 Good afternoon. Good morning, everyone. We are going to begin our Sahel panel. Before we get started on behalf of the Director General and the IOM staff, I would like to pay tribute to the civil and military fatalities which took place and we would also like to extend our condolences to the victims. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor and a pleasure for me to moderate this high-level panel on mobility dynamics in the Sahel as a stakeholder in our thematic discussions and the 110th session of the IOM member council. Allow me at the outset to wish you a warm welcome as we talk about such an important subject which is very much a current one. I would also like to welcome my IOM colleague who will be able to give you an overview of the programs and IOM interventions in the region. Human mobility in Sahel is part of an inter- and extra-African context and is multi-versed. We must paint a picture of this mobility dynamic in order to understand its causes and challenges. This discussion will allow us to obtain food for thought in order to promote mobility which is safe, orderly, and human above all. As has been observed, this mobility is linked to rainy and agricultural seasonal migration, transhumance, conflict-based displacement, climate insecurity, seeking job opportunities particularly in the mining industry, cotton plantations, fishing, travel for religious festivities, or simply tourism. This mobility is part of the labor-based migration in Sub-Saharan Africa particularly towards Northern Africa and Europe. This panel is part of an effort to better understand the challenges in terms of security, humanitarian emergencies, and development. It will allow us to review the resilience of the communities that are affected by the situation, particularly populations that are dealing with internal crises, inter-community violence, terrorist attacks, and also climate changes. Natural catastrophes are particularly concerning given the growing desertification of the region and the drop in rainfall. These concerns could help us to analyze migration and health as well which is a major issue when we talk about the cyclical mobility of populations through the Sahel countries and outside of it. It will also be interesting to hear from the approaches of regional partners such as the EU and the UN bodies in the IOM in particular regarding the cross-border approach to be taken. I have the honor and the pleasure to introduce those, for example, to my left, who has been in animal husbandry organizations for two decades. He is a member of the Bilateral Micobi Network which is a recognized interlocutor for sub-regional organizations in Africa. It covers nine countries in the sub-region. 75 animal husbandry organizations have more than 500,000 members. Its actions benefit around 2 million individuals. Then you have Dr. Buna Yatasi, who is a dentist and surgeon by trade and is also the Assistant Director-General of the National Health Security Agency since 2016. He manages the agency and is very much involved in taking strategic decisions on epidemiological surveillance and managing emergencies. He participated in managing the Ebola crisis in Guinea. Then we have Mr. Angel Losada Fernández who requires no introduction and is the Special Representative of the EU in the Sahel. He has been since 2015 before he was the rotating ambassador for the EU for Sahel and the Special Envoy to Libya between 2014 and 2015. Before he joined the EU, he had a long career in Spanish diplomacy where he held multiple positions in multiple countries. He holds a law degree from the University of Navarra and also a degree in international studies from the Spanish Diplomatic Academy. Also, Mr. Richard Dunzinger, who is currently the Regional Director for West and Central Africa in IOM, and he has been since 2016. Before he was in Afghanistan for three years as the head of mission, he greatly contributed to the Bali process on traffic of migrants, human trafficking and associated cross-border crime. He was also a founding member of the steering committee of the UN initiative to fight against human trafficking, UN gift, and also chair of the World Economic Forum Committee on illicit trade and organized crime. I would like to turn to Mr. Vordema, who will talk to us about the impact of climate change on migration and mobility. Thank you very much, ma'am. Before I start, I would like to join my voice in recognizing all of the violence that has taken place in our sub-region throughout the world and has victimized people. We would like to share our condolences and our pain with the international community and everyone who is here. I see no need to further introduce myself or my organization, seeing as they have already been introduced very well. I would like to explain why BMN exists, or RBM, rather, in French. It was founded in 2004 because of a number of emerging challenges, namely the fact that national organizations realize that cross-border transhumance would not be able to be dealt with on just the level of one country. There had to be synergies created between multiple countries because they were all involved. And then beyond that, climate change, which is a major theme of our discussion. Also, animal husbandry has always been the poor step-sister of our politics and our region policies. And also, youth, generally, young people are disillusioned by the possibility of animal husbandry. And all of these challenges led to us creating RBM in 2004. So, I will talk about the two major challenges we need to address today. The first is climate change. And the second is safety and security in the area. So, climate change has had a lasting effect on animal husbandry in time and space, at least in West Africa. We've suffered a great deal. And the effects can be seen through the degradation of natural resources, the growth of disease among animals, a decrease in productivity of said animals, increasing poverty among shepherds, and a reduced level of mobility. And that's because all of the strategic resources are increasingly controlled by specific groups and individuals, which reduces mobility. For this phenomenon, we could add the following. How shall I put it? There is growing insecurity in the region, as you know, full well. This affects the entire style. And this is probably going to last. These two phenomena have an enormous impact on the livelihoods of local shepherds. In other words, they have reduced space for their activity and agriculture gains ground. Mobility is also hampered. Natural resources are privatized. And all this increases their vulnerability to say nothing of internal conflicts. So, all this has led us to take specific measures. At the national level, we try to strengthen the capacities of our shepherds so that they are knowledgeable in many facets of life. We try to promote avoiding catastrophes by providing more information, promoting political dialogue, and