The challenges of return migration in africa in the age of complex emergencies: comparing multilevel governance systems in ethiopia and nigeria
This project fills the research and policy gaps in the understudied phenomenon of return migration in Africa, against the backdrop of recent migration 'crisis' in Europe, the increasing securitization of the EU's external borders to curb irregular migration, and the complex emergencies faced by migrants transiting through Libya to Europe. It uses a multilevel governance (MLG) framework to explore the decision-making processes/politics of returning stranded migrants from Libya to their countries of origin in the context of interdependence between governmental actors and nongovernmental organizations at the local, national, regional, and global levels. The few previous studies on return migration in Africa have given relatively little attention to these critical linkages and their reciprocal constructions, in the integrated manner of the MLG approach. The project explores the effects of MLG dynamics on return migrants' reintegration, and the effects of institutional complexity on intergovernmental coordination and policy coherence. The empirical study focuses on Ethiopia and Nigeria, two key priority countries under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration, which have served as major countries of origin for migrants and which have witnessed the return of migrants from Libya. The project uses structured focused comparison and process tracing research design, and qualitative methods involving in-depth interviews with returnees and key informants, and document analysis. Consistent with the understanding of MLG as a complex interaction between multiple configurations of actors with divergent interests, ideas and power resources, this study will analyze the mechanisms through which multiple governance authorities interact to shape return migration policies/politics, how these multilevel policies/politics affect sustainable reintegration of returnee migrants, and the strategies used by these migrants to navigate complex MLG dynamics.