When Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s policy lead in Niger, Nigeria, and Chad, went to Brussels for meetings at the European Union institutions in late October, she expected to be talking about the region’s humanitarian crisis.

“Now, being here, I have come to realize all the hoopla is about migration,” Dabi told Devex in Brussels. “Maybe we need to find a way to rephrase our humanitarian engagement to highlight [migration issues], but to pull it back towards our own agenda.”

Dabi is not alone in her concerns.

Two years ago this week, EU leaders gathered in Valletta, Malta, to address the escalating number of refugees and undocumented migrants arriving in Europe, with thousands drowning in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

As a result of the Valletta Summit, leaders agreed to “mainstream migration in development cooperation,” in part through the establishment of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTFA). So far, 117 projects totalling 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) have been approved under the Trust Fund, designed to “address the root causes of instability, forced displacement and irregular migration and to contribute to better migration management” across the Sahel and Lake Chad, the Horn of Africa and North Africa.

In 2015, more than a million undocumented migrants and refugees arrived in Europe. A further 3,515 people died attempting to cross the Mediterranean. In November that year, as the “migration crisis” escalated, European leaders met to hash out a solution at the Valletta Summit, relying heavily on the idea that development cooperation could help.

Since then, “addressing the root causes of migration” has become a central refrain in European development policy, driving billions of euros worth of aid. That includes the new European Fund for Sustainable Development, a plan worth a potential 4.1 billion euros ($4.8 billion) to trigger private investment in Africa and the European neighbourhood, in order to alleviate poverty and other “migratory pressures.” The EU’s new Consensus on Development — a framework that will guide the development policy of the world’s fourth-largest bilateral donor until 2030 — also promises to “address the root causes of irregular migration.”

But critics say there is little agreement over what those root causes are, and that it is unclear what definition is being used to guide policy.

Read the full article about the "root causes of migration in the EU" by Vince Chadwick at Devex International Development.