we also try to manage potential food crises at a regional level. There are also collaborative efforts. We also want to raise awareness with respect to conflicts in those contexts. We support the initiatives that try to give greater security to those who practice animal husbandry in the face of private companies. We also want to give them greater security with respect to the lands they use. And we also set up platforms to identify causes for potential conflicts and their resolution. We also carry out economic initiatives that try to include young people. We want to have a very comprehensive approach so that we have a systematic integration of practices that can be sensitive to conflict resolution. That's all I can say in general terms. I'm very expecting with respect to your specific questions because obviously I can't address every single aspect of climate change, insecurity, and the different partnerships we have in one single speech. So I'm definitely available to answer all of your questions and I'm an amount of action, more than an amount of theory in any case. Thank you very much. Thank you for that presentation, which was extremely interesting and I'm sure there will be many questions later on. I'll give the floor now to Dr. Buna Yataseya. Mr. Buna, you have the floor. Thank you. So I think that this panel might not be very familiar with health issues, so I'll try to focus on explaining how migration relates to health in the context of the Sahel, but since my country is not in the region, I'll try to explain how there's a dynamic relationship between Guinea and Sahel and how the issue of health has an impact. So Guinea is a West African country bordering on two Sahel countries, in other words, Mali and Senegal. We have access to the Atlantic Ocean. Guinea is a mining-rich country and this favors internal migration. In this map, you can see the migratory flows that are strong both on the inside and the outside of the country. About 9 million people migrate in this area and this important proportion come from Sahel and Guinea is an important destination for them because of mining. These mining flows, migratory flows, are also strong between Senegal and Mali. These are Sahel countries. And in this map, you'll see that Guinea is clearly a country of origin for many migrants and they use Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Morocco, Algeria, Libya even and on the other side, you have Senegal and Mauritania, all of which are Sahel countries. And these raise health concerns. On this slide, you'll see that between 2005 and 2019, over almost 19,000 individuals were repatriated. You'll see that this is the basic migratory challenge and it puts strain on an already weak health system. Our country, with the Ebola, between 2014 and 2016, has also showed the link between health and migration and its importance. Because this disease started from southern Guinea, then expanded to the entire country because of internal migration, but then from Guinea, Ebola went on to Mali, in other words, the Sahel region, and then from Mali, it went to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and from those countries, they went to Nigeria and then continued expanding to the United States, forcing WHO to state it as an international health emergency. Now, what is the situation with the potential epidemic diseases in this country? We've known cholera outbreaks at the end of last century, until 2012. Currently, there are many migrations between Guinea and Benin. There are fishermen that come to Guinea to sell their fish. This is an area that in general has a lot of migratory flows because of these resources, and there have also been outbreaks of meningitis in 2008. We actually had three of them, and with respect to yellow fever, we had over 200 cases, and often between Guinea and Mali, and Guinea and Senegal, there's a lot of migration which also carries other diseases. Now, with respect to the prevalence of HIV-AIDS, we have a prevalence rate of 10% in general terms, and the percentage increases if we're talking about those who carry out back-and-forth routes between these countries, and if we look at fishermen, we're talking about a 3.8% rate, and there's even a lower rate among those who work in the mining sector. The most vulnerable sectors with respect to this disease are small-scale mining and traditional ports, these informal access points that attract a great deal of migrants. With respect to universal health coverage, poor access to basic health care is characterized by one of these things. We don't have enough human resources and much more population lives underneath the poverty threshold. This is especially the case in mining areas and those that are hard of access, so these informal access points are also a huge challenge in this regard. In the face of all this today, we're talking about Guinea as a country of origin. So what ready is it? What is its level of preparedness in the face of future epidemics and how can Guinea protect the entire South region since it is a point of entry? So the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 led to creating a specialized structure which focuses on health safety and it set up an entire policy and system to be able to respond to health emergencies. It also developed a map of health risks and IOM has helped us a great deal and we've also implemented international sanitary regulations which is binding and clear and allows for a country to protect itself as well as neighboring countries with respect to health emergencies. We organized surveillance efforts. We work with WHO to have integrated surveillance on these diseases so that we can surveil all potential epidemic diseases and when it comes to managing health emergencies, today in our 33 prefectures we've set up specific and dedicated teams that can detect and respond quickly to health emergencies. We've also set up emergency health centers with the cooperation of IOM. Specialized teams have been rolled out and we have a team that focuses on Ebola vaccines but first and foremost, we've set up centers for epidemic treatment that can handle 25 cases at a time. When it comes to capacity building, we've adopted three different approaches. In other words, we provide on the ground training. We also work with the WHO guidelines and specialized trainings. However, on the issue of cooperation with the different partners, I'd like to say the following. With Ebola, we had 104 partners and currently we have WHO, CDC and the IOM. What do we do specifically with the IOM? Well, during the Ebola outbreak, the IOM helped us a great deal when it comes to identifying the entry points for our country and to establish a map of these entry points. It helped us to set up a check system in these access points to be able to monitor the situation and eradicate all potential risks linked to migration of other countries. Currently, there is a project to strengthen