Résumé : West Africa sees major activity in the development of migration policies, promoted by international organisations, funded by governments mainly of Europe. Policy development is couched in terms of ‘beneficiary-ownership’, stressing the participation of West African governments. This is problematised as playing down the influence of European and international organisations. We argue that policy-making on migration in West Africa is better understood through the lens of ‘subjectional diplomacy’, a one-sided yet complex relationship between national and international actors that consolidates particular discourses of the ‘problem’ of migration. We find interview and documentary evidence from NGOs and governmental actors across Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea as well as ECOWAS Headquarters and international governmental organisations in Abuja that the logic of beneficiary-ownership is not symmetric. We show how the IOM holds ‘redemptive’ knowledge that turns the civilising mission of old into a professionalising mission embedding neo-colonial relations.