Geopolitics

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Externalising Migration Controls through

Development Programs in Egypt

Gerda Heck & Elena Habersky

To cite this article: Gerda Heck & Elena Habersky (23 Feb 2024): Externalising
Migration Controls through Development Programs in Egypt, Geopolitics, DOI:
10.1080/14650045.2024.2316659

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Published online: 23 Feb 2024.

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GEOPOLITICS
https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2024.2316659

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Externalising Migration Controls through Development

Programs in Egypt
Gerda Hecka and Elena Haberskyb
a
Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology, The American University in Cairo Center for Migration and
Refugee Studies, New Cairo, Egypt; bCenter for Migration and Refugee Studies, The American University
in Cairo Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, New Cairo, Egypt

ABSTRACT
Since the turn of the millennium, development aid has become
more and more entangled with border externalization policies
by political entities, such as the European Union. Responding to
the increased arrival of refugees in 2015, the European Union
formed the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), earmarking
3.4 billion Euros to fight “the root causes of irregular migratio­
n”on the African Continent. Within the scope of the EUTF, Egypt
receives major funds from the program. This paper examines
the impact of recently introduced development and livelihood
programs, as well as educational and vocational training for
migrants and refugees in Egypt under the EUTF. Thereby it
shows how the EU aims at transforming Egypt from a so-called
transit state to a destination country. The paper further explores
how these programs are reshaping the political, humanitarian,
as well as migratory landscapes in Egypt, and how EUTF funds
are transforming the development, as well the humanitarian
sector in the country, beyond its impacts on transit migration
stricto sensu.

At a press conference in January 2023, Christian Berger, the head of the

European Union (EU) delegation to Egypt, reiterated the cooperation
between Egypt and the EU in the field of migration, which currently
amounts to 111 million EUR, covering 34 projects in the country. In his
statement, Berger praised the positive implementations of earlier agree­
ments, including the ‘EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa’ (EUTF), for­
mulated in 2017, which aimed to improve Egypt’s migration management,
address the root causes of irregular migration, and support communities
hosting migrants and refugees. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had just
reaffirmed that Egypt will not be a transit point for ‘illegal migrants seeking
to reach Europe’ (Ahram Online 2023a). At the same time, on the other
side of the Mediterranean, during an EU migration summit in

CONTACT Gerda Heck Gerda.Heck@aucegypt.edu Sociology, Egyptology, and Anthropology, The American
University in Cairo Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, New Cairo, Egypt
Since these development programs and initiatives are part of the broader framework of European border externa­
lisation attempts towards Egypt, they aim to support migrants while simultaneously managing their exclusion from
global mobility.
© 2024 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

February 2023, the European Commission announced it seeks to reinforce

Europe’s external borders, increase repatriations and deportations, and
support non-European partner states (Brunnersum 2023). French
President Emmanuel Macron, defending the European Commission’s
approach, stated that increased EU financial support should help African
countries fight terrorism, tackle climate change, and boost education,
building on pledges made at the 2015 summit in Valletta (Rankin 2023).
The 2015 Valetta summit was a response to the arrival of nearly 800,000
refugees on European shores in the summer and fall of 2015. The EU
established the European Union Trust Fund (EUTF), granting it
€3.4 billion, mandating it with addressing ‘the root causes of irregular
migration’ (European Commission 2017; EUTF: Egypt 2022). By transfer­
ring development aid to multiple countries on the African continent, the
EU hoped that, in return, this aid would result in the slowing down, if not
completely stopping, undocumented migration to the EU. In doing this,
one of the overall objectives is transforming ‘transit’ countries, like Egypt,
into ‘destination’ countries for migrants who have little to no legal means
to journey onward.1
In public and political debates, European externalisation measures are often
presented in international migration policy as a humanitarian act and
a political solution, as heard in Macron’s statement. Migration from the
African continent has regularly triggered highly contentious debates at the
European level, particularly since the turn of the millennium. According to
a recently published study (MEDAM Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and
Migration 2020), most European governments, as well as European citizens,
are in favour of controlling immigration with the purpose of preventing
undocumented and unwanted migration towards Europe. Hence, we can
consider the externalisation discourse and the subsequent introduction of
development programmes as political devices meant to tighten border controls
and expand the deportation of migrants from Europe. In the meantime, the
implementation of border externalisation policies on the ground are always
shaped by controversial and complex political, geographic, and social condi­
tions, both in the European Union and beyond.
In this article, we examine the impact of European funded livelihood
projects, development programmes, and educational and vocational training
in Egypt, focusing on the recently introduced development assistance pro­
grammes for migrants and refugees in Egypt under the EUTF. We demon­
strate how the EU aims at transforming Egypt from a so-called transit state to
a destination country, receiving, integrating, as well as containing ‘undesired
mobilities’. We argue that to understand the impact of these programmes, it is
important to not only examine their influence on EU-bound migration, but
also how they go beyond a certain border-migrant dialectic. We show how
these programmes are reshaping the political, humanitarian, as well as
 GEOPOLITICS 3

migratory landscapes in Egypt, and how EUTF funds are transforming the
development as well the humanitarian sector in the country, beyond impacts
on transit migration stricto sensu. EUTF funded projects are therefore chan­
ging place-based dynamics in Egypt beyond the field of migration.2
The paper begins with theoretical considerations and the explanation of our
research methods and scope. We then briefly tackle the existing scholarship on
the European Union’s externalisation efforts on the African continent in
general, starting from the year 2000. This is followed by an overview of the
debates linking development aid with migration governance. Further, we look
at the European attempts to externalise migration governance towards Egypt,
as well as the complexities of Egyptian migration policies at the national and
international levels, especially since the 2011 revolution. We outline the
programmes of the EUFT in Egypt, focusing on the measures that target the
integration of migrants and refugees, and their impact on the humanitarian
and development sector, as well as on migrants themselves. Finally, we con­
clude with some reflections on how we may understand the intertwined fields
of development aid, migration governance, humanitarian structures, and the
migratory landscape in Egypt, as well as Euro-African relations on the borders
of Europe and beyond.

