Extreme weather, dwindling resources, and violent conflict are forcing millions in the Horn of Africa from their homes. This commentary delves into migration governance challenges, good practices, and gaps, providing recommendations for scalable solutions in the region and beyond, as highlighted during a recent Khartoum Process workshop on “Navigating the Nexus: Climate Change and Displacement in Conflict-Affected Settings.”

With another academic year underway, talent stakeholders should already be thinking about how they can convince this year’s graduates, and international students more broadly, to stay and take up in-demand jobs. Universities, employers, local economic development actors, and governments all have a role to play in facilitating the move from the classroom to the workplace – and they should engage, together, sooner rather than later.  

Takeaways from Vienna Migration Conference 2024, ICMPD’s annual flagship event, held 22-23 October 2024.

This commentary reflects on the major migration-related policy developments over the past four years that influenced or culminated in the EU’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum. It describes a radically changed landscape since 2020, when governments — principally out of realpolitik — broke taboos, one by one, right across the migration policy spectrum, a trend which looks set to continue after the European elections on 6-9 June.   

This timeline charts the key EU migration policy developments and events influencing the discourse on migration during the 2019-2024 European Commission. 

This infographic provides an introduction to working holidays and other youth mobility schemes, explaining their potential benefits and how they can be expanded in EU Member States.

While the Temporary Protection Directive has been praised for its success in providing immediate assistance to millions, uncertainty remains about what will happen once it ends. One option that has recently gained attention is to further prolong temporary protection beyond March 2025. It may seem straightforward to simply extend temporary protection by another year, yet this may create some important challenges beyond deferring longer term decisions.

Africa-to-Europe value chains in manufacturing and agri-food production can mitigate factors driving current migration patterns by employing Africans in local value-added production and boosting African GDP growth, reorienting Africa-Europe relations towards mutual economic benefit and dignity.

Though Europe has come a long way, it is not yet ready to be the leading talent destination of the world. Despite progress, there are obstacles that leaders and practitioners across Europe must still overcome before the region can call itself the place where the global labour market comes to live, study, and work. An emphasis on ‘living’ is more important than ever in this equation.

Conventional wisdom holds that Europe should use tools from all policy fields, especially the holy trinity of visa, trade, and aid incentives, to reach its migration goals. But what if the prescribed medicine only works for a few patients? New research spells out three uncomfortable truths that should guide Europe’s use of carrots and sticks in migration cooperation in the future.  

Immigrant integration remains a pressing issue for policymakers in Europe and beyond, and monitoring reports offer a useful resource for collecting evidence and assessing integration outcomes and policies. This commentary highlights how integration monitoring can be a beneficial policy tool and provides insight on how to address potential challenges when developing and conducting integration monitoring.    

Takeaways from Vienna Migration Conference 2023, ICMPD’s annual flagship event, held 10-11 October 2023.

National policies of dispersal, which seek to distribute asylum seekers across different parts of the country, typically give only limited consideration to newcomers’ professional profiles and personal preferences and to characteristics of receiving communities. If they are willing to look at the fuller picture, and facilitate a better match, dispersal policies can become more effective in supporting integration and fostering local development.

The EU Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) has now been activated for 18 months, providing immediate assistance to millions who fled the war in Ukraine. While it has been praised for its success, uncertainty remains about what will happen once it ends. Discussions have put forth ideas ranging from EU-wide approaches to individual national solutions. The urgency of this matter, however, has yet to fully resonate with policymakers and commentators, even as we reach the halfway point of the directive’s maximum duration. Just 18 months remain to forge a plan for what will come after. 

The Russian attempt at outright invasion of Ukraine has caused huge loss of life and led to levels of forced displacement unprecedented in recent history. Over six million people from Ukraine have sought protection abroad, with a significant proportion crossing into neighbouring Moldova. Currently hosting more Ukrainian refugees per capita than any other state, Moldova has shown remarkable resilience in accommodating Ukrainians, now hosted under a temporary protection regime.