City Diplomacy and Human Mobility in Africa. Protecting Refugees and Migrants along the Central Mediterranean Route from the East and the Horn of Africa
Cities face constraints to work on migration and refugee issues, often due to a lack of decentralisation and resource constraints. Adopting an inclusive city approach can safeguard local authorities’ commitment towards providing protection to residents regardless of status, while not overstepping legal mandates.
In contrast, when afforded more space to work on these issues, local authorities and other actors are able to more directly target refugees and migrants by developing specific programming or engaging in city diplomacy to advocate for their protection.
Cities of transit along mixed movement routes may not be well connected to existing initiatives, while they fulfill a key mandate. Actors should focus on improving access to these cities through mitigating constraints.
Urban migration stakeholders can enhance partnerships by connecting cities along routes with common needs, or with relevant experience, to help and share capacity-building strategies or good practices.
The aim of this conference was to take stock of current debates and initiatives on city diplomacy, particularly in East Africa. Based on a multi-stakeholder approach, it brought together experts from Africa and Europe involved in partnerships at municipal and local level to identify the challenges of city diplomacy and its concrete results. Particular attention was paid to empirical research and data on existing forms of city diplomacy and their results.
Here is a video summary of the initiative, led by Sina Schlimmer, research fellow and coordinator of the Governing the Urban Transition in Africa research programme at Ifri's Sub-Saharan Africa Centre.
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City Diplomacy and Human Mobility in Africa. Protecting Refugees and Migrants along the Central Mediterranean Route from the East and the Horn of Africa
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Governing the Urban Transition in Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa's cities are experiencing the fastest growth rates in the world. By 2050, most of the countries in the region will have made an urban transition, meaning that more than 50% of their population will live in urban areas. Urban growth is often presented as a cornerstone of the continent's socio-economic development.
To assess these challenges Ifri’s Sub-Saharan Africa Center is launching, in May 2022, a research program looking into the major socio-economic and geopolitical challenges of urban dynamics on the continent.
The program deals with urban development in Africa through a sectoral and cross-cutting approach based on three key sectors:
- Land issues are the foundation of urban life. Each urban project triggers changes within the relationship between land and its inhabitants.
- Urban infrastructure is often presented as a solution to the challenges of demographic growth in cities. However, the lack of infrastructure and its financing remains a concern for specialists.
- The mobility of goods, people and financial flows is characteristic of urban life and drives the multiple links between cities and the countryside. Analyzing the urban-rural continuum is at the heart of this program's objectives.
Research will be conducted at the macro (continental), meso (country), and micro (city/neighborhood) levels and will be promoted through events and publications.
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