Theoretical Approaches to an Emerging Border Industry

Since the beginning of the century, the EU and Egypt have held numerous
meetings discussing migration governance. Topics included: border manage­
ment, cooperation in the fields of migration and asylum, the prevention of
irregular migration, promotion of regular migration pathways, protection of
migrants and refugees, and developing regional and international cooperation
in these areas (Karima 2021). During the negotiations, the EU regularly
expressed interest in governing and managing migratory movements arriving
at European borders and the externalisation of certain populations by offering
them local incentives. The Egyptian government has responded with a strong
commitment to their national autonomy, emerging as a difficult negotiation
partner for the EU. This standpoint recalls the ‘postcolonial politics of dignity’
(El Bernoussi 2015), which dates back to the country’s national independence
movement around the 1950s. Externalisation politics are in no way a top-down
process, where Global North policies are enforced in the Global South, a fact
that has been amply demonstrated (El Qadim 2007; Genc, Heck, and Hess
2018; Heck 2011). Yet, migration externalisation politics in Egypt are still
largely studied from a state-centric perspective (see Abdel Fattah, Rietig, and
Fakhry 2021; Fakhoury et al. 2021; Norman 2021). We contend that, despite,
or because of, the autocratic governmental environment in Egypt, externalisa­
tion policies are not only implemented by state agencies, but also by humani­
tarian and developmental institutions. These policies usually materialise in the
4 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

form of practical support, but they can also be seen in symbolic and perfor­
mative forms.
We further claim that the literature on externalisation is primarily con­
cerned with the dialectical relationship between border controls and
migrants, often ignoring the impact on other sectors of the society.
Although the development measures implemented by Europe seem to
have a clear objective, namely, to slow down the migration movements
from the African continent, they also always have repercussions on other
political and socio-economic spheres. Therefore, we build our research on
Chris Rumford’s work, in which he states that ‘borderwork does not
necessarily result in borders that enhance national security’ (Rumford
2012, 897). It rather creates new possibilities for border-workers, economic­
ally and/or politically. Rumford argues that, while borders empower some
people, they simultaneously disempower others (Rumford 2012, 897). In
a similar vein, Ruben Andersson (2014) shows that, although linking
migration to development aid aims at limiting people’s movements, it
also benefits and empowers the security and development sectors, non-
profit and migrant organisations, as well as journalistic and academic
institutions. Hence, the emerging migration industries in the global South
cannot be seen as a homogeneous field of actors, but rather as networked
entities in which objectives sometimes contradict and roles overlap.
Drawing on ‘ethnographic border regime analysis’, we approach the ‘border
regime’ as a ‘more or less ordered ensemble of practices and knowledge-
power-complexes’ (Karakayalı and Tsianos 2007, 13) resulting in a space of
contestation, conflicts, and negotiations (see also Casas-Cortes et al. 2015,
15; Hess, Kasparek, and Schwertl 2018). Border and migration regimes are
fractured and disintegrated into many facets, including actors, practices,
discourses, technologies, bodies, emotions, processes, performances and
controversies (Heimeshoff et al. 2014, 13). In the case of Egypt, there are
many competing actors, all attempting to receive funding and achieve
visibility for their work against a backdrop of migrants and refugees who
constantly invent new and innovative ways to support themselves and fulfil
their own needs.
Our analysis relies on engagement with different actors, including
Egyptian and European entities, international organisations, INGOs,
NGOs, as well as migrants and refugees. This article is based on a first
exploratory ethnography, extensive desk research, as well as 10 ethno­
graphic guided interviews, all conducted in the Spring of 2020, the
Summer of 2021 and the Fall of 2022. Within the same time period, we
also conducted multiple shorter and longer informal conversations with
individuals working in the field. For the desk research, we consulted public
government data and reports by the UN (United Nation), INGO
(International Non-Governmental Organisation), IO (International
 GEOPOLITICS 5

Organisation), and NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) reports and

studies. Furthermore, we reviewed Arabic and English Egyptian newspapers
and news sources, both Egyptian and non-Egyptian.3 Our interviewees
worked for local NGOs, CBOs (Community Based Organizations), as well
as IOs. Two of them worked for a UN agency, and some were migrant
activists who had no formal jobs. Finally, we draw on our own observations
while working in the field for several years in Egypt. The interviews in 2020
and 2021 were conducted either online via Zoom or by telephone. The
interviews in the Fall of 2022 were held in cafes in Greater Cairo. On many
occasions, staff working for IOs and UN agencies only agreed to conducting
informal conversations, because getting approval from the administration
of their organisations was a time consuming and complicated process.
Oftentimes, they also feared repercussions from management for talking
about supposedly sensitive issues.4 In addition, given the repressive envir­
onment in which human rights organisations operate in Egypt, most of our
interviewees preferred to remain anonymous.5

The European Union, Border Externalization and Development Aid:

