Watch the recording of this webinar on YouTube.

African migration in the 21st century has become a global topic for debate, dispute and increasingly, policymaking. While Europe has reacted with a number of policies to restrict and control migration to its continent, African migrants’ destinations are overwhelmingly not to Europe but to other African states, with intra-African migration reaching approximately 20 million in 2019 and South Africa remaining the most significant destination country.

Bad governance, armed conflicts and livelihood insecurities, closely interconnected with urbanization, are the main factors which have driven both intra and inter-continental migration. COVID-19 has had an unparalleled effect on human mobility in Africa. It has exacerbated the difficulties faced by migrants, as border closures and travel restrictions have severely affected most forms of legal cross-border mobility. At the same time the pandemic has produced new drivers of migration under increasingly difficult economic circumstances.

This webinar aims to provoke a discussion about migration within and beyond Africa in time of pandemic, taking a broad approach and building on new findings produced by key actors on migration to bring the debate forward, in search of new best practices and lessons learnt.

Programme

Chair: Jean-Louis De Brouwer, Egmont Institute

• Aissata Kane, IOM Senior Regional Advisor for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Francesco Luciani, Expert Migration and Forced Displacement, Cabinet Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen, European Commission
• Raffaella Greco Tonegutti, Enabel
• Andrew McDonnel, Search For Common Ground

Conclusions: Prof. Dr. Nina Wilén, Egmont Institute.

The working language will be English.
Participants should register by 31 January (at 20.00).

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(Photo credit: Mamadou Traore, Pixabay)