As key advisor to government offices across Europe, Ramboll Management Consulting contributes to effective and evidence-based solutions to the challenges posed by the influx of migrants and asylum seekers. This was reconfirmed with the interim evaluation of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.
When the number of migrants and asylum seekers rapidly increased through 2015 and 2016, it put a severe strain on the asylum and reception systems of several member states of the European Union. Not least the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) was tested, as it is dedicated to promoting the efficient management of migration flows across Europe and to the implementation, strengthening and development of a common Union approach to asylum and immigration.
A potential knowledge source
Ramboll Management Consulting conducted the interim evaluation of AMIF on behalf of the European Commission in 2017 and 2018. It concluded that AMIF has proven comprehensive enough to address the needs, and that the current challenges of increased immigration in 2015 and 2016 have been properly addressed within the funds’ framework. Another conclusion is that the interventions financed by AMIF vary in character across Europe and have varying degrees of sustainability. This diversity offers a potential, says Vanessa Ludden from Ramboll’s office in Brussels who headed the evaluation:
“As part of the evaluation, we have created an interesting overview of interventions across borders. This overview not only gives rise to a set of recommendations for future actions regarding the management of AMIF, it also represents a potential knowledge source for national development.”
The evaluation applied a theory-based approach and a mix of methods, ranging from the meta-evaluation of Member States’ interim evaluation reports, to desk research, to in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, to case studies focussing on one specific AMIF instrument, namely Emergency Assistance in a selection of seven countries: Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Sweden.
Implementation advice
The evaluation of AMIF is one example among others of how Ramboll contributes with knowledge to policymaking. Always with an ambition to provide knowledge at the highest possible level of evidence as a basis for designing the necessary interventions. In recent years, Ramboll has expanded its cooperation with decision-makers in the European government offices so that close advice on implementation has become a valuable complement to the evaluations.
An example of this is that Ramboll in 2016 and 2017 cooperated with the Nordic Council of Ministers on a series of implementation seminars. The aim was to assist the participants in digesting a major analysis of integration measures in the Nordics and taking the first steps towards the development of their national and even local policies and to describe their implementation in a very operational manner.