The fund will assist projects in supporting basic services for local populations, improving migration management, supporting improvements in overall governance, in particular by promoting conflict prevention and enforcing the rule of law. It will also fund actions that could contribute to preventing and countering radicalization and extremism.

Also, the leaders from European and African countries struck a 17-page action plan under which 16 priority initiatives will be launched before the end of 2016.

The action plan was built around five priority areas: addressing the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement, legal migration and mobility, protection and asylum, the fight against people smuggling, and return, readmission and reintegration.

Leaders agreed to set up pilot projects that pool offers for legal migrants for work, study, research, and vocational training as well as organize workshops on visa facilitation.

The action plan is also committed to establishing or upgrading national and regional anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking legislation, in countries of origin, transit and destination.

Europe is experiencing the most severe refugee crisis since World War II. According to the International Organization for Migration, arrivals of migrants and refugees to Europe by sea in 2015 approached 800,000 through the first week of November, a figure that amounts to nearly four times the total for all of 2014.