On 16 March 2023, Khartoum Process partners met for the 9th Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM), which was preceded by a Steering Committee (SC) Meeting on the afternoon of 15 March and a reception dinner organised by the host of the two events, the German Federal Foreign Office, at the Berlin Red City Hall. The reception featured welcoming remarks by Ms Sibylle Katharina Sorg, Director General for European Affairs, German Federal Foreign Office, Ms Ana-Maria Trǎsnea, State Secretary for International Relations of the Federal State of Berlin, and Honourable Mary Ayen Majok, Deputy Speaker of the Council of States, as representative of the outgoing Chair of the Process, South Sudan.
The Senior Officials’ Meeting featured the Chairmanship handover from South Sudan to Germany, who presented their priorities for the year ahead. Among other priority areas, the German chairmanship will focus on human mobility in the context of climate change and the protection of internally displaced people. As a cross-cutting theme and in line with Germany’s Feminist Foreign Policy Guidelines, gender-specific issues will receive special attention.
The SOM agenda also featured a High Level Panel Discussion titled: Migratory trends and their implications in the Khartoum Process region over the course of the next five to ten years. The panel discussed migratory trends in the next 5-10 years for the Khartoum Process region and deliberated on policy priorities for African and European member states.
Building on the outcomes of the High Level Panel, a World Café session in the afternoon of the SOM provided delegates with the opportunity to further reflect on how various drivers of displacement and migration might evolve in the immediate, medium- and long-term future, what the important uncertainties are and how they might combine to create a range of different possible migration outcomes and impacts. This forward-looking discussion focused on 4 thematic areas: future trends of (1) political, (2) economic, (3) social & (4) environmental drivers of displacement and migration considering all five domains of the Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP).
Delegates additionally discussed the recent developments within the Khartoum Process and within partner organisations and explored new governance strategies for the Steering Committee, as well as the work plan ahead.
