 ENDNOTES G uild and Bigo, “Le visa Schengen.” Foucault, Security, Territory, Population. 36 Lindahl, A Right to Inclusion and Exclusion? 5 5 . 37 “Donald Trump’s # M uslimBan Sparks O utrage and Fear.” 38 “DEM IG Data — IM I.” 39 Flahaux and De Haas, “African M igration,” 1 9 . 40 Flahaux and De Haas, 2 1 . 41 Czaika and Hobolth, “Do Restrictive Asylum and Visa Policies Increase Irregular M igration into Europe?” 1 3 . 42 Leogrande, La frontiera . 43 “Italy Shuts Ports to M igrant Rescue Ship.” 44 Yaxley, “In 2 0 1 9 , on the Route from Libya to Europe, 1 Person Has Died for Every 3 That Have M ade It to European Shores. There Is N o Safe Haven in Libya, but N o State or N G O Boats Carrying out Search & Rescue. Absolutely Clear, Things Cannot Continue as They Are.” 45 Foucault, Pow er/ Know ledge, 1 9 4 . 46 I use the term plaque in a w ay that partially resembles its microbiological sense. According to britannica.com, plaque, in microbiology, indicates a clear area on an otherw ise opaque field of bacteria that indicates the inhibition or dissolution of the bacterial cells by some agent, either a virus or an antibiotic. It is a sensitive laboratory indicator of the presence of some antibacterial factor. Therefore, w e can imagine the M editerranean as a European plaque w here the migrants’ trajectories are w iped out by a plethora of technological devices of migration control. 47 Isin and Rygiel, “Abject Spaces: Frontiers, Zones, Camps,” 1 8 4 . 48 Rinelli, African M igrants and Europe, 4 5 . 49 Anzaldúa, Borderlands/ La Frontera . 50 Since 2 0 0 2 , M igreurop attempts to identify places of detention for migrants and asylum seekers, of w hich there is no official census, in order to make their existence in Europe visible. See at http:/ / w w w.migreurop.org/ article2 7 4 7 .html?lang= fr 51 Rovelli, Lager italiani , 1 9 4 . 52 “Illegal Refoulement of 5 0 0 M igrants to Libya: The EU M ust Condemn Italian Authorities - M IG REURO P.” 53 w here after the last Supper Jesus w ashed the Apostles’ feet as a sign of love, compassion and generosity. 54 Povoledo, “M igrants in Rome Try to Recover After Ponte M ammolo Camp Is Destroyed.” 55 “Selam Palace.” 56 Levi, The Drow ned and the Saved . Edouard G lissant, Poetics of Relation, 1 6 . Biemann and Holmes, The M aghreb Connection, 4 3 . 3 Biemann and Holmes, The M aghreb Connection, 4 5 . 4 Sayad, The Suffering of the Immigrant. 5 Demos, The M igrant Image, 2 4 5 . 6 Sayad, The Suffering of the Immigrant. 7 Foucault, “O f O ther Spaces.” 8 Berger, John Berger. 9 Campbell, “The Visual Economy of HIV/ AIDS.” 10 Shapiro, Cinematic G eopolitics, 2 . 11 See Richardson & Colombo, 2 0 1 3 . 12 W odak, 2 0 1 5 . 13 de Haas. 14 Delapalme, “Africa’s Youth: Jobs or M igration?” 15 Sen, Development as freedom 1 9 9 9 . 16 UN CTAD, “Economic Development in Africa,” 4 6 . 17 Delapalme, “Africa’s Youth: Jobs or M igration?” 18 The number of those living abroad has also increased from 1 4 .8 0 0 ,3 0 0 in 2 0 0 0 to 2 0 .6 4 9 ,3 0 0 in 2 0 1 5 . In particular, betw een 1 9 9 0 and 2 0 1 5 official African immigrant resident population in Europe has increased from 4 ,4 3 1 ,6 4 9 persons in 1 9 9 0 to 9 ,1 9 9 ,0 2 4 persons in 2 0 1 5 . 19 The term stock refers to the total number of persons born in a country other than that in w hich they reside. 20 Berger, A Seventh M an, 3 7 . 21 Patel, “Figure of the W eek.” 22 “W orld Population Prospects - Population Division - United N ations.” 23 Canning, Jobanputra, and Yazbeck, “Africa’s Demographic Transition.” 24 “W orld Urbanization Prospects - Population Division - United N ations.” 25 FAO , “M igration, Agriculture and Rural Development. Addressing the Root Causes of M igration and Harnessing Its Potential for Development |Policy Support and G overnance| Food and Agriculture O rganization of the United N ations.” 26 Delapalme, “Africa’s Youth: Jobs or M igration?” 27 Fahrmeir, Faron, and W eil, M igration Control in the N orth Atlantic W orld . 28 De G enova, “Spectacles of M igrant ‘Illegality,’” 2 . 29 Biemann and Holmes, The M aghreb Connection, 5 6 . 30 Brachet, “Policing the Desert.” 31 “ECO W AS Common Approach on M igration, 2 0 0 8 .” 32 Zandonini, “ After Crackdow n, W hat Do People Employed in M igration M arket Do?” 33 Agamben. 34 1 35 2 54 Ethiopia, Finland, France, G ermany, G reece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, M alta, N etherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Sw eden, Tunisia and United Kingdom. Since this Declaration, Libya w as also invited as a M ember of the Khartoum Process upon the establishment of a G overnment of N ational Accord, and N orw ay, Sw itzerland and Uganda have also become M embers of the Process. 74 European Commission Fact Sheet, The EU-Africa Partnership, 2 0 1 5 . 