West African Interests in (EU) Migration Policy

The discussion of EU-African cooperation on migration often primarily takes the interests of EU member states into account. However, this Policy Brief takes an in-depth look at Ghana and Senegal, two stable West African democracies. It assesses which types of migration policies these West African states wish to develop, and why that is so. Our findings suggest differentiations ought to be made between different types of West-African interests in migration policy. On the one hand, there are long-standing domestic policy interests such as a closer engagement with the diaspora and the creation of legal migration channels. On the other hand, some newer migration policy interests including stricter border controls have emerged in the context of the growing internationalisation of West African migration policy-making. Each type of policy interest is defended by an increasingly diverse set of national actors, with converging but at times also conflicting interests.