health security financed by the US CDC. Here, we want to roll out a roadmap for health safety. And you'll see that in this map, Guinea has more than 43 access points, official access points that have been clearly identified by the IOM and that each have an evaluation of their needs both in terms of human and infrastructure and also looks at training wherewithal to see what a country has in its human capital to be able to broach issues of migration. This allows us to hand in hand with the external evaluation that was carried out to find out clearly what can be done with respect to migration and these challenges. Next, we have another project still with the IOM. It's the second project that's linked with the ECOA. And here, we try to work together with the IOM and other agencies which allows us to identify vulnerable areas in forcaria prefecture and in those prefectures bordering with Mali, which is a silent country, to see what are the most vulnerable areas and how health issues can be broached at that level, both for the populations that are local inhabitants as well as migrant populations and this is financed also with the European Union support. It's an ongoing project and it has allowed us to mobilize local populations to be able to respond to their health needs, again, both the needs of residents and migrant populations. This is one of the most active borders our country has. We have about 500 people a day that leave the Cigarine prefecture to go to Mali and come back. So there's a lot of comings and goings. There's also another project that I'd like to mention that's also supported by the EU. It's called a preplan. When it comes to health emergencies, you shouldn't only focus on health. You also need to look at how the law is implemented. IOM also focuses on this. It's precisely to see how the law is implemented and how they have an impact on health emergencies and issues related to migration on all legal facets of the matter. There's another project with the Global Fund that looks at the lorry drivers that carry loads from one country to another and also we look at health workers in the context of tuberculosis and HIV. So migration and health are closely linked issues and together with the IOM, we're doing some outstanding work. We did this during the Ebola outbreak. IOM helped us a great deal to manage the challenge of migration and right now it's also accompanying our country so that we can have all the skills necessary and so that we can bear in mind the link between migration and health. There are still a few challenges ahead of us. IOM has done a great deal during the Ebola outbreak and now we can see how all this can be maintained over time. We also need to see how we can align ourselves with our partners and how structures can streamline projects because if you talk about managing the return of migrants we're talking about hundreds of people and now the IOM is doing some work but what's going to happen once the IOM steps back? How will the state take ownership of these structures? How are we going to integrate these issues, the position of these migrants in our national policies? There's also a health challenge of a broad, sad region which remains current. We need to have an eye on how migratory matters link to health. It's a major challenge for all the countries in the region and in the end what we really want is some level of continued follow-up from the IOM especially in these 43 access points two of which represent about 80% of the market workforce between Guinea and the South countries which are Senegal and Malia. This would also cover technical training but especially we do need a level of national ownership of the issue of migration and the ancillary health issues. This is the ongoing challenge. To conclude, we'd like to say that migration is very much closely related to health. We need to address these two issues hand in hand because a migrant that leaves one country will have to cross several other countries in the southern region and the southern region is now a conveyor belt practically towards Europe. This is an essential point that needs to be addressed both for the migrants traveling and local populations and these migrants that are afterwards going back to the countries later on also require specific protection during their trip and once they return they need a certain effort with respect to integration so they are not stigmatized and they also need psychological support because their goal was to go to Europe and if they did not achieve that goal the return can be quite traumatic. I want to see how we can address these issues. All these issues are extremely important in terms of migration and health. So as I've said, health, migration in the southern region as I've said before, Guinea is not a southern country but we are at its doorstep and therefore insecurity in the southern region, mobility in the southern region will definitely have a knock-on effect in our country especially with respect to health issues and since Guinea has certain diseases that have the potential to become academics we need to make sure that health issues in Guinea are broached so as to best protect the Sahel region that is all I have to say for now. I am here available to answer any of your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you Dr. Boone for that exhaustive report. I agree with you completely when you said that we need an interdisciplinary approach especially when you're talking about health emergencies it's not just a health issue we also need to look at legislation and other regulatory aspects. Now I would like to give the floor to the Ambassador who will share his comments on the European Union's work in this context. Thank you. First and foremost I'd like to join my voice to all of yours presenting my condolences to France and to all countries who have lost loved ones in Sahel which is a land that suffers increasing levels of insecurity. I also wanted to thank you for the opportunity you've offered me today an opportunity to join you I also want to thank a DG for his outstanding work and ongoing work he does and I think migration is essential I always say the following the history of humanity is ultimately the history of migration. So I'd like to focus on three points some of these I've already mentioned first of all I'd like to carry out the general evaluation of the situation in which we which exists in Sahel then I'll talk about what the EU does in that context and thirdly I'll talk about cooperation between the EU and the IOM and I'll wrap up very quickly by addressing a few key issues that need to be addressed and then I'll answer your questions with great pleasure. So first topic the general situation in the Sahel region in the Sahel region there are many different countries and the European Union focuses on five of these countries Sahel is broader than this but we focus on five countries which some of them