Forced Migration and Regionalism in Africa Today
The Refocus: An Online Summer Forced Migration in Africa Workshop Series ran in April 2024, with the aims of facilitating the development of knowledge and critical thinking on forced migration and protection issues in Africa; and facilitating the training of early career and emerging scholars. The theme of the series was forced migration and regionalism in Africa today. Over four sessions, more than 300 participants engaged with key and contemporary issues on this topic.
After the series, participants were invited to write short submissions (either short essays, blog submissions, or a piece of creative writing) on the theme. This blog series is a collection of some of excellent blog submissions we received from early career researchers. We hope these submissions can promote further dialogue on this important topic.
This blog series was guest edited by Dr Nicholas Maple, RLI and the Refocus Series was run by the Refugee Law Initiative, University of London, the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana; the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand; and the African Academy of Migration Research (AAMR). To listen back to all four sessions of the Series, follow this link to our Spotify channel. The Refocus Series organisers would like to thank the editors of the RLI blog for their assistance throughout.
Rethinking European Security: The Strategic Missteps of EU Border Externalisation in North Africa
Blog post by Megan Powell, Independent Researcher. * Introduction The European Union (EU) faces a critical dilemma in its approach to immigration: its increasingly securitised policies are undermining long-term European security. In recent decades, the movement of...
Charting a Course for Change: Policy Responses to Save Missing Migrants in the Central Mediterranean
Blog post by Amira Abouzeid, Migration Policy Practitioner and Fulbright Scholar at California State University, Long Beach. * The problem of missing migrants across the Central Mediterranean route is a complex policy issue, in part because it encompasses various...
The ECtHR’s potential role in African climate change displacement
Blog post by Paula Küppers * Climate change is a significant driver of displacement across Africa, with an estimated 7.4 million people internally displaced in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate-related disasters in 2022. While most climate-related displacement...
Out of camp and RLO support: two areas with potential to significantly improve Ethiopia’s refugee response
Blog post by Mehreteab Ghebregergs. Mehreteab is the country manager for Ethiopia for the Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat (ReDSS). Mehreteab’s research interests include human rights, in particular in the context of displacement. Ethiopia has been in the...
The role of Courts in the era of EU externalization policies: A focus on Libya, Tunisia, and Niger
Blog post by Chiara Scissa, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Bologna Alma Mater Studiorum.* This blog maps out the key features of externalization policies between the EU and its Member States with strategic African countries. Because of their key role in...