Focus on West Africa

He looks at the example of West Africa to show that migration is a phenomenon that has been deeply entrenched for centuries in both economic and cultural everyday practice. It is impossible to put a stop to it, to which a never-ending series of tragedies taking place on refugee and migration routes are testament. Programs funded to the tune of billions, intended to combat the reasons that people flee also underestimate the actual dimensions of the manifold crises in West Africa. Slavery and colonialism have led to the emergence of deeply ingrained economic and political structures that are still making it extremely difficult for West African countries to develop independently. It is on this basis that Bernau illustrates the entire palette of causes: unjust global trade and debt policies, bad governments, the neglect of rural populations, climate change, the escalation of violence in the Sahel, and much more. The author makes use of scholarly and literary sources as well as his own experiences. His suggestions for a fundamental restructuring of the relationships between West Africa and Europe are thus the result of an expertise that he has been cultivating over several decades.