Abierto el Observatorio Africano de Migraciones

The Moroccan government and the African Union (AU) inaugurated the headquarters of the African Migration Observatory (AMO) in Rabat, which will be the main African body for collecting data and knowledge on migratory movements in favour of the continent's countries.

The inauguration ceremony of the new headquarters - located in the affluent Riyadh neighbourhood - was presided over by the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, and the President of the AU's Social Affairs Commission, Amira Elfadil.

The Observatory's main objective is to make data and knowledge related to migratory movements available to African governments and development agencies, in order to help them design their policies in this regard.

According to Bourita, the AMO will guarantee the sovereignty of the African continent in terms of the production of knowledge on emigration in order to overcome its current dependence on foreign research centres.

The Moroccan minister regretted that certain foreign research centres often produce data that lacks objectivity and sometimes has political and electoral purposes.

"Better migration management requires in-depth, quantitative and qualitative knowledge of the migration phenomenon," the Moroccan minister said.

The new centre, he added, will aim to promote a scientific understanding of the migration phenomenon based on data and studies.

Bourita explained that the first mission of the new management team of the Observatory, headed by interim director Leila Benali (Tunisia), will be to create the first database on migration in Africa, and to publish it on the Observatory's electronic portal.

For her part, the African Commissioner, Elfadil, stressed that the new Observatory will constitute a "centralised and unified" source of data on migration on the continent and will provide the necessary knowledge to improve migration policies and development plans.

The AMO is the first AU body to be hosted by Morocco since its return to this continental organisation in 2017, and the fact that its headquarters are in Rabat is, according to observers, a recognition of Morocco's work and its migration strategy - unique on the continent - which in recent years has facilitated the regularisation of more than 50,000 irregular migrants.

The headquarters agreement for Morocco to host the AMO was signed in the context of the United Nations conference for the adoption of the 'Global Agreement for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration', held in Marrakech in 2018.

The Observatory was one of the projects of the 'African Agenda on Migration', presented by King Mohammed VI in January 2018 at the 30th AU summit, and was subsequently approved by the heads of the member states.

The African Agenda for Migration includes ideas, proposals and reflections presented by official institutions, civil society and researchers in Africa to improve and unify migration policies in the continent.

These ideas are based on the fact that African migration is mainly internal and requires greater south-south cooperation.