The EU’s Africa Trust Fund must Be The Beginning Not The End Of Global Investment.

This was written by Dr Bukola Saraki,President of the Senate for BeyondBrics at Financial Times.com.  We need a regional development and infrastructure plan to defeat Boko Haram and prevent a refugee crisis that could last a generation


This week, the EU and World Bank meet to discuss development financing as a means of tackling some of the root causes of irregular migration. This comes after last month’s Valetta Conference where European leaders pledged €1.8billion to address the potential causes of migration in Africa. This was a crucial start but we need further direct support for areas under specific threat. In both the Middle East and Africa there are clear crisis spots where a majority of EU bound migrants stem. Eritrea, Somalia, and South Sudan have been identified but there also needs to be a focus on West Africa, an area bearing the brunt of the continent’s Islamist terror threat.


In Nigeria terrorist activity has increased significantly since 2013, largely as a result of Boko Haram. In the last week of November the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a Shiite Muslim procession near Kano which killed 21 people, over 100 people remain accounted for following a battle near the town of Gulak and eight people were murdered in an attack on the northeast region and neighboring Niger.


The violence has led to over 2.1 million people being forced from their homes, according to the International Organisation for Migration. The crisis is already spanning across a generation, with the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency reporting that in two months 410 babies were born in the refugee camps in Borno and Adamawa state. The Nigerian state is ratcheting up its support for these people but without further international engagement the region will continue to be a source of sustained migration to Europe.


There is hope in the fight against the insurgents. In working with our military and regional partners, President Buhari has made progress in winning back control of territories from Boko Haram – which peaked at over 20,000 square miles, something akin to a mini-state. Yet without a comprehensive solution to the insurgency Boko Haram will continue to pose a very real threat – domestically and to Europe. Economic disadvantage may not be the only reason for the group and its affiliates ability to recruit but it is fundamental to their narrative.


Which is why I welcomed the news of the EU Africa Trust Fund, announced following the Valletta Conference on Migration, which will support development and poverty eradication, as well as a range of other measures to increase jobs and raise revenue in West Africa. But the Fund is only the start – an important, but limited, first step.


To meet only the most basic needs of displaced persons in North Nigeria would require $1 per person per day – a staggering $2 million in total per day. Estimates of the cost of reconstruction in Borno State alone have been put at $1billion.


This is more than the EU Africa Trust Fund can deliver and is more than Nigeria can carry alone. Declining oil revenues have put our economy under unprecedented stress. Historic corruption and fiscal mismanagement has also, at times, been a crippling factor. This is something both the President and the Nigerian Senate is addressing directly. But further international support has to happen in parallel with domestic reform.




There is no time to lose. The tragic refugee crisis witnessed on Europe’s borders this year was distinctly Syrian, yet failing to address other burgeoning developmental and conflict issues across the Middle East and Africa, such as the threat of Boko Haram, now could lead to similar or even worse crises in coming years.


In response to the Syrian refugee crisis, companies like Goldman Sachs, Google and Audi put principles before profit and donated millions to Europe and its governments to improve the capacity to support refugees. I hope companies like these can see, in countries like my own, the potential through the problems, and work with international institutions to invest and resource where it is needed.


At few points in Africa’s and Europe’s shared history has our security been so intertwined. Investment now is necessary to prevent a generational refugee crisis that could hit Europe for years to come. The EU’s Africa Trust Fund must be the beginning, not the end, of global action.




Dr Bukola Saraki

President of the Nigerian Senate