In this interview, Anna Gopsill asks Oliver Bakewell and Kiya Gezahegne about their research on Ethiopia.

This blog post considers the extent to which the EU and other industrialised countries can evade responsibility for the displacement of populations most affected by climate change by presenting climate-related disasters as natural, rather than man-made, events. The findings and discussion presented are based on expert interviews, analyses of policy documents and a literature review. The discussion integrates these findings to examine how the impact of framing climate-related disasters as natural events rather than anthropogenic phenomena affects the EU’s responsibility for climate-induced migration from Africa as described by experts working in the region.

Senegal is a compelling case when examining the influence of European externalization initiatives on African partner countries. For nearly two decades, the European Union and individual member states—particularly Spain, France, and more recently Germany—have in different ways attempted to curb irregular migration, both overland and especially at sea.

In 2011, while conducting fieldwork for my master’s thesis in the South Wollo area of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, I came across a striking paradox that has continued to shape my research on migration governance. My focus was on understanding how rural Ethiopian households financed the journey to the Gulf countries, where the Kafala system – in which migrant workers are legally tied to their employers for entry, stay and return – governs labour migration It is a system where the responsibility for managing transnational labour recruitment is handed over to non-state actors, such as private citizens and recruitment agencies. This decentralized approach is based on sponsorship.