For Freedom of Movement & Fair Development!

Fighting the Root Causes of Migration or Exacerbating them? — “Free” Trade in the post-Cotonou Agreement

By Fiona Faye

Four out of five migrants in West Africa stated that they migrated due to economic reasons when being interviewed by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) in 2018 (Lenz and Maheswaran, 2019, p. 14). This statistic is mentioned here not to simplify the various complex and personal reasons why people decide to migrate, but rather to point our attention to the importance of economic questions in the migration debate.

EPAs: New trade deals, old agendas

By Yash Tandon (10/2010)

Few people in East Africa know about the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) being negotiated between the European Union (EU) on the one hand and the countries of Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). It is primarily a trade agreement, but underlying it are a number of sensitive political and developmental issues. Fifty years after Africa gained its independence from colonial rule, the relationship between it and the former empire is still a hot issue.

African Farmers on Trade and Agriculture

By Yves Niyiragira

(ACORD)—A Pan African delegation recently travelled to Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Paris and London to engage European farmers, parliamentarians, civil society and media in discussions regarding the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) both instruments that risk having disastrous consequences on African small scale farmers.