 Thank you for being here. I don't have slides, so I'll just speak to the points. It's a joint paper. I'm writing with Dr. Leanda Kanbigi who also works with the Center for Migration Studies here at the University of Ghana. So we are looking at the challenges of stakeholders in the return and reintegration of Ghanaian returnes from Libya. So a bit of introduction, then history of Ghanaian migration to Libya, conceptual framework methods, findings, and then the conclusion. Return migration has been in the Ghanaian development discourse since the 1990s when the country regained economic, social, and political stability. There are various programs to encourage the return of Ghanaians abroad and friends of Ghana for development purposes. Some of these programs include the Emancipation Day celebrations in the 1990s. We had the Homecoming Summit in 2001, and then the establishment of the Non-Residents Ghanaian Secretariat in 2004. And then there was the recent Aspera Homecoming Business event that happened earlier this year. Many of these programs are targeted at returnes from the global north. And this is in spite of the fact that the majority of Ghanaian migration are to other African countries. The emphasis on returnes from the global north is perhaps because of the amount of remittances that comes from the global north. The Bank of Ghana recorded that between 2004 and 2008 remittances from the global north, so Europe, US, Canada, accounted for between 90 and 97% of total remittances received by the country. We argue that because the emphasis of return migration is on returnes from the global north, the states and other non-state stakeholders were ill-prepared for the sudden return, and therefore reintegration of Ghanaian migrants from an African country in this instance, Libya. We interrogate the role of the states and these institutions in the return preparedness and reintegration of these Ghanaian migrants. Before I delve into our conceptual framework and then find in just a brief history about Ghanaian migration to Libya, Satya Spiga, 2005, notes that Libyan oil exploration and production, together with its mines and farms, served as pool factors for most of the immigration to the country from other Sub-Saharan African countries. Ghanaian migration to Libya was also boosted by bilateral agreements between Ghana and Libya to send teachers to teach English in the country. So 200 teachers were sent in the mid-1980s. This subsequently served as a pool factor for both skilled and unskilled migrants to move to Libya. Libya subsequently transformed from a destination country in its own right to a transit country for many low-income Ghanaians. They have notes that, though the Libyan 2006, he notes that though the Libyan government relaxed its immigration rules because of its pan-Africanist role in Africa for some time, irregular migration was on the increase. So the Libyan authorities intensified their immigration crackdown on irregular migration. So thus, prior to the political crisis in 2011, they were already dealing with irregular migration. So that between 2000 and 2012, 12,201 Ghanaians were deported from Libya. Klaj 2017 also argues that the political unrest and agitation coincided with these immigration policies already. So the Ghana Immigration Service reported that in 2014, for example, 1,415 Ghanaians were deported. So this makes Libya the country that deports Ghanaian migrants the most. So many of these migrants, when the political crisis unfolded, they were put in between the walls with both sides of both Gaddafi forces and anti-Gaddafi forces, accusing them of siding with either forces in the conflict. So many of these migrants who occupy very low socioeconomic positions in Libya were caught up in this. And there was a need to evacuate them. So then we look at the role of the states in doing this. In understanding the role the states played, the states and other non-state stakeholders played in the return on the integration of Ghanaian migrants from Libya, we draw on Casarino's 2004 conceptual framework, where he questions the adequacy of the main economic theories of migration, so the new classical theories and the new economics of labor migration theory. In understanding migration and return decisions beyond the economic factors. So he argues that decisions by individuals are likely perceived as income maximizers without taking into account the contextual factors within which individuals make their decisions. So he argues for a broader framework, structural framework, in understanding individual decisions that migrants make with regards to return. In this paper, we are not so much concerned with individual decision-making processes by the migrants. These have been explored by other scholars. So we have Candeligui 2017, Clyde 2017, and Mensa 2016. They have looked at individual decision-making processes of return needs. We want to move this theory forward by focusing on the structural forces at play, particularly when we consider that irregular of individuals were caught up in a situation where their plans for return were thrown into disarray. What role did the states and other stakeholders play to facilitate their return and subsequent reintegration? Research on return migration and development is mixed with some scholars arguing that it needs two developments. So Waba, for example, is of this opinion. And then others are more skeptical of this opinion that return migration can foster development. So we have Nimbex Orson and others 2012. So we are arguing that when people return because of a crisis situation and they are put in a situation where their plans have gone awry, if the structures are put in place, it could facilitate