Corruption and migrant returns: Managing risk in assisted return programmes

To incentivise the return of rejected asylum-seekers and irregular migrants, most European states support Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration programmes. Corruption impacts these programmes’ performance. However, corruption control measures can lead to unintended outcomes. Certain efforts are likely to improve the quality and uptake of these return programmes. They include more realistic design of corruption prevention measures combined with stronger complaints mechanisms and monitoring processes.

Main points

• Anti-corruption controls can complicate service delivery and increase migrants’ perceptions of corruption within return and reintegration programmes. Donors should monitor not only whether implementing partners deliver the promised assistance but also how efficient and transparent the process is for returning migrants.
• In-kind support, for example to start a business, typically involves multiple bids, contracts, licenses and other documents that returnees often struggle to produce. While these requirements may reduce opportunities for corruption and fraud, the resulting delays undermine programme credibility and uptake.
• Corruption control measures should be sensitive to migrant vulnerabilities, particularly when it comes to documentation and travel demands.
• An effective complaints mechanism for beneficiaries of return assistance is essential not only to curb corruption but also to establish trust in the programme and its implementers.

Asylum seekers arriving in Europe tend to come from states where governance structures are weak or non-existent and corruption is rife. Those whose applications are rejected have invested much in their journey to Europe and often resist host states’ efforts to remove them. Increasingly, host states engage in a carrot and stick strategy. These combine the threat of forcible deportation with the promise of reintegration assistance for those who sign up for return. Programmes that do so are labelled Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) – but the term ‘voluntary’ is contestable. They have become a popular tool in migration management since inception in the 1970s. Although NGOs may be involved, the biggest implementing partner for funding states is the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Next to free transport and eventually some counselling, these programmes usually offer cash, in-kind assistance, or both. IOM estimates its reintegration-related expenditures in 2016 at US$ 32.7 million, of which 62% were cash transfers and 31% were in-kind (non-cash) support for setting up micro-businesses (IOM 2017). Other types of assistance, like housing support, medical support and educational courses, are comparatively rare. However, the scope and type of assistance vary significantly depending on programme design and eligibility criteria.

In 2016, IOM offered return assistance to more than 98,000 migrants – the highest number during the last 15 years. That is a 40% increase from 2015, which already had a significant rise from previous years (IOM 2017). Roughly two thirds of returnees were male and one third female. More than 80% returned from Europe, where Germany accounted for 54% of the total caseload (IOM 2017).

AVRR returnees are often cast as ‘beneficiaries’ whose reintegration is ‘facilitated’ in a way that is ‘good for development’. Empirical research tends to question such notions, though outcomes vary across and within countries of origin. A rarely noted characteristic of AVRRs, however, is the fact that the promise of reintegration assistance is mostly made by and in relatively transparent liberal democracies, whereas corruption is often endemic in the states of origin.

There is a myriad of linkages between corruption and AVRRs affecting migrants, implementing agencies and funding states. Below are some suggestions for approaching them pragmatically.

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Original source: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
Published on 19 February 2018