The dialogue, under the theme: "Migration and Translocality in West Africa," was organised by the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana under the Migration and Translocality in West Africa (MiTra|WA) Project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

The dialogue aims to disseminate the project findings to researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders and to initiate a policy dialogue on how well translocality could be incorporated in migration policies to contribute to sustainable development in West Africa, which could be replicated in other regions in the Global South.

Professor Mary Boatemaa Setrana, the Director of CMS, said the Accra dialogue was to assemble all the various migration findings researchers carried out over the years and to inform new policy directions on current trends.

She said MiTra|WA project, among other things, sought to better understand the drivers, practices, structures and processes of rural-urban and cross-border migration and their interconnected impacts for rural and urban settings. Focusing on Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the project examines emerging opportunities, challenges, and implications for economic, social, political, and ecological dimensions of making a living in these spaces.

Prof. Joseph Yaro, the Provost, College of Humanities, said migrants were now connecting with the area they came from socially and economically.

He said the implications for their families back home were that they did not leave single lives but double lives - one in the city and the other in the rural areas.

"... And at the same time when we talk about reverse remittances, today we cannot say reverse remittances again because it is now inter-dependency between those back home and those in area of destination and that place a whole new discourse in the migration debate," he added.

Dr Stefanie Wehner, the Coordinator of Migration and Translocality in West Africa, said the project also looks at inter linkages of areas of destination and areas of origins of the migrants.

Mr Owusu Mensah, the Deputy Comptroller, Ghana Immigration Service, said although there were several policies for migration governance and management in West Africa, many of them were inadequate to effectively address the complexities of today's migration dynamics.

He cited Ghana's migration policy, which he said was inadequate to manage the interconnectedness, created by migration and the spaces between origins and destination.

"We cannot afford to have or expect static policies to address fluid phenomena like migration in West Africa. In other words, most of the migration policies in West Africa are not translocality-sensitive," he stated.