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Spain is charting a markedly separate path from numerous developed states when it comes to immigration strategies and cooperation with the African continent.

Whereas states such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany are cutting back their foreign assistance funding, the Spanish government stays focused to enhancing its involvement, albeit from a lower starting point.

Recent Developments

Currently, the Spanish capital has been accommodating an African Union-backed "world conference on people of African descent". The Madrid African conference will examine reparative equity and the establishment of a fresh assistance program.

This represents the latest indication of how Spain's socialist-led government is attempting to strengthen and diversify its engagement with the mainland that sits merely a few kilometres to the southern direction, beyond the Gibraltar passage.

Governmental Approach

During summer Foreign Minister Madrid's top envoy initiated a new advisory council of renowned scholarly, international relations and heritage experts, more than half of them African, to supervise the delivery of the comprehensive Madrid-Africa plan that his leadership unveiled at the conclusion of the previous year.

Fresh consular offices south of the Sahara, and partnerships in enterprise and academic are planned.

Migration Management

The difference between the Spanish method and that of different European countries is not just in funding but in attitude and philosophy – and nowhere more so than in dealing with immigration.

Like different EU nations, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is seeking methods to contain the entry of irregular arrivals.

"For us, the immigration situation is not only a question of moral principles, solidarity and dignity, but also one of reason," the government leader said.

Exceeding 45,000 individuals made the perilous sea crossing from Africa's west coast to the overseas region of the Canary Islands last year. Calculations of those who lost their lives while making the attempt range between 1,400 to a overwhelming 10,460.

Workable Approaches

Madrid's government must house fresh migrants, review their cases and manage their absorption into wider society, whether transient or more permanent.

Nevertheless, in rhetoric noticeably distinct from the confrontational statements that originates from several Western administrations, the Madrid leadership openly acknowledges the difficult financial circumstances on the ground in West Africa that compel individuals to risk their lives in the effort to reach EU territory.

Furthermore, it attempts to transcend simply refusing entry to recent entrants. Instead, it is developing creative alternatives, with a promise to foster movements of people that are protected, orderly and regular and "jointly profitable".

Financial Collaboration

While traveling to the Mauritanian Republic recently, the Spanish leader stressed the contribution that immigrants provide for the national finances.

The Spanish government funds skill development initiatives for unemployed youth in nations including the Senegalese Republic, especially for unauthorized persons who have been repatriated, to help them develop workable employment options back home.

And it has expanded a "circular migration" programme that offers individuals from West Africa short-term visas to come to Spain for restricted durations of periodic labor, primarily in farming, and then go back.

Strategic Importance

The fundamental premise supporting the Spanish approach is that the Iberian nation, as the continental nation closest to the mainland, has an vital national concern in Africa's progress toward equitable and enduring progress, and peace and security.

The core justification might seem obvious.

However previous eras had guided Spain down a distinctly separate route.

Other than a few Maghreb footholds and a small tropical outpost – presently autonomous the Gulf of Guinea country – its territorial acquisition in the 1500s and 1600s had mainly been directed across the Atlantic.

Prospective Direction

The cultural dimension incorporates not only promotion of the Spanish language, with an expanded presence of the Spanish cultural organization, but also schemes to help the mobility of academic teachers and scholars.

Protection partnership, measures regarding environmental shifts, gender equality and an increased international engagement are expected elements in contemporary circumstances.

Nevertheless, the plan also puts notable focus it assigns to assisting democratic values, the pan-African body and, in particular, the sub-Saharan cooperative body the West African economic bloc.

This will be positive official support for the organization, which is now experiencing substantial difficulties after observing its five-decade milestone marred by the departure of the Sahelian states – the Sahel country, the West African state and the Nigerien Republic – whose ruling military juntas have refused to comply with its standard for political freedom and good governance.

Concurrently, in a statement aimed similarly at Spain's internal population as its African collaborators, the foreign ministry said "helping persons of African origin and the struggle versus discrimination and immigrant hostility are also essential focuses".

Fine words of course are only a first step. But in the current negative global atmosphere such language really does appear distinctive.