75 European Parliament, W orkshop EU Policy Coherence for Development: the challenge of sustainability, 2 0 1 6 , Directorate G eneral for External Policies, Policy Department. 76 “M igration Research Leaders’ Syndicate - | IO M O nline Bookstore,” 1 9 –2 6 . 77 W ithin the UN framew ork: ILO M igration for Employment C onvention (1 9 4 9 ); ILO M igrant W orkers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention (1 9 7 5 ); UN Convention against Transnational O rganized Crime including the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially W omen and Children, and the Protocol Against the Smuggling of M igrants by Land, Sea and Air (2 0 0 3 ); UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All M igrant W orkers and M embers of Their Families (2 0 0 3 ); UN High-Level Dialogues on International M igration and Development (2 0 0 6 , 2 0 1 3 ); G lobal Forum on M igration and Development (launched in 2 0 0 7 ); the N ew York Declaration on M igrants and Refugees (2 0 1 6 ); G uidelines to Protect M igrants in C ountries Experiencing C onflict or N atural Disaster (M IC IC G uidelines) (2 0 1 6 ); and the IFAD G lobal Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development (2 0 1 7 ). W ithin the AU framew ork: African Common Position on M igration and Development (2 0 0 6 ); M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa (2 0 0 6 ); O uagadougou Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, Especially W omen and Children (2 0 0 6 ); Joint AU-EU Declaration on M igration and Development (2 0 0 6 ); [Kampala] Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (2 0 0 9 ); Pan-African Forum on M igration (2 0 1 5 ); AU-ILO -IO M -ECA Joint Labor M igration Program for Development and Integration (2 0 1 5 ); Declaration on M igration (2 0 1 5 ); the African Union Passport (2 0 1 6 ); M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa and 1 2 -Year Action Plan (2 0 1 7 ); Common African Position on the G lobal Compact on Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration (2 0 1 7 ); Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free M ovement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment (2 0 1 8 ); African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (2 0 1 8 ); Single African Air Transport M arket (2 0 1 8 ), etc. 78 “Visa O penness Index - Reporting on Africa Visa O penness.” “Remarks to the Press by the Secretary-G eneral Follow ing a M eeting w ith the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (French and English).” 58 “W orld M igration Report 2 0 1 8 ,” 1 9 . 59 “The International M igration Report 2 0 1 7 (Highlights) | M ultimedia Library - United N ations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” 60 AU, Evaluation of the African Union M igration Policy Framew ork for Africa 2016, 9. 61 “Transforming O ur W orld: The 2 0 3 0 Agenda for Sustainable Development .:. Sustainable Development Know ledge Platform.” 62 “M aking M igration W ork for All - Report of the Secretary-G eneral (A/ 7 2 / 6 4 3 ) - W orld,” 3 . 63 “G eneral Assembly of the United N ations.” 64 UN A/ RES/ 6 9 / 3 1 3 , Addis Ababa Action Agenda 2 0 1 5 , 5 0 , para 1 1 1 . The final text of the outcome document adopted at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1 3 –1 6 July 2 0 1 5 ) and endorsed by the G eneral Assembly in its resolution 6 9 / 3 1 3 of 2 7 July 2 0 1 5 . 65 Statement of M s. Louise Arbour, Special Representative of the UN Secretary G eneral for international migration and secretary-general for the intergovernmental conference, African Regional M eeting of G CM , O ctober 2 0 1 7 . 66 AU, Draft Common African Position (CAP) on the G lobal Compact for Safe, O rderly and Regular M igration 2 0 1 7 , para 1 .7 . 67 AU, CAP, preambular para 1 2 . 68 M EN ARA Final Reports, the art of the (im)possible: sow ing the seeds for the EU’s constructive engagement in the M iddle East and N orth Africa 2 0 1 9 , N . 4, 3. 69 The EU G lobal Strategy is a “global” rather than an exclusively “security” strategy, that provides a coherent perspective for the EU’s external action as a w hole, as w arranted by the Treaty on European Union. 70 The Agenda also launched the four migration pillars on w hich the EU’s action should be grounded. (i) reducing the incentives for irregular migration; (ii) border management – saving lives and securing external borders; (iii) Europe’s duty to protect: a strong common asylum policy; and, finally, (iv) a new policy on legal migration. 71 Italy contributed w ith € 1 0 million to the Trust Fund. 72 Currently the Rabat Process partner States are 5 7 countries, 1 O bserver State (Algeria) and 2 M ember O rganizations (the European Commission and the ECO W AS). 73 Signatories of the 2 0 1 4 Rome Declaration: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, 57 55 G rafica e impaginazione: Typeface Finito di stampare nel mese di maggio 2 0 1 9