EFFEXT project concludes: Reflecting on the effects of EU externalisation

The Effects of Externalisation (EFFEXT) project concluded its four-year project period with a stakeholder and academic conference, held in collaboration with Addis Ababa University in December 2024. While the project researchers were gathered together in Addis, we took the opportunity to reflect on the project period and highlight some significant findings and research from the project.

The project gathered data from six countries across the Middle East and Africa: Senegal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Libya, Jordan, and Lebanon. While a diverse set of countries, some commonalities in how their borders and areas are managed emerged throughout the duration of the project. Significantly, each country hosts a large refugee and migrant population, and each country has experienced external intervention in its migration policy landscape.

Reflecting back on the start of the project, project leader, Cathrine Talleraas, highlighted the timeliness of the project: “Major efforts are currently geared towards improving the international systems for migration management. This includes the Global Compact for Migration, the Global Compact for Refugees, and the frequently renewed regional agendas aimed at strengthening migration governance collaboration. Yet, many of these initiatives can be criticised for originating from EU concerns, and not accounting for the countries in which the policies are enacted.”

Ida Marie Vammen, senior researcher at the Danish Institute of International Studies and project researcher, agreed: “In the context of rising anti-French and anti-Western sentiments in West Africa, examining the impact of EU externalization and its ripple effects, including how these dynamics shape local forms of resistance, is crucial.”

One key project finding was that of rippling effects. As Cathrine Talleraas explained, rippling effects refer to the unintended consequences of migration policy, implemented in Europe with the target being Africa and the Middle East. Such effects may be intended or unintended results of externally-implemented migration policies. Turning to her fieldwork in Ghana, Talleraas explained “in Ghana, the research highlighted that the Ghanaian border agency have been modernised, expanded, and professionalised. However, it also revealed more subtle, yet consequential implications, including increased reliance on external funding, shifts in local border dynamics, and the criminalisation of legal emigration.”

Ida Marie Savio Vammen also uncovered examples of the rippling effects of EU policies, in reference to her work in Senegal, she found: “the multifaceted ripple effects of EU and European actors’ externalization initiatives and discourses, particularly how they influence civil society actors’ and activists’ engagement with migration issues and policies. Civil society organizations (CSOs) often become key intermediaries in the migration industry, implementing EU-funded projects as they struggle for financial support.” In a forthcoming special issue from the project, Vammen and Talleraas explain these concepts further – compiling evidence of the rippling effects of externalization policies across a number of different global contexts.

Reaching the hard-to-reach

The six countries at the core of the project (Ghana, Libya, Senegal, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Jordan) each presented unique research challenges and opportunities. Turning to the case of Libya, EFFEXT and DIIS researcher Hans Lucht indicated that Libya is a vastly understudied country, especially considering the importance it holds in trans-Saharan migration. Therefore, interesting and important research conducted during the project has highlighted new ethnographic data from the hard-to-reach border areas of the country. However, research in this country was challenging due to the difficult-to-navigate political landscape of the country and the lack of accessibility of interlocutors. But, as Lucht emphasised, it was important for the project to study the understudied.

Similarly, in the case of Lebanon, a key issue raised by the researchers was the shrinking policy space in Lebanon – especially in the context of the collapse of the Lebanese government and the lack of policy and logistical infrastructure in the country. As such, new initiatives and organisations are growing to fill the void, but this landscape remains hard to navigate and explore. Additionally, the ongoing war has made research difficult. For Are Knudsen, CMI research professor and project researcher, having good local connections and knowing the local context was vital for conducting the relevant research.

Bringing together the local and the international

A key ethos motivating the project was to collaborate and engage with researchers from the countries in which the research was conducted – this was evident throughout the research process, and also in the organization of conferences and workshops. At both the mid-stage workshop in December 2022 in Beirut, and in the end conference in December 2024 in Addis Ababa, local and international academics and policy-makers came together in dialogue.

At the end conference, Kiya Gezahegne, project researcher and senior lecturer at Addis Ababa University highlighted the importance of holding this conference in Addis Ababa: “it is essential to have these conversations about the effects of externalization in a regional context. Ethiopia is the hub of most mobility from the continent and the home of the African Union, and therefore it was important to have these conversations in Ethiopia and including African scholars and policy-makers.” Importantly, Kiya also highlighted the need for more mutual collaboration and the need for more space to research issues in the global south with researchers from the global south. She indicated that often these conversations happen in the global north, without full cooperation or collaboration with scholars who are located in the countries at the heart of the study.

Talleraas also emphasised this and spoke of the importance of the project in integrating perspectives from stakeholders from Africa and the Middle East: “By bringing the perspectives of stakeholders in Africa and the Middle East to the fore, we might be able to contribute with insights that enable more transparent and coherent migration policy collaboration.”

Additionally, one key issue facing this approach is that funding is often located in and allocated from the global north, meaning that there is a prioritization of funds that leans towards the interests of the global north. Further, funding is often pre-allocated to institutions within the global north, and therefore it can be difficult to implement a full project partnership with institutions and individuals located elsewhere. Zoe Jordan agreed: “There has been plenty of research on EU external migration policy – but it’s largely been from the perspective of EU actors, and in relation to their interests and priorities. I imagine this is partly because a lot of the money funding research is coming from within the EU. Perhaps there is also an assumption that the EU is a big financial and political player that is capable of imposing its agenda elsewhere.” 

Future research avenues

When asked about the next steps for the research, and the researchers, Cathrine Talleraas smiled and said, “watch this space,” but on a more serious note, she highlighted that the work is not over, and there are still many questions that remain. Specifically, she highlighted that while the project did examine some under-researched areas, there are other countries that have not yet been examined in this context, or with this lens: “to better understand policy making and implementation at all levels, we need to examine those areas which have not yet been examined.”