MOROCCO on Monday, January 29, introduced a draft African Agenda on Migration at the 30th Summit of African Union, AU, in Addis Ababa.

According to the Moroccan official MAP news agency reported, the draft Agenda was laid out in a message from King Mohammed VI that was read out by Saad Othmani, the Moroccan prime minister.

The king, who was appointed at the 28th AU Summit as leader of the AU on the Question of Migration, said in the message that the agenda was drawn up using an inclusive and participatory approach.

“It is a flexible, scalable and legally non-binding document. More than anything else, it should serve to inspire our future action regarding this question.

“The African Agenda on Migration is based on the idea that we need to know the full range of dimensions involved in the migration phenomenon in order to understand it properly,” he said.

Hence, the king called for adopting a positive stance on the issue of migration by highlighting the humanistic rationale of shared responsibility and solidarity.

He noted that there is no massive influx of African migrants, since the latter account for only 3.4 percent of the world population.

He added that African migration is essentially intra-African as four out of five African migrants remain in the continent.

Othmani suggested the setting up of an African Migration Observatory to develop observation and the exchange of information between African countries in order to promote controlled management of migration flows.

The king also called for the creation of a post of AU Special Envoy for Migration, who would be tasked with coordinating AU policies in this area.

Since Morocco’s king was appointed leader of the African Union on the Question of Migration, the north African kingdom had hosted several meeting on the elaboration of a shared African Agenda on migration.

–Jan. 29, 2018 @ 15:53 GMT