Existing Scholarship
Since the early 2000s, the EU has successively advanced border externalisation
policies on the African continent. Multiple bilateral agreements between
individual African countries and the EU have been adopted as a result of
regional dialogues on harmonisation of migration policy approaches. For
example, the Rabat Process (2006) and the Khartoum Process (2014) aimed
to intensify the cooperation between the EU and African countries concerning
the management of migration and the combating of human trafficking (The
European Union 2015). Leading up to 2015, we can already observe the
organisational architecture of an overarching network of agreements between
Europe and several African countries on migration management, readmission
agreements, and border control, all closely linked to development aid (Casas-
Cortes, Cobarrubias, and Pickles 2016; Cuttitta 2020; Gaibazzi, Bellagamba,
and Dünnwald 2017; Geiger and Pécoud 2010, Heck 2011; Lavenex and
Schimmelfennig 2009).
These initiatives did not seem to have the desired impact on migration
movements, leading to the adoption of the EUTF in 2015. Despite similarities
with former strategies of externalisation, the EUTF claimed to represent a new
approach towards migration management. Turning the focus on the root
causes of migration, 63% of the EUTF funds goes to development projects,
22% to projects focusing on migration management, and only 14% to local
security and peace-building measures (Oxfam 2017). Projected development
programmes were planned to disincentivize further migration, and rather
foster the return and reintegration of migrants to countries of origin. These
6 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

programmes were supposed to be more effective in halting migratory move­

ments compared to earlier failed attempts, which encouraged third states to
cooperate on returns by offering them migration policy ‘sweeteners’, such as
visa facilitation (Bartels 2019). The greatest bulk of funding under the EUTF
goes to the Lake Chad and Sahel region, though North African countries like
Egypt, which are considered ‘transit states’, still receive over 900 million
Euros.6
A range of studies on the impact of recent European development aid on
migration governance in North African countries have argued that European
development aid have failed to stop migratory movements towards Europe (El
Mouhib 2021; Gazzotti 2021; Ould Moctar 2022). On the contrary, in the case
of Tunisia, Betsy Rouland (2021) finds that funding has increased immigration
from sub-Saharan countries. In a similar vein, Pacciardi and Berndtsson
(2022), using the case of Libya, argue that when externalisation projects are
implemented, many local actors use European funds with completely different
objectives than those identified by the EU. By and large, these studies show the
EU’s failure to achieve its intended objective.
Scholarly publications regarding Egypt’s migration diplomacy (Abdel
Fattah, Rietig, and Fakhry 2021; Fakhoury et al. 2021; Norman 2021;
Tsourapas 2020) focus broadly on Egypt’s ‘strategic ambivalence’ (Norman
2017) vis-à-vis European and other international state entities. Furthermore,
researchers and human rights activists demonstrate how Egypt’s strategic
relationships with the EU play directly into the EU’s fears of intensifying
‘irregular migration waves’ arriving at their shores (Al-Kashef and Martin
2019; Völkel 2020). Addressing the role of civil society organisation and NGOs
within migration management in Egypt, Paolo Cuttitta (2017, 2020) concludes
that the efforts of donor organisations to provide on-the-ground support can
sometimes inadvertently produce effects contrary to the overall goal. For
instance, money distributed to NGO’s or CSO`s in order to deter migrants
from moving on might be used in other ways.
Overall, scholarly work on the EU’s externalisation policies in Egypt is
scarce in comparison to neighbouring countries, and it focuses predominantly
on Egyptian state politics. Focusing on the dynamics between state border
controls and migrants risks overlooking the influence and unforeseen effects
that European externalisation politics have at other political and social levels,
such as the humanitarian sector. Particularly, the impact of ideas revitalised
since 2015 by initiatives such as the EUTF have not yet been studied in Egypt.
Hence, we analyse the ways in which these funds and programmes are not only
changing migrant’s realities, but also the humanitarian sector in Egypt.
The use of development aid for the purposes of governing and directing
migration movements is nothing new. It has a history that goes back more
than 50 years (Bakewell 2008; Collyer 2019). In the 1970s, the International
Labour Organization proposed ‘multilateral and bilateral cooperations’ with
 GEOPOLITICS 7

so-called ‘countries of origin’ to reduce the need for worker emigration (ILO
World Employment Conference and International Migration of Workers
1976).7 Since the 1990s, development aid has been an integral part of
European migration politics (Clemens and Postel 2018; Collyer 2019; Knoll
and Sherriff 2017). Along these lines, the nexus between migration and devel­
opment has recently received renewed interest in global discussions on migra­
tion, particularly after 2015 with initiatives like the EUTF and the Global
Compact on Migration.8
There is no proof that development aid can disincentivise migration. On the
contrary, Saskia Sassen already found in 1992 that US economic investment in
the labour market and the creation of job opportunities in Haiti, increased,
rather than decreased, emigration to the US. In their review of studies on the
impact of development assistance on migration, Clemens and Postel (2018)
come to a similar conclusion. Their review of several case studies show no
indication that aid impedes migration in any significant way. On the contrary,
they see indications that development aid stimulates emigration (see also
Bakewell 2008; Collyer 2016), as they point out that development assistance
in Africa will most likely lead to overall greater migration from countries of
origin, especially to so-called ‘third countries’, such as the Northern African
states. Despite these strong indications, states of the global North continue to
increasingly rely on official development assistance as a means of reducing
international migration from the South. This raises questions about the ratio­
nale behind recently initiated development assistance programmes, such as the
EUTF, and invites us to expand our analytical interest in these initiatives
beyond their declared purpose to halt migration.

