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Editorial

What about the African Pact?

As a symbol, this year 2018 ended with the adoption of the Global Compact on Migration, and as a place of adoption the African continent and precisely Marrakech. It must be said that Africa has been very present in the collective imagination of the thousands of actors who came to celebrate the new good word on migrants. Moreover, our continent was the silent godfather of this important moment in human history. Crystallizing all the fears and all the challenges that would push us today to the absolute necessity of a better "migration management".

Not for the consecrated fact that Africans have long been moving a great deal and overwhelmingly within their continent, but for the disastrous image reflected in a well-meaning world population by the disorderly and pathetic arrival of migrants knocking on the doors of rich countries that have themselves become prosperous thanks to a certain amount of migration.

So if the majority of Africa's populations move within their continent, should not the priority of Africans be to work to make this movement safe and beneficial to all? Wouldn't the real challenge within the continent be to give everyone the chance to choose where they live, work and dream?

We have tried to take our share of responsibility in this challenge according to our skills, our resources but above all our deep conviction that any action in this direction will have to be done with the highest quality and in conformity with our identity as an African international organization.

Our leitmotif of a quality approach in accompanying the thousands of migrant children and young people who have fallen into vulnerability has given us the legitimacy to initiate, in addition to the real aid provided to them, a real framework for understanding migration in our region. The Observatory that has been set up will gradually make it possible to provide an objective and empirical picture of the reality of child and youth migration in our region. In order to do this, the involvement of States is a necessity. But a frank collaboration of African actors is a historical obligation.