are countries of origin others are countries of origin and of transit and these are mostly transit countries and we're talking about Mauritania it's on the receiving end because it receives a lot of migrants sadly Sahel is an area of crisis you can find all possible crises under the sun and this obviously has a direct impact on migration there is for most of a political crisis a clear political crisis the peace process in Mali is at a dead end I'll be traveling there shortly there's a issue of refugees and refugee camps and so forth pursuing the conflict in Mali that's the first one then there's a crisis of governance because there's an authority vacuum I always say that this sort of vacuum is the lifeblood of terrorism because the state is not present to implement the rule of law and local inhabitants are vulnerable to terrorists and there's also a crisis of radicalization and then there's a security crisis as well the security crisis comes from northern Mali starting from the Mali crisis that was intervened in with Sarvala afterwards this crisis went to the center of the country and now it's taking on Burkina Faso and has a direct impact on the entire Gulf of Guinea so we're talking about a crisis that is spreading like a cancer and then there's another component to this equation which isn't really a crisis but it would explain crises and that was very well explained by Mr. Boyma and that's this issue of climate change we need to add to this issue the demographic explosion that occurs in the region so on the one hand we have climate change which means that there's less arable land and a harder time for farmers and shepherds but at the same time there's a demographic explosion with a large population of young people that look to a good future, want a good future and I can't find it in these conditions and as a consequence of all this we have a terrible humanitarian crisis that affects about 7 million people just a few days ago I went there with a special representative of the Secretary General Chambas and the special representative of the SD Fala from Guinea with whom I have a very close relationship we went to the four countries on the basis of Lake Chad we visited populations that had been completely decimated by Boko Harama with terrible consequences so we're really facing a humanitarian crisis that affects some more than 7 million people in this area now obviously to try to explain all this first and foremost, as I said at the outset we recognize that Sahel is basically a land of transit this region has always been an area of transit of cultures, of wealth and so forth adding to all this, the Libyan crisis has complicated things even further this crisis has had consequences on migration when it comes to the migration that went from Ali that went to Libya to work and then returned now they no longer have that option the challenges of the Libyan peace process also complicate things and all of this basically means that the Sahel region is in the situation of a constant crisis with increasing insecurity this is a very general definition of the situation but it definitely affects migration so that's the first issue I wanted to address the second is what does the EU do in the face of the situation? well in 2011 the EU was the first to set up a Sahel strategy now we have 17 or 18 and the advantage of the strategy is that it was a precursor to the events in Mali which shows a certain amount of foresight since it happened before those events the Sahel strategy is based on two things security and development there is no security without development no development without security you can't have one without the other which is broadly accepted nowadays but at the time it was not so clear it's all well and good to have a strategy that covers the five countries that are in the G5 Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad but a strategy like that is not in and of itself is not sufficient so in 2015 the EU drafted its regional action plan this regional action plan was to try to promote a resolution to the situation in the region so we're facing a very complex issue because this regional plan that was adopted in 2015 established four clear priorities we wanted to fight against radicalization the issue of youth which is absolutely essential the challenge of migration which appeared at the time already and last but not least the issue of security and border checks these are the four major issues of the regional action plan and we're going back to the same it's all well and good to have a strategy it's wonderful to have a regional action plan but we need financing and institutions that can carry it out and at the time when we were pretty much adopting the plan there was this enormous migratory crisis with these terrible images that we all saw children dying on the beach and so forth the European Union had to shoulder its responsibilities it did so and it called it's a valid conference this conference had and still has as its mission to fight against the deep rooted causes of migration and what are these causes you might ask it's what I mentioned at the outset all these crises, all these conflicts that have a direct and indirect impact on migration at the valid conference we adopted a plan and we based ourselves on five pillars what are these five pillars? the first, as I already mentioned was to attack the deep roots of migration and this is basically everything involves development, resilience and everything the second point is to strengthen cooperation on migratory matters on a constant basis in other words to develop legal avenues to address these problems like I said at the outset the history of mankind is a history of migration we need to regulate it in some way and the third point was obviously to strengthen protection provided to migrants and refugees fourth point is the fight against illegal immigration and human trafficking because here clearly there is a shared responsibility that the authorities need to share authorities in the Sahel that should abandon their populations in the desert we have some data which is rather hard to come by to say and it's absolutely terrible to see how people die in the desert abandoned by their traffickers I was in the north in Madama meeting refugees that are living in absolutely horrendous conditions in every sense of the word and fifth and last point improve cooperation when it comes to returning and reintegrating and the reintegration of migrants this is a very political and sensitive issue but this issue of returns is also something that was on the table so it is wonderful to have all of these strategies and ideas but we need instruments to implement them and in the EU we have been quite innovative we knew that the EU and all big organizations in general have instruments which can be quite cumbersome and difficult to implement and by that we decided to create a trust fund which would be fast acting