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The Spanish government is pursuing a markedly separate direction from several developed states when it comes to movement regulations and engagement with the African continent.

Although states such as the US, United Kingdom, France and Federal Republic of Germany are cutting back their foreign assistance funding, the Spanish government stays focused to expanding its participation, albeit from a lower starting point.

Current Programs

Currently, the capital city has been hosting an African Union-backed "world conference on people of African descent". The African diaspora summit will examine reparative equity and the creation of a innovative support mechanism.

This constitutes the latest indication of how Spain's socialist-led government is seeking to deepen and expand its cooperation with the mainland that lies just a few kilometres to the south, across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Policy Structure

This past summer External Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares initiated a recent guidance panel of distinguished academic, foreign service and heritage experts, more than half of them from Africa, to monitor the implementation of the detailed Spanish-African initiative that his administration unveiled at the conclusion of the previous year.

New embassies below the Sahara desert, and partnerships in business and academic are scheduled.

Movement Regulation

The distinction between Spain's approach and that of other Western nations is not just in expenditure but in attitude and outlook – and nowhere more so than in handling immigration.

Comparable with elsewhere in Europe, Administration Head the Spanish premier is looking for ways to contain the arrival of unauthorized entrants.

"In our view, the migratory phenomenon is not only a issue of humanitarian values, solidarity and honor, but also one of reason," the government leader commented.

Exceeding 45,000 individuals attempted the hazardous maritime passage from West African coastline to the Spanish archipelago of the Canaries last year. Approximations of those who perished while making the attempt vary from 1,400 to a astonishing 10,460.

Workable Approaches

Spain's leadership needs to shelter new arrivals, process their claims and manage their absorption into larger population, whether temporary or more permanent.

However, in rhetoric distinctly separate from the adversarial communication that originates from several Western administrations, the Madrid leadership frankly admits the challenging monetary conditions on the territory in West Africa that push people to endanger themselves in the attempt to attain Europe.

Furthermore, it attempts to move beyond simply saying "no" to incoming migrants. Instead, it is designing original solutions, with a pledge to promote population flows that are secure, orderly and regular and "mutually beneficial".

Commercial Cooperation

While traveling to the Mauritanian Republic last year, Sanchez stressed the participation that foreign workers make to the national finances.

The Spanish government finances training schemes for youth without work in nations including the Senegalese Republic, particularly for irregular migrants who have been returned, to assist them in creating sustainable income sources in their native country.

And it has expanded a "circular migration" programme that offers West Africans temporary permits to come to Spain for restricted durations of temporary employment, mostly in cultivation, and then return.

Strategic Importance

The core principle guiding Madrid's outreach is that Spain, as the EU member state closest to the region, has an essential self interest in the continent's advancement toward comprehensive and lasting growth, and tranquility and protection.

This fundamental reasoning might seem obvious.

Yet of course previous eras had guided the Spanish nation down a noticeably unique course.

Other than a limited Mediterranean outposts and a compact tropical possession – presently autonomous the Gulf of Guinea country – its colonial expansion in the 16th and 17th Centuries had mainly been directed across the Atlantic.

Forward Vision

The cultural dimension encompasses not only dissemination of the national tongue, with an enhanced representation of the language promotion body, but also programmes to help the transfer of scholarly educators and scholars.

Security co-operation, measures regarding environmental shifts, women's empowerment and an enhanced consular representation are predictable aspects in today's environment.

Nevertheless, the approach also lays very public stress it places on assisting democratic values, the pan-African body and, in especial, the regional West African group the West African economic bloc.

This represents positive official support for the latter, which is presently facing significant challenges after witnessing its half-century celebration tainted by the walk-out of the Sahel nations – the Sahel country, Mali and Niger – whose controlling military regimes have declined to adhere with its standard for political freedom and good governance.

Meanwhile, in a message targeted as much at the national citizenry as its African collaborators, the international relations office said "helping persons of African origin and the fight against racism and xenophobia are also crucial objectives".

Eloquent statements of course are only a initial phase. But in the current negative global atmosphere such discourse really does distinguish itself.