Nigeria: current Rabat Process Chair

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Nigeria currently serves as Chair of the Rabat Process, succeeding Portugal, which officially handed over the alternating Africa-EU Chairmanship on 30 January 2025, at a Senior Officials Meeting held in Porto. This marks Nigeria’s first time assuming the Chairmanship of the Rabat Process. Nigeria is working closely with all the Rabat Process partner countries to ensure their tenure as chair is marked by meaningful progress, collaboration, and shared success.

Nigeria’s vision

Nigeria’s chairmanship aims to foster stronger partnerships, enhance policy coherence, and deliver meaningful outcomes across the Rabat Process region. As chair, Nigeria is well-positioned to drive forward meaningful dialogue and actions, working alongside both African and European partners to address the complexities of migration along critical routes. In this leadership role, Nigeria will work tirelessly to ensure that migration is well-managed and contributes positively to the development and well-being of individuals and communities across borders. Nigeria’s Chairmanship will particularly promote

regional cooperation,
inclusive migration,
a balanced and humane approach.

Core priorities of Nigeria’s chairmanship

In collaboration with the partner countries of the Rabat Process, Nigeria is working on a comprehensive agenda, with priority focus on the benefits of migration, particularly emphasising youth innovation, diaspora engagement and regular pathways. A key commitment of Nigeria’s chairmanship is to advance discussions on missing migrants, including by supporting the Network of National Focal Points for Missing Migrants throughout the year. Enhancing data management will also be a central priority in the chairmanship’s agenda. Additionally, the chairmanship may explore other thematic areas such as climate-induced mobility, combating trafficking in human beings, and sustainable reintegration.

All these efforts will be closely aligned with the objectives and actions of the Cadiz Action Plan, which provides a coordinated approach to migration management across regions. By building on this framework, Nigeria intends to foster a collective and strategic response to the challenges and opportunities of migration.

Upcoming meetings can be consulted here as soon as they are confirmed:

Calendar

Expected Outcomes

Nigeria aspires to continue in the spirit of dialogue and consensus. By the end of Nigeria's chairmanship of the Rabat Process, the following outcomes are expected:

Strengthened regional and bilateral cooperation, fostering consensus-building, commitment, and collective action on migration and sustainable development.
Increased recognition of the role of youth and innovation in migration, resulting in more targeted and effective policies.
Enhanced national capacities for effective migration management.

Role of the Chairmanship

The role of Chairmanship of the Rabat Process was introduced in 2014. The Chairmanship of the Rabat Process is a driving force, shaping the dialogue:

Alternating between Africa and Europe, each member of the Steering Committee may hold the Chairmanship for a period of one year.
The role of the Chairmanship is to give impetus to the Dialogue, moderate the political meetings and help find consensus between divergent positions. It plays an essential role in preparing agendas, preparatory documents and recommendations for the meetings. It is supported by the Rabat Process Secretariat.
The Chairmanship chooses to focus in particular on political and operational priorities that it shares with the member countries in order to ensure the successful implementation of the strategic framework of the Rabat Process and the Valletta framework.
The Chairmanship represents the Rabat Process in international fora and other external meetings. The Dialogue Chairmanship is based on a tripartite / troika model including the outgoing, current and incoming chairmanship.