and flexible and really be adapted to the countries that are suffering so that they can take ownership and it can have a direct and immediate impact and so the trust fund which has around 4.5 million euros contributed by EU member states and others it has 210 programs for 4 billion euros of which 2 billion goes to the Sahel because there is the Maghreb aspect there's the Sahel aspect and the Horn of Africa rather these are the three tiers of the program and as I said last November 19th those were the number of projects we had in tandem with our partners in the steering committee that I am in we discussed with the partners to find out what their needs are in terms of funding and three aspects are at the heart of our work to fight against instability strengthening the capacity of our partners and in this all integrated approach to the situation maximize the impact of migration on development so these are the actions that the EU is carrying out in reaction to the situation on the ground now I would like to highlight the relationship between the EU and the IOM operationally the EU acts with its member states and is certainly the highest contributor to the IOM budget between 2015 and 2018 I believe the EU commission gave around 420 projects to the IMO with a value of 400 or rather 4 billion euros this is the initiative that we have with with the IOM for Sahel in order to protect migrants this is something that we mentioned when we talked about the Malian crisis but there is a political aspect as well that is also to be taken into account of the analysis these activities were funded through the trust funded is the first global program that brings together the Chad the Horn North Africa and the Sahel region I think it is very positive I went to the region myself in order to see the effects of the project it is a very important project and I would just like to say how satisfied I am and how thankful I am to this organization for the role that it's paid in this initiative because from 2017 to September 2019 we supported the voluntary return of 603 thousand people from Niger Mali, Libya Mauritania and Djibouti we have offered assistance on the ground to more than 200,000 migrants whose return was supported by the trust fund and other means so when you are fighting against a human problem, a humanitarian problem we are dealing with something that affects all of us because security is not just the issue of the person who has been victimized but the security of Europe depends on the security of Sahel and Sahel's security depends on everyone else's security we are in a world where migration is one of the best examples of this interrelation in the Chad Lake region we were directly involved as I said I've been in the Chad base and I was there not that long ago and a challenge posed by the refugees who were there there were two issues two questions that they asked about education particularly for women gender is key because they are the ones who raise children who fight against radicalizing their children education is key in that regard you said we are ignorant that's why Boko Haram was able to be so successful there and secondly and this is quite extraordinary they could say water electricity they said we want documents we want to be registered so once again the importance of the state infrastructure and I just want to conclude on a few brief remarks I think that there are three challenges that we are going to face the first one is doubtlessly the emergency we must act now the situation is unsustainable we see that every day second point coordination this is fundamental and I am pleased by the coordination between the IOM and the EU but with 17 strategies operating right now in the region we are dealing with a very complex situation and we need to coordinate and thirdly which we can talk about later if you want is ownership there really has to be ownership on the part of the Saralian state I think this is the last day as as high representative after the parliament vote the EU parliament vote yesterday we are not here to work for Africa we are here to work with Africa and it is in that same spirit that the new representative Joseph Bore will carry out his mission as he said during his hearings in the European Parliament he will focus on Africa and the Sahel thank you very much Mr. Ambassador for that exhaustive review and analysis of the activities of the European Union and the region you mentioned two important issues education and the civil registry of the population it is indeed important for all development initiatives I am going to give the floor to Mr. Denzingin who will give us an overview of the IOM programs in the region thank you very much it is truly a pleasure to share this this table with my new partner from the region as well as the EU animal husbandry foundation as well as the national health security agency I will start by giving an overview of the situation in the Sahel many have already spoken I will go through a few guiding principles of our actions and also mention a few activities what is the Sahel? everyone has their own definition some of them think of the G5 plus the Chad lake for the UN strategy G5 plus 5 because they are the two subregions that I mentioned and they add Senegal and Guinea and Gambia regarding our work in the IOM we talk about parts of countries that face similar challenges and which are mostly between the desert and the forest that is the working definition that we use in the IOM I will also say the that Sahel is a land of opportunities which are not being harnessed right now but there is a potential of 14 kilowatts per hour per year in energy there are natural resources aquifers we talk about demographic dividend majority of the population is young many under 15 years of age that being said there is a major challenge with climate change this is something that has been mentioned already demographic dividends are all very well and good but before you come to the dividends part you have to have jobs you have to have sources of income for these young people the rise of violent extremism which finds perfect nesting grounds in the Sahel in order to grow and radicalize young people weak governance in remote areas a vacuum of state authority and also coordination the Sahel was always a crossroads it was always a place of transit and now there are 18 strategies I believe and more than a few special envoyees there are two special representatives of the secretary general two or several high representatives two economic communities without mentioning the other regional organizations such as the the lake Chad commission there was a UN security resolution in 2013 we developed an integrated strategy under the leadership of we were able to recalibrate in two years in consultation with with the member states just very briefly the six objectives will be of no surprise after the presentations cross-border cooperation peacekeeping