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Europe, Africa leaders roll out action plan to tackle refugee crisis

Xinhua, November 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Leaders from European and African countries here on Thursday struck up an action plan to tackle the refugee crisis at the two-day Europe-Africa summit on migration.

The action plan was built around five priority domains, which include addressing root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement, legal migration and mobility, protection and asylum, the fight against people smuggling, and return, readmission and reintegration.

The 17-page action plan with sixteen priority initiatives will be launched before the end of 2016.

Leaders agreed to set up pilot projects that pool offers for legal migration for work, study, research, and vocational training, by some EU Member States or associated countries to select African countries.

Meanwhile, they will organize workshops on visa facilitation.

The action plan also committed to establishing or upgrading national and regional anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking legislation, in countries of origin, transit, and destination.

"We commit to address the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement resulting from state fragility and insecurity, as well as from demographic, economic and environmental trends," said the leaders in a political declaration released after the summit came to a close Thursday afternoon.

According to the action plan, substantial EU funds are available for this endeavor. The EU, its Member States and associated countries will step up efforts to factor migration into their development cooperation.

In parallel, an EU emergency trust fund to address migration and displaced persons, which was newly established earlier Thursday on the sidelines of the summit, will provide additional funding to aid in a flexible, speedy and efficient delivery of support and better migration management.

Moreover, the European Investment Bank, in cooperation with African partners, the European Commission and other financial institutions, can provide financing to support self-sustaining economic growth and the development of human capital.

The Valletta summit took place on Nov. 11 and 12 and brought together around 63 European and African heads of state or government. A large number of international and regional organizations also participated in the summit. Endit