European Border Externalisation Politics Towards Egypt

To date, the number of Egyptians migrating to EU countries is much lower
than the majority who migrate to the Gulf nations and Jordan.9 Nevertheless,
the EU has consistently over the past 20 years included Egypt, among other
African states, in discussions on the prevention of onward migration to
Europe. Since 2004, discussions on cross border mobility management have
played a key role in the emerging relationship between the European Union
and Egypt (Doukoure and Oger 2007; Michou 2016). In 2005, the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched. Targeting the countries of North
Africa, it focused on legal and practical issues related to controlling migration
movements through cooperation (Seeberg 2013).
Nevertheless, for many years, the Egyptian government was one of the
most challenging partners to work with concerning migration coopera­
tion in North Africa (Völkel 2020). Kelsey Norman (2021, 45) states
that Egypt pursued what she calls a policy of ‘strategic indifference’.
While not heavily policing the refugee and migrant communities, the
8 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

Egyptian state sought international financial support that also benefited

Egyptian nationals. In the second half of 2011, in the midst of the so-
called Arab Spring, and in response to an increase in undocumented
migration towards the southern European coast, as well as an increasing
number of asylum applications (Brussels: European Commission 2011;
Seeberg 2013), the EU launched new talks with North African countries
on migration management. However, since 2014, and in light of eco­
nomic and political challenges, Egypt has signalled only greater interest
in cooperation. Against the backdrop of an increasingly authoritarian
style of government, Egypt has sought development assistance, interna­
tional legitimacy, and closer economic cooperation with European coun­
tries. Particularly since 2017, EU-Egyptian negotiations have greatly
intensified within the scope of the EU-Egypt Partnership Priorities
2017–2020. In December 2017, the EU – Egypt Migration Dialogue was
launched (Al-Kashef and Martin 2019). However, recent negotiations
have also been repeatedly marked by conflicts of interest, and Egypt
has regularly resisted European demands. For instance, until now, Egypt
has consistently rejected the European Union’s demand to build refugee
camps for migrants deported from the EU. The Egyptian state also
refused to cooperate in the trans-Mediterranean expert network,
‘Seahorse’, which the EU established among different countries (Völkel
2020). In June 2023, the European Union High Representative for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borell, participated in
a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
This was due to the occasion of Egypt receiving 100 million EUR to
support its border management in accommodating the recent wave of
Sudanese refugees. In the press conference, Shoukry noted that, ‘Egypt
has become a destination country for refugees’. He warned that the
country could become a transit hub for refugees which would put the
EU under severe pressure (Kandil 2023). With this message, Shoukry
made it clear to the EU that Egypt has the ultimate power to decide
whether refugees and migrants continue to travel to Europe or if the
country becomes their endpoint. Hence, according to Shoukry, Europe’s
externalisation politics are greatly dependent on its willingness to pro­
vide economic and political support to Egypt. These ongoing negotia­
tions on migration control between the EU and Egypt demonstrate that
border externalisation is anything but a top-down process. Furthermore,
it becomes clear that in these meetings, other areas of policy are always
negotiated. In the following section, we briefly outline the migration
situation in Egypt before taking a closer look at the EUTF programmes.
 GEOPOLITICS 9

Egypt – Emigration and Immigration

Today, Egypt’s population amounts to a little over 100 million people
(World Bank 2021). The number of migrants in Egypt is disputed, as
they range from 490.000 in 2015 (IOM 2019) to 10 million migrants,
according to recent figures by the Egyptian government (Barakat 2023).
However, only a small percentage of these migrants are registered
refugees. In 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees registered 299,167 refugees and asylum-seekers in the country
(UNHCR 2023). Egypt is signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and
its 1967 Protocol (with several reservations) in addition to the 1969
Convention of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Yet, the
country delegates responsibilities regarding refugees to UNHCR, which
carries out functional responsibilities for all aspects of registration,
documentation, and refugee status determination (RSD), leading to
what Michael Kagan (2011) counts as a ‘UN surrogate state’. All in
all, the Egyptian government only allows for temporary residency per­
mits for those under the mandate of UNHCR, or accepted refugees. The
permit must be renewed every six months (Hetaba, McNally, and
Habersky 2020). As of 2023, Egypt does not offer any form of local
integration on the sociopolitical level for refugees or migrants. Thus,
those who apply to UNHCR hope for resettlement as a durable solution,
though resettlement numbers are very low.10 The government is gener­
ally not concerned with the affairs and lives of refugees unless it
involves security issues (Abdelaaty 2021; Norman 2017; Sadek 2011).
Throughout recent years, the European Union has made several calls to
the Egyptian government to draft a national asylum law. In June 2023, the
Egyptian Cabinet approved a draft of a law (Ahram Online 2023b), though
the content is so far unknown. Community organisers fear that the intro­
duction of a national asylum law might decrease the already limited pos­
sibilities for refugees in Egypt to get resettled in a northern country. At the
same time, the anticipated law has sparked hope for a way out of the legal
precarity and limbo for many refugees who have been residing in the
country for decades.
While life in Egypt has been relatively affordable, the devaluation of
the Egyptian pound in 2016 and 2022, and the resulting high inflation
have negatively impacted refugees and asylum seekers and increased
their dependency on aid from international organisations. The dire
situation on the ground – including economic hardship, lack of pro­
spects for a juridical integration (a permanent legal residence permit or
naturalisation) in addition to alienation and racism – has been consis­
tently cited during our field research as a motivation for people to
move.
10 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