inclusive growth climate adaptation and renewable energy and also gender equality so these are together there and there's also resilience governance and security two years ago we revamped this and many organizations wanted to add migration to the issue we were actually against this because migration is absolutely cross-cutting it affects all of the pillars it is instrumental to both the causes and the effects of each pillar and so including it made no sense to us so this UN strategy is a framework for this is the case for the SDGs and the 23 agenda but we focus very much on the fact that we are working in the UN for collective results for us and for the member states and so our approach in the region I think can be summarized through four main principles humanitarian nexus peace and development an example of this from the north of Niger is that we are attempting to carry out protection with those who have fled Libya with help or without intent but we are trying to create resilience so that development has a basis to develop in other words we work with the communities along with the 10,000 or so West Africans who are working in that area also we focused on border areas this is a basis of the UN strategy but here in the international organization of migrations well that is a major crossing point for migrants this is where the state is the most absent and as a result fewer services when you often have a young population alienated they feel marginalized and thus it is really a perfect storm for extremist groups the fact that there is a population that feels neglected makes other fundamental principles that much more important namely transparency and inclusion and the way that we work and in being fully accountable for our actions and when I say inclusiveness I'm not talking about animal, husbandry shepherds but also local authorities international agencies sometimes meet just with the communities and individual beneficiaries we think it is important to show that a state exists and that it is represented by regional or local organizations and I think that in the cross border areas an agency such as the IOM can offer an added value the fact that we are present throughout the south throughout our work with Mr. Burima for example the shepherds association we work with the governments of the Poku Gurma and the local authorities obviously in order to address the border issues climate change must always be in the back of our minds or in the front of our minds along with the sensitivity to conflicts which we must be aware of in all of our activities if we do not take due account of development of this or that program or project if we do not take account of this issue sustainability is called into question along with peace and stability it is so important to make sure that we do not further marginalized populations in the areas that we work furthermore the importance of using evidence-based methods when it comes to collection of data on mobility in West Africa all of that information is necessary be it due to conflict-based displacement or migratory flows from south, east or west 90% of migration of eco-was citizens is within the eco-was area and finally we have to see if it is the best time for people to go back to areas where there has been insecurity and security is an issue and also we will very much support the migratory observatories in Africa such as for example in Morocco in Bamako there will be 7 weeks of a visit to Bamako to see this also protection and assistance to migrants this is something that the ambassador talked about many of these activities were allowed through the EU trust fund but I would just underscore that the African Union created a task force in tandem with the United Nations and the IOM in order to have a snapshot of the situation and to understand those who are in dangerous situations in the desert in Africa and further on at sea I do not want to talk that much about our strictly humanitarian work it is coordination and the camps we do that work in the region just as we do elsewhere but what we consider to be most important is the basic assistance to migrants use more than 300,000 a major part of reintegration is social and psychosocial reintegration beyond just the health care work we see that psychosocial and social work is a big weak point in the systems this is something that we are trying to address in Niger we help the health ministry to reestablish the psychiatric service in the hospital now with all of these migrants moving back and forth there must be appropriate conditions for them to work because it is a migration that takes place in search of work but there are people who do not want to leave their homes and so creating job opportunities is a key point for us in all of the areas where there is a great deal of mobility I will not bore you with the details of the programs but we work very much with young people and we have not forgotten women either we have a Boko Haram initiative but in tandem with one of the countries in the Chad region and finally social cohesion which is something that I referred to before the importance of not just ensuring that peace remains where there is peace but also to build peace where it is lacking but also put communities together with the state authorities the local authorities in order to build trust to rebuild trust take baby steps towards rebuilding the states authorities authority in remote areas and the last pillar of our work is supporting safe regular migration and this is something that we do inter-institutionally with the echo what with echo was you Maya the G5 and sale and other organizations as well as member states themselves just one example that we have been working on for years with the support of the EU and with echo was is to implement the the free movement initiative in echo was a common visa for their member states we are trying to help disseminate regulations on transhumance because we know that this is something that echo was is interested in so by way of conclusion I would just leave you with a few ideas which are important and give us a framework to understand the work that we do in the region firstly yes this is an emergency yes we must bear in mind the peace development team in nexus but there must be long term objectives as well 2060 2053 is a key date a lot of these problems will not be solved in five years and we keep in mind the aspirations of the african union and the countries also it is not just an issue of migration and mobility but also peace and stability there must be fewer inequalities between regions and even on a continental level but that's another issue and finally the environment climate change I do not believe there is a another region in the world where all of these aspects come together and I hope we will talk a lot about the Sahel at the cope 25 in Madrid thank you very much thank you very much Richard I have nothing to add to what you said you