Morocco's migration crisis.

Morocco's ongoing problems with illegal migrants has beeen the focus of the Rabat Conference on Migration and Development. On Tuesday the conference agreed to initiate a Euro-African partnership for an "optimal and shared responsibility" management of migration movements, notably through the promotion of development and the use "of financial co-development fostering instruments".

The Rabat Declaration, made public at the end of the two-day conference, says the partnership should be "pragmatic and operational" and has to come up with "concrete and appropriate answers" to the central issue of migration flows between Africa and Europe.

The partnership is also to be part of the fight of poverty and the promotion of development, says the declaration, which is accompanied by an action plan agreed upon by some 60 countries and regional and international organizations attending.

The approach, conclusions and action plan of the conference will be presented as a contribution to the high level dialogue of the United Nations on global and joint dealing with migration.

The main concrete orientation and measures contained in the action plan call for the inception of cooperation programs on the management of legal and economic migration. The plan also aims at carrying out the objectives of the Rabat Declaration, including the partnership destined to deal with migration “which cannot be tackled without taking a concerted action regarding the migration root causes.”

United Press International's International Editor, Claude Salhani, wrote in a recent article that... During the first semester of this year Moroccan authorities have foiled 6,824 attempted clandestine immigration crossings, of which 4,200 originated from sub-Saharan Africa. One hundred and sixty networks were dismantled. Morocco's efforts in combating illegal immigration, along with that of Malawi, were "recognized in their dynamism in combating clandestine migration" in the 2006 U.S. State Department report citing them as the only Arab and African countries struggling with greater efficiency against the phenomenon of irregular migration.

Besides re-organizing its border protection and immigration services to better deal with the issues at hand, Morocco has fielded 11,000 security agents to monitor their borders, of which 4,500 have been allocated to monitor the coast.

But just as the United States has learned that no wall, fence, ditch, moat or security forces can prevent immigrants escaping hunger, political and social oppression, so to are the Moroccans and their European neighbors coming to the same realization. The only way to hold back the hordes of would-be migrants is to offer them incentives to stay where they are in the first place. Europe has to start thinking about job creation not only in the 25-member European Union, but in the impoverished sub-Sahara, too. Nothing else will ebb the unstoppable tide of immigration.

Read the UPI article HERE.

Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news