A European Union development fund to reduce migrant crossings from Africa has been undermined by a failure to identify what works, missing reports of human rights violations, and exaggerated claims of success, auditors say.
Eight years after it began operating in 2016, the €5 billion ($5.6 billion) EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, or EUTF, is “still unable to say which approaches are the most efficient and effective at reducing irregular migration and forced displacement,” the European Court of Auditors has found.
It criticizes the European Commission for a focus on “outputs” such as the number of job courses provided, rather than “the outcome” — whether people secured work to dissuade them from attempting “the dangerous routes across the Mediterranean into Europe,” Bettina Jakobsen, the ECA member in charge of the audit, said.