The EUTF in Egypt

The debates on drafting an asylum law in Egypt cannot be separated from the
current international approach towards migration in the humanitarian and
development sector, exemplified by initiatives like the EUTF, which we exam­
ine in this section. The EUTF currently provides 60 million EUR for Egypt for
the period between 2017 to 2025, funding a programme entitled ‘Enhancing
the response to migration challenges in Egypt’. Although the entirety of the
project is said to aim at improving migration management, the greatest share
of funds, 55.6 million EUR, is used for development programmes with the
stated purpose of advancing the protection of migrant rights and supporting
host communities and migrants (EUTF Egypt 2022). In addition, money is
flowing into Egypt through 12 regional projects meant for North Africa,
though the exact breakdown of the funding by country is unknown (EU
Trust Fund Financials 2022). Most of these projects aim to address the root
causes of irregular migration through different means, while others offer
knowledge and practical training to increase economic and livelihood oppor­
tunities, including technical vocational training on business management
skills, financial awareness, and marketing. All in all, Egypt’s national and
regional projects aim at enhancing integration, either through the labour
market or through social cohesion with the host community by enhancing
access to rights, entitlements, and services.
As the EUTF provides large amounts of funding for working with migrants,
organisations traditionally operating in the field of migration, like Caritas,
IOM, Red Cross/Red Crescent, and Save the Children, have expanded their
activities on the ground. Additionally, organisations like WHO, Plan
International, ILO, or the German development organisation, GIZ, have
intensified their efforts addressing the needs of migrants in Egypt. At the
same time, many Egyptian NGOs in the field have closed since 2013 due to
a new set of national laws and regulations. These new regulations limit their
scope of activities and the ability to receive international funding. As a result,
local NGOs and CBOs in the field are forced to cooperate with bigger inter­
national organisations (Cuttitta 2020). On the one hand, this development has
led to a larger ‘migration industry’ (Andersson 2014). On the other hand, it has
created clear dependencies between local and international organisations in
the field.

Job and Vocational Training for Refugees and Migrants

Although the EUTF targets both Egyptian nationals as well as migrants and
refugees residing in the country, we focus in this paper on the measures
targeting migrants and refugees. Since 2015, different projects have been
launched in order to support labour market integration through job training.
 GEOPOLITICS 11

Economic support is provided to enable starting small enterprises run by

migrants and refugees in Egypt as well as by Egyptian nationals. This is done
predominantly through multi-organisational and multi-country projects, such
as ‘The PROSPECTS project’ undertaken by ILO, IFC, UNICEF, and the
World Bank, which offers vocational training courses. Through such projects,
development aid is funnelled into programmes which involve job training and
entrepreneurship, management of micro-businesses, education for children
and parents, and general projects in the area of health (See Save the Children
2021; ILO Prospects 2022; UNICEF Egypt 2021, etc.). Activities are diverse:
they include repair trainings, sewing courses, classical job application training,
language training, and training on plastic waste management, water pollution,
renewable energy, and sustainable raw materials. Additionally, some organisa­
tions provide training in computer programming and coding. Others provide
training in entrepreneurial skills and business economics.
Reading official reports from these organisations, the outcome of these
trainings seems to be successful (see for instances: ILO Prospects 2022; IOM
Egypt 2021). However, most of our interviewees expressed serious concerns.
In an informal conversation, a former staff member of an IO with field
experience stressed that while it is always helpful to provide educational
training on all levels, some of these training programmes are extremely
short. For instance, a three-week training on car-repair techniques cannot be
equated with full field training. The same would apply to other areas of
training. In reiterated conversations and interviews, the long-term sustain­
ability of many of these measures was questioned. One interviewee admitted,
‘We have made these mistakes already fifteen years ago’ (INGO Coordinator,
March 2020). At that time, that interviewee’s organisation had tried to train
the community members in different types of handicraft products, like making
food, sewing, crocheting, and making accessories. However, the organisation
realised that these products had no sustainability, as there was and still is no
adequate market demand. The community women sold these goods at local
bazaars, which are held a few times a year, or at different events and celebra­
tions at embassies, but they could not make a living from it.
Similarly, critiques were raised as many of the trainings are tied to tactile
handicrafts, like basket weaving and other handmade objects. In mid-March
2021, IOM Egypt posted a call on their social media sites for proposals
specifically looking for service providers for ‘providing livelihood opportu­
nities to migrants and Egyptian host communities through promoting palm
leaves waste handicrafts’ and ‘Enabling environment workshops for migrants
in their hosting communities through RDPP Stakeholders’ (IOM Egypt
Facebook and Twitter). This is in addition to technical education, which
predominantly focuses on setting up businesses focused on service sectors,
like catering to name a common example. Many of the current development
projects centre skills and crafts that do not need high levels of formal
12 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

education, like cooking traditional foods, sewing, or making accessories which

harken back to colonial views on labour (Ashiagbor 2021).
In addition, a former staff member of an IO, who provided job training and
access to the labour market to youth in North Africa, suggested that the goal of
these programmes might be rather targeting a European public as beneficiaries
themselves. ‘Since 2015 there has been a massive budget increase for these
programs, especially for job creation in the Northern African countries. No
one really knows the impact these measures. We have no records except of the
number of program participants and the number of those who found a job
directly afterwards. We don’t know what exactly happens to the people in the
long run. Some factories where participants found work have closed and
dismissed many workers. This type of information is never reflected in the
reports. All in all, these projects are not evaluated according to long-term
impact. Evaluation is limited to descriptions of the organisation and how they
are seen in the highly politicised discourse on migration in the European
public sphere’. Multiple interviewees emphasised similar points: that the
main objective of these programmes seemed to be turning countries, like
Egypt, into a final destination country for refugees and migrants; and further­
more, that there is no proof of the outcome of these measures, besides the brief
follow-up after the project’s end which often shows immediate success. Having
said this, we can draw two conclusions. First, these programmes target a rather
European political discourse to legitimise its border externalisation politics.
Secondly, in these new emerging migration industries, it is important to come
up with short-term success stories in order to compete with other organisa­
tions in the field. Hence, these programmes seem to have a larger influence on
the expansion of the humanitarian sector in Egypt and the way in which these
organisations conduct short-term and fast-paced projects, which will also be
discussed in the following paragraph.
Interview partners repeatedly emphasised that these measures do not pre­
vent anyone from emigration, something that seems to be common knowledge
in the organisations that undertake these programmes. A policy officer pro­
viding these training programmes in Egypt stated, ‘People will continue to
migrate anyway and we’re going to work with it’. Interviewees described how
within the last few years, the aim of the projects targeting forcibly displaced
persons has changed from offering assistance and services to offering business
and entrepreneurial training opportunities. ‘Even at [name redacted], the
focus and the interest were more about migrant assistance. But then, with
the changing policies in Europe and a bit of the dynamics and the political
shift, there’s increased interest in actually keeping people where they should
be’, said the policy officer. This switch to training migrants to become entre­
preneurs, added the officer, is aimed at integrating migrants into the Egyptian
society, as part of the plan to prevent them from migrating further. But this
type of cohesion between the communities does not create integration, as
 GEOPOLITICS 13