their reintegration. Of course, this is by no means saying that migrants do not exercise or returnes do not exercise agencies. And as we see later on in the conclusions, because many of them were sort of unhappy with the return and reintegration processes that were put in place by the states, many of them took their decision to re-emigrate back to Libya, even though the conflict situation was occurring. So then by way of methods, we used many qualitative research methods, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions among 32 participants from six categories of actors. So we spoke to return migrants, family members, civil society organizations, community leaders, intergovernmental organizations. So the data was collected both in Accra and in the Bronga Haful region, which is Accra because state institutions, many of them have their head offices here, then intergovernmental organizations as well. And then we decided on Bronga Haful because of the 19,000 Ghanians who were deported from Libya, nearly half or almost more than half returned to the Bronga Haful region. Yeah. Okay. So then let me quickly go over the findings. So we look at the various state agencies and the road they played to facilitate the return of these migrants. So for example, with regards to the Ghanian state and its agencies, one of the things they were tasked with was to evacuate Ghanians from Libya. But Ghanian state or Ghanian government have a policy and institutional framework for the evacuation of people in crisis situations. So this meant that Ghanian migrants in Libya were among the last to be evacuated. So as a former diplomat at the Ghana Embassy in Libya indicated, the mission therefore, the Ghana Embassy in Libya had to rely heavily on international organizations to provide much needed evacuation terms, of course, providing airplanes, et cetera, and healthcare during the evacuation. The other thing, the embassy, the Ghana Embassy in Libya also faced had to do with what we are calling trust deficit. So the Ghanians in Libya didn't trust their embassy and the vice versa. So many of them therefore contested claims that the embassy did all they could to help evacuate them. So as a 52 year old returning put it, the embassy's officials are useless. They don't help anybody. The officials in Libya do not help at all. The other thing the states tried to do was to provide migrants or returnees with a source of livelihood. And they could have done this by speaking to employers and businesses to take on these people with regards to the skills they have acquired in Libya. But what they did instead was to provide financial assistance for these people who had returned to Accra to return back to their villages and towns. So they provided an equivalent of 25 cities, to 30 cities, which is roughly five, six to seven euros, and for them to return to their home countries without taking into account the fact that many of these people perhaps lived in Accra or had other social networks in urban areas that they would want to stay with. So of course the amount was woefully inadequate to facilitate their return to their hometowns and villages. And then also another thing they tried to do or they tried to do was to host these migrants when they returned. And so there was no facility to immediately house these returnees. Instead they were hosted at a military stadium, Elwak, and thus expose them to elements of the weather and it made their registration processes and immigration processes very, very difficult. And so it's also hampered the performance of their duties including providing therapy, psychosocial and post-traumatic stress, and therapy for psychosocial and post-traumatic stress disorders. Of course this also exposed the officials of the national disaster management organizations, NADMO, who were in charge of these two elements of the weather as well. And we are unable to do their job properly. So with regards to the role of governmental organizations, like I said when I was discussing the role of the states, they helped with the evacuation of Ghanians from Libya. But their job was made difficult because of the lack of data and then financial constraints. Lack of data in the sense that it was difficult to estimate the number of Ghanians who were going to return. So therefore to provide the needed planes and other modes of transportation to bring them to Ghana. So without knowing the scale of mass return, it was difficult to envisage the number of people returning and the sort of support they might require. So the magnitude of this challenge is captured in what some of the staff of the International Organization for Migration Ghana had to say. So they said when we were first putting together those contingency plans to assist these Ghanian nationals to return, I think the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came up with a figure close to 5,000. Then they made our scale is up to 8,000. Then they said that to be on the safe side, let's expect up to 12,000. That would be the maximum. Now, as you know, close to 19,000 did arrive. Not to talk about those who did not arrive. Those who went to other countries. So the issue of data and statistics, we need to really look at. It was a major, major challenge. The other thing, intergovernmental organizations like the IMO and UNDP tried to provide was training programs. So to train these returnees with regards to making a livelihood for themselves. So the International Organization for Migration, for example, has returned packages for voluntary returnees where they undergo training, et cetera. But they didn't have something for return migrants who were forced to return. But they made provisions, so then they provided