News

An introductory online training to the Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP) monitoring database will begin in February. This training is offered to all JVAP partners to help them easily and effectively use the JVAP monitoring database. It is essential to ensure the success of the next Valletta Senior Officials Meeting, in Addis Ababa - Ethiopia. If not already done, the Khartoum Focal Points are invited to nominate as soon as possible a Contact Point, supporting them in the data collection and entry process.

Nominations shall be submitted by latest 9^th February to the JVAP team: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

On 7th December 2017, Members of the Khartoum Process met in Rome, for the last Senior Officials' meeting of the year which solidified Ethiopia’s handover of its Chairmanship of the Process to Italy.

Italy made reference to the Rome Declaration, adopted at the Ministerial Conference in Rome in 2014, whereby the members of the Process agreed to assist participating states in tackling human trafficking and smuggling between the Horn of Africa and Europe. Three years later, those present again in Rome agreed on the need for an assessment of achievements to date, with a view to explore further paths of cooperation through a range of dedicated thematic meeting and trainings put forward as a rich programme for the year.

The new Chair also stressed the importance of regarding migration as a transnational phenomenon which as a result cannot be addressed by one state alone and therefore requires a high degree of coordination between the EU and AU as well as between European and African partner countries; both continents should work together towards common goals.

 As well as a review of the Projects and initiatives under the Programme, the meeting more broadly looked to the preparation of the Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP) Senior Officials Meeting foreseen for the 2^nd quarter of 2018. This meeting will, amongst other topic discussions, look concretely at the means of implementation of projects under the JVAP priority actions as its framework for follow up and review.

In November 2017, in Sudan, Members of the Khartoum Process met for their 7^th thematic meeting since its inception. The theme: addressing the root causes of irregular migration.

Since its inception, the Process has acknowledged the importance of addressing the root causes/drivers of irregular migration. Its 2014 Rome Declaration lays emphasis on "addressing the push and pull factors, and the root causes of irregular migration and mixed migration flows between Africa and Europe and underlining in this context the importance of promoting sustainable development, in line with the global development agenda".

The meeting, which took place on 22^nd and 23^rd November in Khartoum, focussed on the factors behind irregular migratory movements on both national and regional levels, with the aim of better understanding the drivers of irregular migration in the specific context of Khartoum Process countries. In this respect, the meeting encouraged partner countries to target strategies and policies in country, in  response to the fruitful discussions of the meeting where gaps where idenitified and best practices shared.

On 8^th and 9^th November, the Trilateral Meeting between the representatives of the AU-Horn of Africa Initiative, the Khartoum Process, and the Rabat Process took place in Luxor, hosted by Egypt.

Delegates, country representatives and international organisations as well as experts from all three Processes, engaged in a series of plenary and breakout sessions throughout the two day meeting. What ensued were fruitful discussions between the representatives of all Processes on the matters of migrant smuggling and trafficking of people, focusing on unaccompanied minors, where participants agreed to enhance operational synergies, advance joint efforts in addressing the common challenges, and expedite information flow between the processes.

Endorsed Chair’s conclusions will follow in due course.

Photos of the meeting were taken by Ziad Abdelbasit and can be found here.

On 5th October, the first issue of the Khartoum Process newsletter was published. The theme is the 'year of implementation' which focuses on the projects under the Process and the progress of their implementation to date. The current Chair of the Khartoum Process, Ethiopia opens the issue with a foreword and with updates from various projects readers are given an insight into the activities on the ground. You can subscribe to the newsletter on the home page of this website.

On 5-6 July 2017, the UK hosted EU and African partners of the Khartoum Process to agree on how to combat smuggling and trafficking in the Horn of Africa. The thematic meeting was specifically on ‘Tackling People Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings, including through enhanced Border Management’. Discussions were therefore focused on cross-border investigative cooperation; capacity building; stronger governance; and compatible legislative frameworks. 

There was evidently strong discussions and desire for cooperation between the participants and discussions led to tangible points for action and follow up. Significant contributions were made by African partners and Expertise France (French Agency for international technical cooperation).

Amongst the key topics, a need to tackle cross-border financial flows: both small payments to smugglers and larger transfers of profits, was also highlighted. Participants agreed to focus on key transit hubs to combat smugglers and traffickers and to build trust with locals and migrants alike. 

The UK will now work with partners to develop an action plan, which will be presented to the Khartoum Process Steering Committee in October, to ensure delivery within the areas highlighted.

The Khartoum Process held its first thematic meeting on 2017 in Berlin, hosted by Germany one of the Process' five (of ten) European Steering Commitee Members.  The meeting, taking place on 18 and 19th May, was opened by Commissioner Grzeski and welcomed experts from across the region on the topics as well as key representatives and experts from the UNHCR, IGAD and the World Bank, amongst others. Uganda also joined the Process for the first time during its inception in the steps to obtaining membership of the Process. For the first time in the Process, the delegates were split into small groups of subtopics under the theme to brainstorm solutions to many of the challenges raised.

The below include some of the concluding remarks of the meeting, communicated by the Chair:

Key observations

• Protection challenges are high. In many cases, they are not specific to refugees but are more development and environmental challenges to refugees and host societies alike.
• In the future, we will have even more competition for resources due to the demographic developments. What we need is the “whole of society” approach. The key requirement is the political will. We need clarity on policy and political framework.
• We have discussed how durable solutions can be reached and could look like. Key among them is the access to education and livelihood. 
• It became equally clear that donor interventions and the international community at large have to always keep the interest of the host communities in mind.
• Several participants also mentioned that we need a stronger engagement of the private sector. 

Next steps

• The issues are currently addressed via several global initiatives. We have to create synergies between these.
• The meeting has helped participants to learn more about what is really needed. This was very useful for the identification of future priorities and the existing gaps in project portfolios.
• The “whole of society” approach is necessary; but it requires new thinking both in the humanitarian and development community.
• Finally, we have to continue our work on finding legal and orderly pathways.

Ethiopia hosted the Senior Officials Meeting of the Khartoum Process in Addis Ababa on 6 April 2017 which was dedicated to a discussion of the implementation of the Khartoum Process work plan for the year 2017. The Meeting was opened by a welcoming address of the Chair of the Khartoum Process, the European Commission and the African Union Commission, who all underlined the importance of the focus on the implementation.

As an introduction to the meeting and context, the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS) updated the participants on the migratory trends and flows from and within the region, with a specific focus on generic and new trends as well as responses to these, their impact and the resulting policy challenges.

Given the short time span between the two SOMs (December 2016 – April 2017), the main update concerned the 2017 Joint Valletta Action Plan Senior Officials Meeting. Special attention was dedicated to the presentation of the long term monitoring and reporting tool elaborated by ICMPD to ensure a throughout circulation of the information on the methods of populating the database by the members, with the active assistance of the focal points.

Thereafter, discussions moved to the timeline of activities and meetings for the year 2017 namely thematic meetings, trainings with the aim of operationalising key thematic meeting topics from 2016 as well as the possibility of another informal working group and finally a Senior Officials Meeting leading up to the handover of the Ethiopian Chairmanship of the Process at the end of this year into 2018.

On projects and activities, the EU Trust Fund was presented with an update on funding figures and Member States also updated the attendees on national initiatives and the state of play. More information on national initiatives being implemented will available on the website soon.

Finally, upon an introduction by the Chair to the topic and followed by a presentation by IOM, Members of the Process agreed that contributions of the Khartoum Process to the UN Global Compact on Migrants (GCM) will be a key objective for this year leading up to the (GCM) meeting in Mexico in 2018.