a refugee NGO worker told us, ‘Long and short, there is no local integration,
ok, period . . . If you look at the services provided by big NGOs, by big
organisations, they have services only provided to refugees and also services
provided to both host communities and refugees to enhance the co-existence,
to better bring those communities together and to provide something for both
communities’. They then continued, ‘We understand what they are trying to
do here is inapplicable in Egypt, social cohesion or social integration in
general, it’s something that has to do with having new policies. There’s no
employment here, education is difficult, everything is difficult (. . .)’ (NGO
Program Manager, July 2020).
Here, the main objective of these programmes, to turn Egypt into
a destination country for arriving refugees and migrants, becomes once
again apparent. In her research on integration measures for migrants in
Morocco, anthropologist Nina Schwarz (2019) notes a very similar develop­
ment, and she labels it ‘the dispositive of integration’. These measures try to
(re)shape a hegemonic European project based on differential scales of exclu­
sion by paradoxically framing and establishing projects concerning job-
creation, ‘integration’ into the labour market, and social cohesion in Egypt.
In the border externalisation discourse and its logics, migrants are referred
to as objects which can be or must be steered. However, migrants themselves
cannot be steered easily and they also navigate these emerging migration
industries according to their own needs and aspirations. An employee working
with an international organisation in Egypt puts it in a nutshell: ‘At the end of
the day, people are searching for a secure prospect for themselves and their
family. Here in Egypt, their existence is precarious, they cannot obtain
a permanent residence permit, nor can they even think about naturalisation
for them or their children. If anything happens, they can easily get deported.
Hence, many of them see Egypt only as transit, some hoping to move on
towards the global North. Others look forward to going back to the country of
origin when the situation there becomes safe’. (INGO Coordinator, Cairo,
March 2020). These statements and our analysis are also confirmed by an
increasing rise in undocumented migration from Egypt to Europe, which has
been recorded since 2020. While exact numbers of those whose journeys went
through Egypt are unknown, the numbers of undocumented Egyptian
migrants entering the EU greatly increased in recent years: in 2022, 21301
Egyptians disembarked in Italy, up from 1,264 in 2020 (UNHCR Italy Sea
Dashboard 2020, 2022).
Our analysis of the job and vocational training programmes for refugees
and migrants shows that one of the major problems (reiterated by workers at
IOs, INGOs as well as CBOs) is that although all these initiatives target
refugees and migrants in Egypt, many are tailored to be short, and despite
short-term positive outcomes, they have no sustainability. Above all, the
objective and the orientation of many of the programmes is questionable
14 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

and they imply a certain colonial image of the African continent that purports
to know the best option for its inhabitants, namely to stay on the
continent. In fact, the new initiatives produce, as Loren Landau (2019, 170)
aptly puts it, a ‘trope of “containment development” that aims to exclude
Africans from global time, deeming them as potential burden and threat for
European and African nation states’. The trainings that prepare people to join
the local labour market or equip them with entrepreneurial and business skills
aim at transforming Egypt into a destination country for migrants and refu­
gees. However, our analysis shows that none of these programmes discourage
migrants or refugees from moving on, especially in light of the local political
and social situation. What one can begin to discern here is the impact of the
changes on the local humanitarian landscape, which we delineate in the
following section.

The EUTF: Negotiating the Humanitarian and Developmental Landscape

In this section, we look at relations and negotiations between different actors,
the organisations within the humanitarian and development sectors, as well as
how migrants and refugees navigate the field of these development pro­
grammes. As mentioned above, many NGOs and CBOs receive funds from
the EUTF through international organisations. However, it is extremely diffi­
cult to trace the complex web through which these funds originate and how
and where they ultimately reach the point of concrete implementation on the
ground (see EUTF Regional Projects: North of Africa 2023). In many
instances, our interviewees could not tell us with certainty whether the funds
used by their organisations ultimately originated from EUTF funds and which
implementing organisations channelled them. The director of a local refugee
organisation lamented in their conversation that there is no transparency
about how this development aid is spent. Furthermore, interviewees noticed
that in recent years a large number of local organisations, including Egyptian
NGOs, took a sudden turn towards working on migrant and refugee issues,
though many of them may not have any background or experience on the
topic. Several interview partners acknowledged that refugees do benefit from
certain projects, especially when attending training programmes where they
receive a stipend for their attendance.
On the other hand, NGO and CBO staff voiced criticism of the orientation
of some of the international organisations’ programmes. A refugee who has
worked for a local NGO said, ‘For us at [name redacted] we have been working
[on integration programs] before this program started 5 years ago. And then
we stopped working on integration because the EU was sending money to
Egypt, to the government in particular, to push them to work in the North
Coast to provide social services, employment, and other initiatives for
migrants, with the ultimate goal of preventing them from crossing the
 GEOPOLITICS 15

