Using EU aid to address the root causes of migration and refugee flows

Abstract

The book looks at the potential use of the EU's external financial instruments to address the root causes of migration and refugee inflows. After providing an updated survey of the literature on aid and migration and looking at the actual responsiveness of EU aid to migration and refugee pressures, the book takes stock of the different financial instruments the EU has at its disposal, including new facilities such as the trust funds for Africa and for the Syrian refugee crisis, the Facility for Refugees in Turkey and the EU's External Investment Plan. It also looks at the relevance of climate finance for developing countries as an instrument to ease forced displacement and at the role of migrant remittances, which although not an official flow, are four times larger than ODA and can be influenced by public policy. The last part of the study discusses whether aid effectiveness can be strengthened through bilateral cooperation with recipient countries in the context of migration or refugee compacts. This sets the scene for assessing the design and results obtained by the EU through a number of such cooperation agreements, notably the EU-Jordan Compact, the EU-Turkey Statement and the new Partnership Framework with Third Countries on Migration.