In Summary
• A substantial number of migrants is not necessarily a bad thing:
Intra-African migration fosters economic connections between rural and
urban areas and among regional neighbours.
• African migration flows are not as large as some politicians claim
but could increase as the effects of climate change intensify.
• Climate change contributes both to extreme events and chronic
emergencies.

BETTER-EDUCATED
Nothing could be further from the truth: There is no mass exodus from
Africa.
In 2017, more than half of the world’s migrants originated from just
21 countries. The top four were India (6.4 per cent), Mexico (five per
cent), Russia (4.1 per cent) and China (3.9 per cent). The African
country with the largest share of migrants, Egypt, was 19th.
Africa accounts for only 14 per cent of migrant flows, most of them
confined to it. Recent reports �` by the International Organization for
Migration and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,
among others �` show around 70 per cent of Sub-Saharan African migrants
remain on the continent, mostly within East and West Africa (18.5 per
cent and 16.7 per cent, respectively). Almost half (46 per cent) of
all intraregional African migrants are female.
The West thus faces little risk of a massive wave of African migrants.
And a substantial number of migrants is not necessarily a bad thing:
Intra-African migration fosters economic connections between rural and
urban areas and among regional neighbours.
A 2018 Afrobarometer survey of 34 African countries shows younger,
better-educated urbanites are more likely to consider emigrating than
their older, less-educated rural counterparts. They are often
motivated by the desire to find a job (43 per cent) or to escape
economic hardship (33 per cent).
Tapping these migrants’ potential, and ensuring that intra-African
migration is a safe, orderly and productive process, will require
African governments to create better frameworks for managing it.
Beyond collecting and sharing data, international institutions can
share knowledge and best practices with governments, as the Migration
Dialogue in West Africa has done. African governments should increase
their contributions to such initiatives, so far funded by Western donors.
FINANCIAL FLOWS
Technology can also help. The non-profit Techfugees, for example, is
already working to coordinate the tech industry’s response to the
refugee challenge, spurring the development of solutions “for and with
displaced people”.

Existing projects include Migreat, which helps
refugees to navigate the asylum application process, and GeeCycle,
focused on recycling and donating mobile phones to refugees.
Keeping migrants safe requires governments and media to set the record
straight. In South Africa, for example, anti-immigrant rhetoric has
recently fuelled xenophobic attacks on Malawians and Zimbabweans.
African migration flows are not as large as some politicians claim but
could increase as the effects of climate change intensify. Climate
change contributes both to extreme events and chronic emergencies.
Migrants’ home countries also have a role to play. Migration
represents a brain drain within Africa �` given that most young African
migrants are educated, their departure undermines development in the
countries that need it most, while fuelling growth in host countries
by filling labour gaps, boosting consumption and expanding the tax base.
Migrants do send back remittances �` one of the largest sources of
financial flows to developing countries �` but this money is used
mainly to supplement consumption for recipient families rather than to
finance productive investments. That is why home-country governments
should generate quality jobs to entice youth to stay home.
DEVELOP SKILLS
Entrepreneurship has been hailed as the solution to Africa’s jobs
problem. But it requires concerted action from governments. For
example, to address the mismatch between the skills companies seek and
those the youth possess, governments should invest in science,
technology, engineering, and math (Stem) education and vocational
training. They should work with the private sector to improve the
business environment.
They should also capitalise on the dynamism of the large informal
sector, which employs 75-90 per cent of Africans. Formalising
agriculture, agro-processing and small-scale manufacturing and service
enterprises will require governments to provide infrastructure, public
services and access to credit.
At the recent Now Generation Forum in Abidjan, debates among youth
delegates made clear that African young people will no longer
passively await a better future. They are doing everything in their
power not just to develop their skills and find quality jobs but also
to bring about political change �` as just occurred in Algeria and Sudan. V.2836

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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