Mediterranean Sea and entering the EU. (. . .) What they are trying is, instead
of you going there [to the EU], they bring the services here in Africa. That was
the plan’. With the large INGOs taking the lead on the EUTF projects, local
organisations who are working with them feel that their experience and
expertise are not being taken into account, a sentiment expressed by several
of our interlocutors. One interviewee mentioned that INGO programmes are
often closely aligned with the policies of Global North countries, which in turn
are supposed to be implemented by NGOs or CBOs. Organisations working in
the field believe they have better insights and more applicable suggestions for
programmes. Here, the power relations between local and refugee organisa­
tions and international organisations become visible. However, this does not
mean that there is no resistance to the demands from European and other
international entities. An interviewee told us that in October of 2020, an EU
Representative visited their local NGO and declared that they have access to
funds that can be distributed to local organisations, with the condition that the
organisation would support EU policies. The Representative asked the NGO to
conduct activities discouraging refugees and asylum-seekers from irregular
migration towards the EU. The organisation decided not to take the money,
believing refugees should have their own agency in making decisions about
their journeys.
Our interlocutors also pointed to the fact that IOs are highly dependent on
NGOs and CBOs, as the latter have access to migrant communities. This in
turn opens space for organisations on the ground to operate with some
autonomy while implementing programmes for IOs. Local NGOs and CBOs
can further adapt IO plans to the situation on the ground. For instance, in the
months following the COVID-19 pandemic, local NGOs were able to support
refugees and asylum-seekers with mini-credits, which allowed them to open
small businesses in certain areas of greater Cairo. Funding for this initiative
mainly came from IOs. Among the most popular choices for business ideas
were clothing stores, small grocery stores with imported goods, and restau­
rants serving local food from the countries of origin, as one of our interviewees
pointed out. This has been welcomed by many refugees as a positive develop­
ment, as it presented an alternative to the risk of being subject to exploitation
and abuse in domestic settings, as well as jobs that are hard to find and those
with demanding manual labour. While most of the migrants had the desire to
move further along on their journeys, they appreciated the short-term stability
this funding offered.
The analysis of the interviews illustrates the conflicts and resistance to the
political orientation of the programmes introduced by IOs, but also the tactics
of local organisations in dealing with them. Local organisations use their
advantage here, as they are the ones in contact with the migrants and refugees
on the ground and international organisations are, therefore, dependent on
them. Hence, though collaborations between IOs, CBOs, and NGOs are not
16 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

always smooth and in parts riddled by conflicts, local NGOs and CBOs try to
find ways to navigating the EU-funding and making use of it. This again shows
how the ramifications of these programmes go beyond a migrant-border
dialectic. The development aid is attempting to create newer, albeit smaller,
labour markets as an opportunity for integration, which serves as a substitute
for most refugees in legal limbo in Egypt. The attempt is to reduce further
migration, presumably to the EU, through this labour market integration. Via
their integration, people would purportedly stay in their transit space,
excluded from the right to move on. What we can clearly discern here is
a tremendous proliferation of programmes and initiatives transforming parts
of labour market opportunities for migrants and refugees. In some cases, these
opportunities can support in making a living while staying in Egypt. At the
same time, the local situation offers no prospects with regard to political and
legal integration, which prompts migrants, once again, to move on.

Exclusion from Mobility Through Integration: Egypt from a Transit

Country to a Destination Country?
In this paper, we have outlined how the EU aims at transforming Egypt from
a so-called transit state to a destination country, receiving and integrating, as
well as containing undesired mobilities. For this, the EUTF supports
a proliferation of services for Egyptians, refugees, and migrants targeting
livelihood activities, social cohesion, occupational, and entrepreneurial train­
ing which all fall under the broader goal of integration into the Egyptian
labour market and society. Thereby, we observed, as our interlocutors indi­
cated, a shifting trend from programmes related to migrant assistance to
labour and entrepreneurial aid, and integration and reintegration to the labour
market, accompanied by awareness campaigns targeting the containment of
Egyptians, migrants, and refugees.
As researchers have pointed out, there is no proof that development aid
decreases migration. On the contrary, as Clemens and Postel (2018) suggest,
development aid does not prevent migration; successful development aid in
Africa will most likely lead to more migration movements to North African
states, including Egypt. In their analysis, they propose that in order to hamper
immigration to Europe, donor states might consider sending support to
refugees in so called third countries, like Egypt, aiming at transforming
them into destination countries. However, the success of these measures is
highly doubtful. On the one hand, the impact of many of the programmes is
unsustainable. On the other hand, data show that all these measures do not
stop people from moving on.
Massive investments in development aid aiming at preventing African
movements to European soil go hand in hand with an old colonial paternalistic
pastoral discourse purporting to know the best for those targeted. Our in-
 GEOPOLITICS 17

depth analysis details how the ‘chronotope of “containment development”’

