African Asylum Seekers in Europe: The Interplay between Foreign Aid and Governance in Origin Countries

Jordi Ripollés,Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso

doi:10.1007/s11079-021-09654-2

Jordi Ripollés, Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11079-021-09654-2

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Abstract

This paper empirically investigates the effects of governance quality on the number of African asylum seekers in Europe over the period 1996–2018 and evaluates the extent to which official development aid acts as a catalyst. With this purpose in mind, different gravity model specifications and estimation approaches have been employed. The obtained results suggest that the asylum flows are strongly determined by governance quality in the country of origin and that this effect does depend on the amount of foreign aid received from developed countries. Moreover, it is also found that development aid is only effective in reducing asylum applications coming from countries with good governance. Moreover, we find no differences in the estimated elasticity of foreign aid on asylum claims for the beneficiaries of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) for Africa, the main aim of which has been to improve living conditions of potential migrants in their countries of origin.

Highlights

Over the last decades, the continent of Africa has been plagued by political conflicts and frequent outbursts of violence
This paper investigates the effect of governance quality in the country of origin on asylum migration from African countries to European Union (EU) countries over the last two decades
Our empirical results suggest that the number of asylum seekers is strongly deter‐ mined by poor governance and political instability in the country of origin, and that the effect of governance depends on the amount of aid received from developed countries

Summary

Introduction

The continent of Africa has been plagued by political conflicts and frequent outbursts of violence. Examples include the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the wave of revolutions known as the Arab Spring that unsettled North Africa in 2010. Africa is a continent where autocratic regimes persist: out of the 51. 7 are still ruled by presidents that came to power before 1990.1 On the other side of the Mediterranean, Europe emerges as a politically stable and highly developed region geographically close to North Africa. It is not surprising that the European Union (EU) –known for its stability and security– is a popular migration destination for people from less privileged African countries in search of a better life

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