Bring back our husbands - Main contents

This is what I heard last week, when I met a group of women in Matam, in the North East of Senegal.

Matam is a region very much affected by food insecurity and malnutrition. It is also a region that sees lots of its children leaving and endangering their lives in the search for a better future.

I visited Matam and launched the first two projects of the West Africa and Lake Chad window of the EU Trust Fund to tackle the root causes of instability and irregular migration in Africa. Those two projects have one objective: to offer better livelihoods for the local populations. Our two projects will directly benefit around 125.000 persons. They will improve food and nutrition security and access to water and sanitation. They will also cover the basic needs of the most vulnerable people through income-generating activities such as diversification and improvement of agricultural production. Since they are built on existing activities, those projects will start very soon. It is a new proof that the EU Trust Fund is a very appropriate tool to quickly address the challenges we are faced with. It gives us the flexibility we need and it allows us to deliver quickly with targeted actions aimed at reaching those who need our assistance now.

I was very touched to meet with this group of women, most of them very young and with babies. The colours of their dresses were in complete contradiction with what I could read in their eyes. I could see and almost touch their reality: migration because of desperation. They told me that their husbands had to leave because they had no opportunities. They had to leave to try finding elsewhere what they couldn't find where their loved ones live. Today, those families are torn apart. Their future is marked with uncertainty. And they just want to be reunited; those women want their husbands back. It is as simple as that.

I was moved, but I was at the same time happy to see how relevant our Trust Fund projects are. They tend to create the opportunities that would allow those men to stay. To date, more than 50 programs, for a total amount of 750 M€ have been adopted under the Africa Trust Fund. We all know that the Trust Fund is one of the many tools available to address, jointly with our partners, the refugees and migration flows. And I am therefore looking forward to the proposals that the European Commission will soon be tabling regarding legal migration. This is what our partners expect, maybe more than financial support.

Senegal is one of the top beneficiaries of the EU Trust Fund. When I met the President of Senegal, Macky Sall, I told him very clearly that our goal is not to eradicate migration. Our goal is to make migration work for development, and development work for migration. President told me that Europe should remember that, while it may face difficulties when welcoming refugees and migrants, in the end it is countries like Senegal and others that are losing much more when seeing their young and talented people leaving; irregular migration is making our partner countries losing their nation's lifeblood…

With this common understanding, based on respect and solidarity, I am confident that we can move forward to address the root causes of migration and to implement the La Valetta Action Plan in all its aspects.

Migration are not only about numbers. Migration is about human beings. Human beings who die, who risks their lives, who leave their loved ones for a future of uncertainty. When boarding a boat for an unsafe sea travel appears safer than staying on earth, there is definitely something wrong. The only tool we have to address root causes of such a tragedy is development. The EU is as committed as ever.