(Landau 2019, 170) functions through the implementation of myriads of
detailed and grounded operations. Yet, it appears that these investments and
development measures are designed to target a European public and politics as
opposed to the realities of the African continent. The development intentions
are embedded within an elaborated legitimising discourse trying to justify and
legitimise European border politics, which aim at controlling migratory move­
ments from the African continent. These go hand in hand with massive
support for the Egyptian border management and the security sector (see
also: Raty and Shilhav 2022, Naceur 2022).
Recent attempts at implementing a new migration and asylum law may
transform the political landscape concerning refugees in Egypt. However, we
demonstrate that the outcome of this transformation might be different from
what the EU desires. Indeed, as we showed, the Egyptian government is not at
all a passive actor in this constellation, as it plays a crucial role in migration
management in East-North Africa. Hence, we argue that the investment in the
development and humanitarian sector could be seen as (in)direct intervention
of externalisation policies. This is against the background of the Egyptian
regime’s instrumentalisation of migration and border politics to its own
interests vis-a-vis the European Union, as well as not accepting foreign intru­
sion in its border politics. Accordingly, the EU’s externalisation measures in
Egypt can be regarded as a kind of laboratory in which, in a constant process of
trial and error, supposedly new approaches to halt and govern migratory
movements are implemented.
Up until now, externalisation measures through IOs are only directed at
Egypt with the condition that they do not result in a transfer of responsibilities
and burdens to the Egyptian government. Several authors (Cuttitta 2020;
Geiger and Pécoud 2010; Hess 2010) have argued that IOs in the field, such
as UNHCR, GIZ and IOM, are not mere executors of European plans; they can
also counter and influence policy decisions in the states they are operating. In
Egypt, the IOs must navigate between conflicting interests, most crucially
those of the European Union and the Egyptian government. Nevertheless,
the proliferation of European funded projects, and particularly the EUTF, are
transforming the humanitarian landscape in the country as they appear as
money-spinners not only for the Egyptian government, but also for a large
range of institutions and people working in the field, including international
organisations, research institutes, local non-governmental organisations, and
community-based organisations. As Rumford (2012) has argued, this prolif­
eration provides a wide range of border works with new economic opportu­
nities. By this, we demonstrate how the European development measures go
unequivocally beyond its initial objective of preventing migrants from moving
on, but clearly have a huge impact on the humanitarian sector in Egypt. We
witness that this emerging humanitarian industry is not at all a homogeneous
18 G. HECK AND E. HABERSKY

field, but rather one that is quite complex, in which organisations sometimes
oppose each other. We also observe mutual dependency between international
organisations, INGOs and smaller community-based organisations and
NGOs. This dependency is nurtured by, on the one hand, the tightening of
European border controls and its legitimation attempts, and, on the other
hand, by the restrictive national laws for local NGOs and CBOs. Local and
field operating CBOs and NGOs are financially dependent on their interna­
tional counterparts, while the latter need to collaborate with local organisa­
tions to implement their measures. This gives these CBOs and NGOs a certain
(limited) space in which they can shape their activities in a way that they feel
supports the needs of their beneficiaries.
We also perceive emerging conflicts and resistance to certain aspects of the
new initiatives, which we have described in detail. Looking at the large com­
plex of EU funded initiatives, we see that the increase of these entrepreneurial
and labour market programmes transform, at least in the short term, parts of
the migrant labour market. Many refugees and migrants are indeed making
use of the offered services. However, they do not lose sight of their overall
objective to move on. While external funding does not appear to impact
migrant’s desire and decision to migrate further, local labour markets -
including the broader industries/networks of CBOs and NGOs- are directly
impacted. The attempts to transform Egypt from a transit country into
a destination may be based on a false premise of the capability of externalisa­
tion programmes to actually impact human mobility on the ground. Yet, the
main impact of these programmes is transforming the development and
humanitarian sector, as well as instigating the growth of smaller pockets of
labour markets throughout the country, all linked to the question of politics
around migration.

Notes
1. In this paper, we use the terms transit and destination countries, even though they are
academically blurred, highly politicised, and problematic. For instance, the term ‘transit
country’ appeared for the first time in the 1990s in parallel with the European Union’s
emerging efforts to externalise borders towards their neighbouring countries.
Accordingly, which country is considered to be a transit or destination country is
often not based on empirical data, but rather on political biases (see also Düvell 2012).
However, to illuminate the logics of European politics and policies regarding North
African, we use these terms in the paper.
2. Although we do not discuss the European context in detail, we would like to raise the
question of how these funds and programs not only target Egypt, but also a European
audience and politicians as part of an attempt to legitimise the tightening of European
migration politics.
3. The Arabic and English Egyptian newspapers and news sources include: Al Masry Al
Youm, Youm7, Al Dustoor, Al Ahram, Egypt Independent, Daily News Egypt, and Mada
 GEOPOLITICS 19

Masr. The foreign news sources are the Guardian, BBC, Euronews, EUObserver,
Politico, and France24.
4. In many occasions, we did not get any response from international organisations,
unless we personally knew staff. We received initial approval to conduct an interview
with staff from an IO on their development projects related to EUTF, but when we
followed up for location and time, we received no response and finally gave up after
multiple follow-up emails.
5. Hence, we decided that all interview and discussion partners, including the organisations
they work for, remain anonymous.
6. Also, only 1% of the funding is used to support legal emigration towards Europe (Bartels
2019, 4).
7. Over the last five decades, there have frequently been economic agreements, endeavours
and dispersal of development aid from the global North to the global South, in the hope
of reducing migration movements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) in the 1990s.
8. Thereby the Global Compact on Migration in 2018 revisited and reiterated the idea that
migration is an issue that needs to be solved, often through securitised means. According
to Dennison, Fine, and Gowan (2019, 15), ‘the conflation of securitised migration
management with the SDGs provides European donors with a way to allocate funds to
limiting migration flows while still claiming to maintain their focus on poverty, health,
climate change mitigation, and other SDGs’.
9. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) stated that there
are 9.47 million Egyptian expatriates as of 2017, 6.23 million in the Arab world and
1.24 million in Europe, See more here: https://www.capmas.gov.eg/Pages/ShowPDF.
aspx?page_id=%20/Admin/Pages%20Files/2017109143840cns.pdf
10. In 2017, UNHCR Egypt referred 3,003 cases for resettlement, and 1,932 refugees were
able to depart for their destinations, predominantly to the United States and
Australia. With the onset of Covid-19, these numbers decreased drastically, but are
beginning to pick back up. In 2022, 2,834 refugees were submitted for resettlement
consideration to Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,
Switzerland, the UK and US, while 4,101 refugee departed for resettlement countries
(UNHCR 2023).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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