Fight irregular migration, return and reintegrate migrants, create more legal pathways to the EU: The European Union set high goals with its Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. DW examines whether the EUTF achieved them.

Faced with hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in EU countries in 2015, policymakers from member states felt the pressure to show a quick reaction. Convening with the leaders of several African countries in the Maltese capital, Valletta, they decided to fill a pot of money. This money was not dedicated to helping integrate the thousands of people who had arrived in the European Union. Instead, the so-called EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) was supposed to "address the root causes of irregular migration" so that fewer Africans might try to make their — often dangerous — way to Europe.

Was this goal reached six years and €5 billion later? Together with partner newsrooms within the European Data Journalism Network, DW is taking stock of the EUTF. More than 250 projects were initiated through to the official end of the project assignment phase in December 2021, and many of them are still up and running, with the peak disbursement of EUTF funds in summer 2020. With the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) already set up as the next tool — and with €8 billion ($9 billion) likely to be allocated to the migration management efforts — it is worth looking at the data available.

The EUTF had several objectives that had been presented as equal in the initial documents: Addressing the root causes of irregular migration, preventing and fighting smuggling and trafficking, strengthening protection for people fleeing their homes, improving cooperation on return and reintegration, and advancing the possibilities for legal migration.

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