had a very valuable experience and this expertise I see that we barely have five minutes left and I would like to open the floor for any comments or questions from the audience on the subjects that we were just informed about you have a floor thank you for the opportunity to speak today and thank you to our panelists in light of today's panel we at the international catholic migration commission would like to highlight pressing operational realities reported by our ICMC deployment and the ICMC team field colleagues in Niger we are encountering an increasing case load of children migrating alone from the Horn of Africa who have suffered horrific abuse including torture and rape by traffickers for example one ICMC employee recounted the case of a boy who had been tortured by traffickers and wound up in a Libyan detention center with a ransom for his release and while on the telephone the traffickers began to torture him again so that his mother could hear her son's screams his mother a widow with extremely limited resources was forced to sell her house to raise funds for the ransom but the sales proceeds weren't enough so she had to start begging however through the emergency transit mechanism a partnership between IOM and UNHCR the boy was rescued in Libya and brought to Niger where our ICMC deploys received him for resettlement processing you know this is good but given the number of children we're seeing more resettlement places need to be allocated to them we call states to increase resettlement places and addition offer complementary pathways including family reunification prioritizing cases for unaccompanied children from the emergency transit mechanisms in both Niger and Rwanda and as I understand recently new flights have just arrived in Rwanda in resettling unaccompanied minors we have seen how giving them a new start on life brings life to and creates connections in the host community Natalie a foster mother in Salt Lake City, USA having resettled Tedros and Jerusalem to Eritrean children from the Niger emergency transit mechanism reflects that this experience has been amazing and I receive a lot of support these kids are incredible and having them with me brings meaning to my life I absolutely recommend this experience to anyone we at ICMC know that resettlement is a life-saving protection mechanism that works and indeed we are encouraged by the new IOM-UNHCR crisp initiative which seeks to expand the base of resettlement countries by supporting emergency states excuse me by supporting emerging states to begin resettlement programs thank you thank you very much I would like to give the distinguished delegate of Japan the floor thank you madam Japan takes problems happening in regional Sahel region seriously and puts importance on the security and stability of this region in August 2019 Japan hosted Tokyo International Conference for African Development 7 in the conference Japan hosted special session for peace and stability in Sahel region and announced its intention to provide following assistance with close cooperation with international partners such as IOM in the region capacity development for 1,000 officers in justice administration and registered sectors in coming three years vocational training and education especially for youth and support host community of students and IDPs in the context of humanitarian nexus Japan will closely Japan will work closely with IOM and other organization for the implementation of this project with close cooperation of countries in the region thank you madam thank you I recognize the ambassador from the European Union thank you madam chair I will speak on behalf of the European Union and its member states let me say that migration movements in the region are a long standing phenomena an integral part of West African societies there are indeed substantial migration populations that reside in many countries of the region many often move just seasonally but most importantly these migration movements are first and for most intra-regional with almost 80 to 90% of all migrants moving within West Africa the Sahel and the Lake Charts region face many challenges linked to poverty to lack of stability economic fragility this is further exacerbated by climate change in a region where more than 80% of the population relies essentially on agricultural and pastoral activities trafficking in human beings smuggling of migrants with other illicit trafficking activities are embedded in what is indeed a sort of a functioning informal economy so we need to increase our efforts to disrupt the business model of the traffickers conflict and security challenges are increasingly also linked to non-state armed groups attacking civilians and they are also causing many displacements both internal and across the borders and let to spill over effects the European Union and the IOM have been working in partnership in the Sahel for many years covering humanitarian interventions assisted voluntary returns and reintegration capacity building in migration related aspects of state and non-state activities and migration governance such as strengthening migration data and communication on migratory movements following the Valletta summit on migration the EU has established the EU emergency trust fund to help address the root causes of instability of forced displacement and of irregular migration and IOM is indeed a major partner in the implementation of the actions under the fund I mean the actions under the fund come also on top of long-standing development aid provided through the European Development Fund the Sahel and the Lake Charles region benefit from over more than 100 programs for a total from up to 1.9 billion euros for the European Union institutions member states and other donors just to mention another example the joint initiative for migration protection and reintegration by the European Union and IOM have supported or have supported African partners efforts and actions enabling to rescue in the 23,000 stranded migrants and we've heard indeed there are terrible stories happening in the desert but also to help the voluntary return and reintegration of over 68,000 migrants in the Sahel returning from Libya and Niger to provide a common response to major cross-border threats and regional development needs the EU and its member states are continue and are committed to support the efforts of the G5 Sahel countries Niger, Burkina Faso Chad, Mali and Mauritania and of course of the whole of the Sahel region and we will continue to continue our support and cooperation at the regional and national level Thank you very much Madam Chair I see there are no further requests for the floor therefore I might give the floor for observations from members of the panel well I think that pastoral activity animal husbandry and so forth might not be the most hot or well known of topics I just want to re-emphasize that migration in the sub