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Launched in 2010, the Africa–Frontex Intelligence Community (AFIC) helps African countries and the EU work together to share information on migrant smuggling and other border security threats, and to develop a common understanding of the risks affecting their borders. It brings together border security analysts and practitioners from partner authorities with their counterparts at Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. 

Fifteen years on, AFIC partners are using the plenary workshop in Accra, Ghana, to take stock of progress and set the course for the next phase of cooperation. The event gathers representatives of border management authorities from 17 African countries, together with Frontex, EU institutions and international partners. The community connects officers, analysts and experts who face similar pressures and risks, and who recognise that no country can meet today’s border security challenges alone. 

Since its inception, AFIC has been marked by a strong sense of community, as evident in the words of Samuel Basintale Amadu, Comptroller-General of the Ghana Immigration Service: “For fifteen years, AFIC has symbolised partnership, professionalism, and progress. Today, as we convene once again, we celebrate not only the community’s milestones but the collective resilience and shared purpose that have defined this collaboration”. 

Over the past 15 years, AFIC has grown into a network of partners from across Africa, working side by side with Frontex to raise operational challenges and find solutions that would be difficult to achieve without joint effort. In 2018, the Niamey Declaration by EU and AU Interior Ministers highlighted the central role of Frontex and AFIC as a regional information-exchange network for border management. 

From 2017 to 2023, an EU-funded capacity-building project on “Strengthening AFIC as an instrument to fight serious cross-border crimes affecting Africa and the EU” helped partners develop stronger analytical skills and better tools to prevent crime. One of its key achievements was the creation of eight Risk Analysis Cells (RACs) in Western and Central Africa. 

Run by local analysts trained by Frontex, these cells collect, analyse and share information on migration flows, border security and cross-border crime, including migrant smuggling, trafficking in human beings and terrorism. They are now a core feature of the AFIC network, breaking down silos and enabling regular exchanges of information and good practice among partners. 

AFIC has developed into a platform for sustained expert dialogue. Workshops and meetings bring together national experts from various African countries, Frontex specialists and RAC analysts to discuss major risks affecting borders, including the impact of terrorism, and to produce shared analytical products that support decision-makers on both continents. 

AFIC cooperation has already changed how partners understand cross-border crime, how they study risks and how they respond to them. It has built trust between Africa and Europe and shown that information can move as quickly as the threats both sides face. With new and evolving risks ahead – from irregular migration to adaptive smuggling networks and security threats – AFIC aims to remain a leading platform for intelligence sharing in border management, ready for the next 15 years of joint work.