The African Union's Policy Capacity in the Governance of African Irregular Migration

Regional governance has become a significant policy challenge for the African States and Africa’s region, from managing defence, peace, poverty, economic integration, climate change, development issues to continental security. Irregular migration is one of the policy issues which acquired much significance in the early 2000s within the regional political agenda. In July 2001, the Organisation of African Union Council of Ministers (OAUCM) voiced the African states’ desideratum to develop a migration policy framework to face migration challenges upon the Continent. From that need, the 2006 Migration Policy Framework for Migration in Africa emerged. This paper questions the pre-emptive dimension of the African Union’s Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) to understand the weak ‘institutional capacity’ of the regional governance of irregular migration in Africa