The Khartoum Process facilitates collaboration and information exchange among countries along the migration route between the Horn of Africa and Europe. Our activities include at the political level, Steering Committee Meetings and Senior Officials' Meeting and at the technical level, Thematic Meetings, Thematic Workshops and Trainings.
In the framework of the Khartoum Process, Senior Officials' Meetings are the main fora for policy dialogue, offering a unique opportunity for Members to exchange views on the progress made individually and jointly and the way forward in achieving the aims of the Process.
The most recent Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) took place in Asmara on 7thMarch 2019 and marked the beginning of the Eritrean Chairmanship of the Khartoum Process. The chairmanship of the Process is ensured on an alternating basis from among African and European participating States. With Italy as the outgoing Chair, Eritrea took up this role for the year of 2019.
On the 14th and 15th of November 2018, around 280 Senior Officials from across Europe and Africa met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The participants met to follow up on both the conclusions established during the Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) in Malta last year, and the progress made under the five domains of the Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP), adopted at the Migration Summit in Malta in 2015.
The SOM gave an opportunity to all partners to reiterate the core principles of solidarity, partnership, and shared responsibility. The participants also expressed their commitment to respond decisively and to jointly manage migration flows in all their aspects. The meeting focused on the state of play of the JVAP, including analysis and suggestions for a way forward. The partners also discussed the Khartoum and Rabat Processes which, as key dialogues, are mandated to monitor and report on the implementation and progress of the Joint Valletta Action Plan. The current situation of the different bilateral and European instruments contributing to the JVAP objectives was also examined. The meeting concluded with recommendations for the way forward for the JVAP.
The Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) of the Khartoum Process took place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 8th May 2018, following a Steering Committee meeting, and was chaired by the 2018 Italian Chair of the Process. The meeting was dedicated to the Khartoum Process state of play, an update on the related projects, and the implementation of Thematic Meetings’ Conclusions through a possible stock-taking exercise in the coming months. The roadmap to the 2018 Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP) SOM, which is scheduled to take place in mid-November 2018 in Addis Ababa, as well as the contribution of the Khartoum Process to this important meeting, were deliberated upon. The questions of governance, namely the future chairmanship of the Process in 2019 and the expansion of the Steering Committee, were addressed.
On 7th December 2017, Members of the Khartoum Process met in Rome, for the last Senior Officials' meeting of the year which solidified Ethiopia’s handover of its Chairmanship of the Process to Italy.
Italy made reference to the Rome Declaration, adopted at the Ministerial Conference in Rome in 2014, whereby the members of the Process agreed to assist participating states in tackling human trafficking and smuggling between the Horn of Africa and Europe. Three years later, those present again in Rome agreed on the need for an assessment of achievements to date, with a view to explore further paths of cooperation through a range of dedicated thematic meeting and trainings put forward as a rich programme for the year.
The new Chair also stressed the importance of regarding migration as a transnational phenomenon which as a result cannot be addressed by one state alone and therefore requires a high degree of coordination between the EU and AU as well as between European and African partner countries; both continents should work together towards common goals.
As well as a review of the Projects and initiatives under the Programme, the meeting more broadly looked to the preparation of the Joint Valletta Action Plan (JVAP) Senior Officials Meeting foreseen for the 2nd quarter of 2018. This meeting will, amongst other topic discussions, look concretely at the means of implementation of projects under the JVAP priority actions as its framework for follow up and review.
Ethiopia hosted the Senior Officials Meeting of the Khartoum Process in Addis Ababa on 6 April 2017 which was dedicated to a discussion of the implementation of the Khartoum Process work plan for the year 2017. The Meeting was opened by a welcoming address of the Chair of the Khartoum Process, the European Commission and the African Union Commission, who all underlined the importance of the focus on the implementation.
As an introduction to the meeting and context, the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS) updated the participants on the migratory trends and flows from and within the region, with a specific focus on generic and new trends as well as responses to these, their impact and the resulting policy challenges.
Given the short time span between the two SOMs (December 2016 – April 2017), the main update concerned the 2017 Joint Valletta Action Plan Senior Officials Meeting. Special attention was dedicated to the presentation of the long term monitoring and reporting tool elaborated by ICMPD to ensure a throughout circulation of the information on the methods of populating the database by the members, with the active assistance of the focal points.
Thereafter, discussions moved to the timeline of activities and meetings for the year 2017 namely thematic meetings, trainings with the aim of operationalising key thematic meeting topics from 2016 as well as the possibility of another informal working group and finally a Senior Officials Meeting leading up to the handover of the Ethiopian Chairmanship of the Process at the end of this year into 2018.
On projects and activities, the EU Trust Fund was presented with an update on funding figures and Member States also updated the attendees on national initiatives and the state of play. More information on national initiatives being implemented will available on the website soon.
Finally, upon an introduction by the Chair to the topic and followed by a presentation by IOM, Members of the Process agreed that contributions of the Khartoum Process to the UN Global Compact on Migrants (GCM) will be a key objective for this year leading up to the (GCM) meeting in Mexico in 2018.
The Joint Valletta Action Plan Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM) which took place in Malta on 8-9 February 2017, embodied a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. The meeting gathered delegations from Africa and Europe to take stock of the progress made to date under the Joint Valetta Action Plan and led to the adoption of a set of joint conclusions, based on the recommendations of the Rabat Process and the Khartoum Process. The following documents of the meeting can be found below:
