Report: The relationship between migration research and policy practice in Africa: policy dialogue (Author: Flora Kiefert)

Are migration researchers and practitioners working in their separate ”silos”? This question was raised by a representative of the German development cooperation (GIZ) at a policy dialogue on “The relationship between migration research and policy practice in Africa” was held as part of the “Bridging the gap? Rethinking engagement between migration research, policies and practice” conference on 23rd and 24th April 2026, celebrating 20 Years of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Accra. The event was organised by the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), chaired by its German director Dr. Stefan Rother, and hosted at the ISSER Conference Hall of the University of Ghana.

In line with the conference theme, the dialogue brought together development practitioners and researchers to discuss the possibility of connecting their areas of expertise. It addressed this connection in terms of challenges such as inaccessibility of research for practitioners as well as good practices of translating research into policy, while also questioning the limits of such collaboration. In addition, the discussion explored how Western-centric biases in research and policymaking can be challenged.

The panelists included Abena Owusua Amponsah-Bio, the implementation manager for the programme “Shaping development-oriented migration” at Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Accra, working on the behalf of the German ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The migration programmes of GIZ target a 360 degree approach to migration management focusing on the different phases of migration, before, during and after migration. The GIZ initiatives seek to support a gender-responsive implementation of the Global Migration Pact and include diaspora cooperation, migration governance and multilateral partnerships, regular pathways, fair and ethical recruitment. Kachi Madubuko is the Senior Policy Officer for Trade and Mobility for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Special Liaison Office to the AU and UNECA. With a continent-wide mandate, her work focuses on the nexus between migration governance, trade facilitation and regional integration, supporting policy development, strategic partnerships and programme initiatives that promote mobility-responsive approaches to Africa’s integration and sustainable development agenda. Prof. Leander Kandilige, Associate Professor of Migration Studies at the Centre for Migration Studies, has worked both in research and with civil society organisations. Recently, he was involved in the creation of the free movement protocol for Africa, advocating its ratification by the Ghanaian government. His areas of expertise include migration policy, development, labour mobility and regional integration, return and reintegration. Dr. Jesper Bjarnesen is a Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, an independent research institute funded by three Nordic governments. His work mainly examines regional labour mobilities in Francophone Africa and family dynamics across borders. Dr. Oliver Bakewell is a Reader in Migration Studies at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester, UK. His research focuses on migration and development in Africa, including the effects of the externalisation of EU migration policies.

Is anybody listening?

Framed by the observation that numerous forums already bring researchers and policymakers into dialogue, the discussion opened with a fundamental question: how can this exchange be made more effective, and should a gap between research and policy exist at all?

Against this backdrop, the panel initially turned to the impact of data and research on policies, discussing key challenges related to accessibility as well as approaches that have proven effective in practice. Amponsah-Bio, speaking from a practitioner’s perspective, highlighted the challenge of aligning research-based policy recommendations to the interest of development partners. She noted labour migration as an area in which this enhanced alignment is key , emphasising that research needs to yield good practices guiding the design of informed instruments. She also underlined the trend to turn the interest of research among others, to where resources are coming from to support operationalization., Madubuko agreed that the policy stage moves with political pressure, creating a mismatch in timing between research and policy. According to her, policy-making should be “structured in a way to listen” to research while research should deliver specific policy choices that provide trade-offs and existing options to decision-makers.

Amponsah-Bio concurred that understanding both the needs of the relevant stakeholders, as well as the research on the topic, is crucial to create a “win-win-win” for policy makers, researchers, and people affected by the policies. She cautioned against a “solo silo syndrome”, in which all parties are in their own silo, not coordinating and aligning their efforts and resources.

Madubuko emphasised the importance of governments developing the capacity to better understand and integrate research into their work. She suggested that this could, for instance, be strengthened by individuals moving between roles, such as policymakers developing research experience through an academic career. As she put it, the issue is not one of producing better research, but stronger mechanisms that embed evidence with policy processes from the outset, including through co-development, iterative testing and continuous feedback from implementation.

From the researchers’ perspective, the central challenge was the difficulty of conveying knowledge in ways that can influence policy-decisions without distorting its purpose. Several panelists emphasised that gaining access to decision-making arenas

is only the first step, researchers must also know how to communicate effectively, foregrounding key insights and analysis rather than detail. Additionally, clear language is not only about making research accessible to policymakers, but also about reaching wider publics and broadening its impact.

Similar to the practitioners, the necessity of an ongoing dialogue, in tune with policymakers’ existing agendas and assumptions was stressed. Kandilige illustrated this with the example of policies on human trafficking as well as on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in Ghana. His research has fed into the multi-stakeholder approaches to coordinating actions against human trafficking. Also, he was involved in reviewing the “Anti human trafficking act” of Ghana, after twenty years of its enactment. In addition, he highlighted how he has built the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to enable them to play a critical role in the the national coordination and implementation of the GCM, showing the possibilities of research and policy working alongside each other. Bjarnesen’s concern was that academic work is often either too descriptive or too narrowly specialised, limiting its broader analytical contribution. According to him, researchers should stay attuned to which part of their research is relevant for policy-decisions, connect issues across domains and introduce new perspectives.

At the same time, the panelists on the researchers’ side agreed that not all research needs to be policy-relevant, and exploratory or theoretical work remains essential as a foundation for future applications. They cautioned that the starting point for research should not be defined by policy concerns. Bakewell highlighted that the recent policy emphasis on irregular migration has, in turn, shaped research priorities in the same direction. He concluded that the value of research should not be measured solely by its direct policy uptake, but also by its wider influence on how people think, act, and understand migration.

Africa and beyond

The second round of questions focused on Western-centrism and the possibility of making policies, and more broadly, knowledge, rooted in experience and research from Africa. Rother asked the panelists if they believed that migration policies are too strongly influenced by Western-centric research and policies.

Amponsah-Bio agreed with this notion to an extent, emphasing the accessibility of research papers from Western countries in comparison to African research. She reinforced the call to have research collaboration across the African continent. Madubuko contended that the central challenge is not simply Western influence, but the tendency for policy processes to be insufficiently grounded in how mobility is actually experienced on the ground- as a livelihood strategy, risk management mechanism and an integral component of regional economic systems, demanding a shift to lived realities. Bjarnesen pointed to multiple gaps that need to be addressed, including those in knowledge production, global inequalities, and the perspectives and priorities that shape migration debates. He mentioned that the interests of different governments play an immense role in what narrative becomes dominant.

Kandilige added that both policies and research have Western biases. Policies in states like Ghana have a “Western flavour” because they are often created in coordination with Western consultants or consultants with Western education. This creates “copy and paste” policies in African countries ignoring that they often operate under vastly different conditions and cultural contexts. Both in research and policymaking in Africa, conceptual frameworks and theories are typically designed by Western academics and adopted without any critical reflection. A distinctly African or Ghanaian approach is often missing.

Bakewell noted that there also exists a bias in what aspects of migration are talked about. Often it is in connection with moderating or controlling, and positive aspects of migration are rarely mentioned.

In discussing how migration policies in Africa can be more firmly rooted in local knowledge and migrants’ lived experiences, Amponsah-Bio emphasised that this begins with changing the narrative regarding African migration – that the positive and development-oriented aspects of migration story is told more.. Madubuko added that this also includes broadening the research agenda to highlight the benefits of mobility, countering the dominant problem-focused framing. Bjarnesen added that while there is a growing emphasis on “evidence-based” policymaking, this is often interpreted as relying on quantitative data, sidelining the qualitative insights that capture lived experiences. A key task for researchers is therefore to challenge overly data-driven approaches with richer, more contextualised understandings of mobility.

Turning to how African migration research can shape Western policy debates, Madubuko stressed the importance of strengthening research platforms and systems that connect African researchers to global policy processes. She also highlighted the value of leveraging institutions that operate at the interface of regions, such as IOM, to facilitate the systematic transmission of African evidence, perspectives and policy experiences to inform global migration discussions. Bjarnesen called attention to collaborative research groups as ways to connect scholars and amplify African-based expertise. Bjarnesen and Kandilige are both part of the AMMODI project, a Collaborative Research Group on African Migration, Mobility, and Displacement, featuring a list of African-based scholars and publications on their website.

Bakewell pointed to asymmetries in knowledge production, noting that Africa is often treated merely as a site of data collection for externally driven research agendas. Reversing this dynamic would mean not only supporting African scholars’ mobility and access to global academic spaces, but also taking African theoretical frameworks seriously.

What emerged from the discussion is that connecting research and policy requires not only dialogue, but sustained efforts to address structural inequalities in knowledge production and use. Echoing the broader conference theme, Madubuko suggested that the challenge may not be how to bridge a gap between policy-relevant research and policy making, but how to move beyond treating them as separate domains altogether.

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