region is an extremely important issue and there is a certain amount of complementarity between the countries of the south and the countries of the Sahel region those that are in the south have greater rainfall than those in the Sahel region climate change and governance challenges are a key part of the issues at hand in the past in countries such as Ghana Cote d'Ivoire and so forth there was room for migration in this context this pastoralist migration is not really seasonal migration but it also explains the complementarity between different ecosystems between the northern Sahel region and the countries south because in the winter animals go to the north and in the dry season they go southwards with an increase of poverty farmers have lost their livestock and now we see that pastoralists represent about 7% of the migrants that travel northward and this is a new trend because in the past during the low seasons for different strategic reasons to support their families used to go they also went to urban areas in the dry season to get an extra income for their families that way they also put less pressure on their animals however poverty and poor governance has had serious repercussions and animal husbandry has often been on the sidelines of policy makers and that is why today these shepherds and other pastoralists are both victims and also actors in this theater of insecurity so yes there are problems that are linked to problems of youth because these young people can no longer remain at this level of poverty just like their elders did and therefore they attempt they dare they try to find better horizons better options and so over the past years many initiatives have gone forward many initiatives aimed at the issue of animal husbandry and I think that the European Union has raised this and among the EU programs there are yes, it's true programs that specifically address pastoralist activity the World Bank also developed a prop suffered in the subregion and now we have the IOM that's also taking interest to this population because this is part of the solution of the problem we have between communities that's really where the issue is and that's all I would like to say at this stage we have obviously other partners that are interested and contributing but yes there are definitely our initiatives to address animal husbandry but in practice it's still quite difficult for the average farmer to engage well in case I want to tell you that there is one person that knows what it is to be involved in animal husbandry because I'm the daughter of somebody working in that sector yes so thank you, thank you so much quickly I'd like to mention three issues the first has to do with pastoral activity the situation in the region is very complex there is pastoralism and it's linked to our culture and the challenge at the level of relations between communities I don't want to talk about relations between ethnicities because to use those labels would be to play into the hand of those who tried to use those sort of divisions in society but if you look at that approach this way it's very important, as I said, to bear in mind the role of the state, the presence of the state for example we know full well that Amado Kufa of Catacima Marina had organized himself for shepherds to transit Niger and basically to do what the state should have done in other words there is a substitution that replaces the state extreme radical groups replace the state and that is how they win the hearts and minds of populations by doing what the state should do entering in these vacuums that I mentioned earlier so we need to strengthen the role of the state and the presence of the state and that's difficult because we're talking about weak states with weak administrations and limited resources but we stand shoulder to shoulder and by their side the next issue I wanted to mention has to do with EU activities the ambassador has already mentioned this and I myself refer to the trust fund and so forth the European Union is fully committed with all of its institutions, I could mention the following example we have ECAP for Niger it has set up Antene in Agades which is a hub for migration and from that point hand in hand with the government of Niger and with the measures deployed by ECAP we practically have no more illegal migrants or human trafficking in this area in this corridor of the Central Mediterranean which I always say comes up from Libya like a highway obviously it's got its tolls along the road and that was mentioned earlier by previous speaker these are humanitarian crises that we cannot put up with we've seen ourselves how people are mutilated and on top of that they're being held ransom so there is this highway essentially and the European Union has acted strongly in that regard and third and last point that I wanted to highlight it's the issue of the importance of coordinating efforts and cooperation and I want to tip my hat once again to the IOM and its work with the European Union and its excellent effort of cooperation Richard, thank you three quick points on my side so when we tell people that our monitoring of migratory flows includes flocks of animals some people might smile but we are dead serious we monitor these flocks and it allows us to set up Mr. Boramas Organizations early warning systems there where we see that there are going to be tensions outbreaks between farmers and shepherds and we try to activate their traditional conflict resolution systems secondly I want to take advantage of this opportunity to thank the Japanese government for all its support to the region and to the IOM at large most recently we could mention this great program for employment of young people in Sierra Leone and since the state of these northern African migrants was mentioned I'd like to say the following all the members present can rest assured that we do everything in our power to work closely with the Red Cross and Red Cross movement for this issue we met with a special representative for the region and also Western Mediterranean and West Africa to see if there could be room for improvement thank you very much thank you Richard so I think we're coming to the end of this panel segment there could have been more questions I guess but just to wrap things up I myself wanted to express how important coordination is and also to have a consistent perspective on approaching the region as far as the IOM is concerned I think we just start by being consistent in our strategies whether it be approaching things from an environmental angle from a health angle and so on and so forth everything needs to be hand in hand with UN development programs and other regional efforts and policies so I think these all need to work hand in hand and we need to have an approach that espouses the modern approach which asks for coherence and consistency so please join me in thanking the panel in a worthy way, thank you