News Analysis: New EU migration fund not enough to solve problems: African observers

As the European Union on Thursday announced to set up a trust fund to address root causes of irregular migration in Africa on the sidelines of a Europe-Africa summit here, some African observers upheld that the pledge was not enough to solve problems.

"There is no result of the summit," said Marie-Roger Biloa, Chief Executive Director of the Africa International Media Group, noting that the EU has been discussing this issue for decades, and Africans also gathered before to make proposals on the basis of figures and plans, but not much has happened.

Biloa said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua that now the EU announced to set up a fund to help African countries to retain their citizens in their country, but the Africans perhaps do not want to see more and more refugee camps to be built.

"If you really want to put money for some important matter, that should be more. And the issue is who will run the money, how well will it go and for what? Obviously it is not clear," Biloa doubted, saying she was not satisfied with the outcome.

Biloa said that compared with Europe's reaction like it was feeling a "catastrophe," the African side's reaction is "cool," because they think some other part of the world are witnessing more migrants.

She said some African countries, whose economic powers are not stronger than European countries, welcomed sometimes "more migrants than the European countries."

"We have the summit now because Europe is in sort of shock because of the migration wave mainly coming from Syria through countries like Turkey," she said, adding that African immigration only made up a few part of the refugee flow.

She said the problem in Africa is that the economies are not doing well, and there are problems with governances. All the problems drove people to leave their homes.

"Some problems are that the African countries did not get enough investment to create jobs and they do not have fair treatment when they export their goods for instance," she said.

"So now they say we are doing a fund, what is that fund for, what is it good for, it's superficial, it is not something that has the size of the problem to solve," she said.

Earlier on Thursday, Senegal's President Macky Sall said the newly-established emergency trust fund of 1.8 billion euros (1.93 billion U.S. dollars) set up by the EU was "absolutely not enough" for Africa to solve issues concerning the refugee flow to Europe.

Sall made the remarks on the sidelines of the two-day summit, noting that Europe and Africa had to develop legal immigration, to give greater opportunity to African people to show them, for example, that they can come to Europe to study.

"We have to work together, we have to ask our partners to bring more money, and we are very committed to working very closely," said Sall.

"In West Africa where 25 percent of the population is from other countries, and they have been integrated and (the situation) is going well," said Cote d'Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara, noting that migrants were not leaving his country, as the economic and political situation was very good, and "that is what everyone should try to do (in that regard)."

The Valletta summit on Nov. 11 and 12 was called by the European Council in April this year to discuss migration issues with African and other key countries concerned. The emergency trust fund for Africa was one of the main deliverables of this summit.

The summit brought together about 63 European and African heads of state or government as well as a large number of international and regional organizations. Leaders also rolled out a 17-page action plan concerning the migration issue. Endit