Setting the Record Straight About African Migration

Source: Project Syndicate, 13/05/2019

ABIDJAN â€` In recent years, images of young Africans attempting to
reach Europe, sometimes through the most daring and desperate routes,
have become a fixture on global and national news channels. Cynical
politicians in Europe and the United States have argued, for the sake
of winning votes, that these (largely male) immigrants are “invading”
their countries, threatening to steal locals’ jobs, or worse.
1. The Growing Risk of a 2020 Recession and Crisis
The Growing Risk of a 2020 Recession and Crisis
Across the advanced economies, monetary and fiscal policymakers lack
the tools needed to respond to another major downturn and financial
crisis. Worse, while the world no longer needs to worry about a
hawkish US Federal Reserve strangling growth, it now has an even
bigger problem on its hands.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As we were reminded during
the 2019 Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Weekend, there is, in fact,
no mass exodus from Africa at all.In 2017, more than 50% of the
world’s migrants originated from just 21 countries. The top four were
India (6.4%), Mexico (5%), Russia (4.1%), and China (3.9%). The
African country that accounted for the largest share of migrants,
Egypt, ranked 19th.Africa as a whole accounts for only around 14% of
global migrant flows, most of which are confined to the continent.
Several recent reports â€` by the International Organization for
Migration and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,
among others â€` indicate that around 70% of Sub-Saharan African
migrants remain on the continent, mostly within East and West Africa
(18.5% and 16.7%, respectively). Almost half (46%) of all
intra-regional African migrants are female.Western countries thus face
little risk of a massive wave of African migrants. And a substantial
number of migrants is not necessarily a bad thing for the African
countries that receive most of them. As intra-African migration
fosters economic connections between rural and urban areas, and among
regional neighbors, host countries can reap important economic and
social benefits.This point is underscored by a 2018 Afrobarometer
survey of 34 African countries, which shows that younger,
better-educated urbanites are more likely to have considered
emigrating than their older, less-educated rural counterparts. They
are motivated, most often, by the desire to find a job (43%) or to
escape economic hardship (33%).
Tapping these migrants’ potential, and ensuring that intra-African
migration is a safe, orderly, and productive process, will require
African governments, with the support of international institutions,
to create better frameworks for managing migration on the continent.
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, which have so far been funded
largely by Western donors.
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 navigate the asylum application process, and GeeCycle,
focused on recycling and donating mobile phones to refugees.More
fundamentally, keeping migrants safe requires governments and media to
set the record straight. In South Africa, for example, anti-immigrant
rhetoric has recently fueled xenophobic attacks on Malawians and
Zimbabweans.While African migration flows are not as large as some
politicians claim, they could increase, as the effects of climate
change â€` such as droughts, floods, and other natural disasters â€`
intensify. Already, climate change is contributing both to extreme
events, such as Cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique, and to
chronic emergencies, such as increasingly unpredictable weather
patterns in the Sahel. These trends highlight the growing urgency of
improving how migration is managed. Of course, migrants’ home
countries also have a role to play. Migration represents a brain drain
within Africa â€` given that most young African migrants are educated,
their departure undermines development in the countries that need it
most, while fueling growth in host countries by filling labor gaps,
boosting consumption, and expanding the tax base.Migrants do send back
remittances, which amount to one of the largest sources of financial
flows to developing countries globally. But this money is used mainly
to supplement consumption for recipient families and pay for school
fees, rather than to finance productive investments. That is why
home-country governments â€` again, with international support â€` should
be working to generate the quality jobs needed to entice young
Africans to stay home.In recent years, entrepreneurship has been
hailed as the solution to Africa’s jobs problem. But spurring
entrepreneurial activity will require concerted action from
governments. For example, to address the mismatch between the skills
private companies seek and those Africa’s young people possess,
governments should invest in education in science, technology,
engineering, and math, and in improving vocational training. Moreover,
governments should work with the private sector to improve the
business environment.Governments should also capitalize on the
dynamism of the large informal sector, which employs an estimated
75-90% ofAfricans. Formalizing agriculture, agro-processing, and many
small-scale manufacturing and service enterprises will require
governments to provide infrastructure, public services, and access to
credit.At the Now Generation Forum in Abidjan earlier this month,
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, even if it
means taking to the streets to challenge their governments, as just
occurred in Algeria and Sudan. But they cannot do it alone. African
governments and the international community must do more to support
their ambitions â€` and the continent’s future.