some form of training for these people on a temporary basis in order to contribute on a temporary basis to help them cater for themselves. And the return packages they gave, the training they gave to these people did not include cash with the assumption that they did not want to enable them to find their return to Libya. And the assumption was that we're going to do this once they were provided with cash. So they focused on training, providing training with regards to livelihoods, hairdressing, farming, et cetera. And then business startup kits as well. So the role of civil society organizations and community leaders. Many of the returnees we spoke to were happy with the role of civil society organizations and they were happy with the role of the community leaders. So for example, the director of Doma FM station, which is a local radio station in the Bronga Haful region, used the medium of radio to establish contact with many of these Ghanaian migrants who were trapped in the political crisis in Libya. So they could establish contact with their families. So they got into contact with their families and they found out how they were doing, et cetera. They also used the medium of radio to get in contact with their members of parliament and other government officials by phoning in into live broadcast at the peak of the crisis and making direct appeals for evacuation. Their harrowing stories helped governize public opinion in favor of government action to charter aircraft, to extract them from Libya. So with regards to the role of another civil society organization, we had this school in transit. Together with IOM, they helped to provide the training programs for these migrants, but it tended to be ad hoc and on a limited scale. So for example, out of the 900 returnees who returned to Incoranza, only 50 benefited from the distribution of the startup kits. So though laudable in its intentions, the school in transit were also accused of favoritism because it also gave supplies to other poor people in the community and this agitated and upset many of the returnees because resources were scarce. So we include a role of the family in our discussions of stakeholders because family members are both beneficiaries of remittances and barriers of the burden of hosting forced returnees. Unplanned returns from countries in crisis are promptly curtailed sources of remittance income and sometimes exact expectations of unfordable reciprocal benevolence from family members. So adverse effects recorded in this study on families with regards to the return, with regards to the unplanned return of guardians from Libya included loss of social standing and respectability, being saddled with caring for mentally and emotionally distressed returnees, sharing limited family resources with people who have returned as failures because their plans didn't go through. And then also, so some of these frustrations were summed up in what some family members said. So for example, Adjoa mentioned that we started everything from scratch. I mean, two of us, no support from the church, no support from the community, no support from governments, no support from the assembly, no support from anywhere. Now the major challenge is that he's unemployed. Aside from farming, he does not do anything. I would like him to go back to Libya. Everything shows that he's not a happy, a happy man. So because many of these returnees were unhappy with the way they were handled, with regards to state and non-state stakeholders, many of them returned to Libya at least once during the conflict situation. So out of the 11 migrants, we spoke to six returned to Libya during the heights of the crisis. So quickly by way of conclusion, this paper concludes that even though trapped Ghanaian migrants were eventually evacuated, there was to a large extent institutional failure involving both Ghanaian state agencies, intergovernmental organizations, and local non-state actors who were ill-prepared to assist migrants on their first return. That's frustrating their reintegration into various communities in Ghana. The coalition of credible migration data and real-time access to migrant stock, as well as migrants' flow figures are critical to international responses to crisis situations where migrants are implicated. In addition, the evacuation, repatriation, and reintegration of returned migrants are shown to be collaborative tasks that are needed to be executed by diversity coders at different spatial levels. This study therefore highlights the need for a clear national policy on evacuation of migrants implicated in crisis situations. Such a policy needs to be costed and budgeted for with clearly delineated mandate assigned to relevant stakeholders and adequate training provided to facilitate quick and efficient response in these situations. Also, in order to enhance the efficiency of the National Disaster Management Organization, the organization needs to coordinate the management of disaster incidents. Moreover, a well-resourced local disaster management organization with access to funding sources beyond government intervention would greatly improve its operational capabilities. In line with this initiative of NADMUN to establish a disaster management fund should be strongly supported. Also, the construction of a purposeable reception center comprising among others a reception unit, a psychosocial orientation unit, and a temporary camp and offices for medics in order to facilitate the process of screening, profiling, and record-taking of returnees from countries in crisis in a more humane manner is critical. So my time is up. I'll leave it here for now and then we can follow up with the discussions later. Thank you.