Europe’s migration crisis: the importance of foreign aid

Image via Wikimedia Commons

While the migration crisis divides mainstream media and European citizens alike, a new narrative is beginning to emerge. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current climate of chaos and fear is severely unproductive that instead of trying to tackle the crisis on the front lines, more needs to be done in humanitarian and diplomatic terms to ensure that such disasters are avoided in the future.

This is more than crisis management. National newspapers and broadcasting stations in Britain alone are beginning to wake up to the reality of the situation: that the migrants are humans, often vulnerable humans, escaping lives in countries that the Western world only gets glimpses of in the media. Insensitive labels assigned to the migrants such as the British Prime Minister David Cameron describing those crossing from Calais as a ‘swarm’ are being challenged by a growing movement to embrace the humanity of those in Calais and in the Mediterranean. It is, it seems, time to find another route to securing a stable future for those journeying from abroad.

This route can only be found through foreign aid and international diplomacy, which in turn, means the abandonment of military-like defensive stances. While the British government has been criticised by the public for its increasing foreign aid budget, thus demonstrating the anti-migrant, often xenophobic sentiment of much of the nation, the rest of the EU has been urged to meet and exceed Britain’s commitments. The UK International Development Secretary, Justine Greening, told The Guardian in May that the answer to the migration crisis is to tackle the ‘root causes’ of why people are moving in the first place. The consequences of committing to more foreign aid, and thus improving the lives of people in developing and war-torn countries, are far worse for the human traffickers sending migrants across the Mediterranean than they are to the European countries who would otherwise receive them.

Hand in hand with a fairer foreign aid policy across Europe is a diplomatic approach to international relations. Providing military support to countries already in the throes of war only heightens the plight of civilians in those nations. Equally, of course, avoiding intervention altogether gives the impression of an aloof, uncaring government with a disregard for human life beyond their own country’s borders. A stronger, more visible support system made up of Western nations—those who have, historically, intervened to both advantageous and detrimental effect—may do more to help nations struggling with the poverty of their own people than violence or indifference ever could.

Some people, of course, will always be anti-immigration, and others see no issue with welcoming migrants to some of the wealthiest nations on Earth. But to strike an equal balance between these extremes—to provide care and support for those in need whilst taking into consideration the situation in one’s own country—foreign aid and international diplomacy, not brutal border control and negligent naval rescue teams, are sorely needed from countries all over Europe.

Originally posted on The Global Panorama.