By definition a foreigner is a person who lacks some fundamental right to make claims on the territory in which they are foreign. Today, too many Africans are unable to make these claims of their own countries. Too many Africans are still not at home in Africa. – Nanjala Nyabola (travelling while black p.134).

There are a few African history accounts on Twitter and Instagram and I often find myself scrolling through pictures of the heyday of pan-Africanism. That moment in the fifties and sixties when we were all fighting the same struggle. When we were debating what the post-colonial political economic and social landscape should look like. That moment died as African leaders became more concerned with consolidating power within their own borders, and our unity fell prey to Cold War power games.

Today the pan African dream is distinctly economic and commercial. At its centre is the African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) meant to bring the continent together as a single trading bloc. This is aimed at driving economic development through increased intra African trade. While this a laudable goal and one which I wholeheartedly support, the narrow economic vision of a pan-Africanism driven by trade is missing key elements. And in doing so it is somewhat hollow, appealing only to economists and business leaders rather than to the people it is intended to benefit.

The first element that the CFTA is missing is that for the real value of economic development to be realised the CFTA must be structured for MSME’s, small traders and entrepreneurs to take advantage of. They are the heart of the African economy and if free trade merely benefits big corporate entities it will be a failure. This something I have written about in detail here.

The second and most critical element missing from the equation is people. Africa’s Development must have her people at its centre. And the CFTA cannot just be about the movement of goods and capital it must also be about the movement of people. From an economic perspective restricting the movement of people restricts trade in services (which people perform), capital (which people own) and goods. But more fundamentally if Africans cannot freely move around our continent to discover each other, our cultures, common challenges and opportunities then free trade will be meaningless.

The European example

The 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (the forerunner of the EU in Article three says: “The activities of the Community shall include… the elimination, as between Member States, of customs duties and of quantitative restrictions on the import and export of goods…; the abolition, as between Member States, of obstacles to freedom of movement for persons, services and capital.”

These are widely known as the four freedoms, freedom of movement for goods, services, capital and people. The framers of the EEC coupled the economic with the socio-political because they correctly judged that the ability of people to move and earn incomes through the community not only increased incomes, but it created human links and bonds that reinforced those created by trade and in time has allowed for the construction of an EU wide political infrastructure.

As we design the CFTA we must learn from the European example and adjust it to our own needs. We are not looking to create a political superstate but looking to drive commerce, the exchange of ideas and increase the self-reliance, prosperity, and well-being of the continent. This requires people, not just a lack of tariffs.

Integrating and enhancing African migration

First off, it’s important to point out that African’s already migrate, and over 50% of that migration is between African countries[1], largely driven by peoples search for jobs and opportunities. On top of this the value of remittances by African migrants surpasses official development aid that African countries receive. In short African’s migrating throughout the continent are already a key driver of our economies, more important than the aid we jump through hoops to get, however much of this is still limited.

It can be notoriously difficult for African’s to officially travel within Africa. A combination of bureaucratic ambiguity, inflexibility, the cost of visa’s, flights, and the difficulty of obtaining official documents, make it easier, tragically, to go to Dubai than it is to go from Nairobi to Johannesburg.

Figure 1: source – the Africa Visa Openess Report 2019 https://www.visaopenness.org/

Cutting through this process is critical to driving to driving economic, social and cultural flows across the continent. Visa free or short-term visa’s on arrival are the simple answer, letting African’s travel hassle free across the continent on a short-term basis will act as a critical lubricant.

It’s not just enough to make it easier for Africans who travelling on the continent for short durations. Longer term migration, people moving from country on a more permanent basis to live and work is a key element of Intra-African migration. Unfortunately, it is often badly mischaracterised, with immigration demonised, where migrants are accused of bringing crime, and stealing jobs. And across the continent from the Nigerian expulsion of over 2 million Ghanaian migrants in 1983 to the xenophobic riots that have been seen in South Africa in the last several years. Contrary to the belief that migration contributes to growing unemployment in destination countries, UNCTAD found that migration in Africa is not associated with unemployment rather the contribution of migrants to GDP was measured at 19% in Côte d’Ivoire (2008), 13% in Rwanda (2012), 9% in South Africa (2011) and 1% in Ghana (2010). And, crucially, increased immigration in African countries occurs in parallel with improvements in education and health, especially for girls and women. In short facilitating and welcoming long-term migration from other African countries is good development policy. Thus, rather than demonising migrants, or playing into fears of the other by taking hardliner anti-immigrant positions. African policy makers need to put in place workable mechanisms to make intra-African immigration easier. Clear and easy mechanisms for obtaining work permits and residency visas would be at the core legalising much of the immigration that already takes place. And by legalising it, migrants can come out of the informal economy and fully contribute to the communities and societies in which they live.

Beyond the purely economic considerations, the building of stronger cultural, social and political ties across the continent will only happen when people can build those ties in person and there are policies that we can and should put in place to facilitate that such as:

• Tertiary education exchange programs, that will bring our students, academics and researchers together.
• Teaching African languages in schools.
• Funding of cross border infrastructure to facilitate trade and movement
• Implementing the Single African Air Transport Market to make air travel more affordable and accessible on the continent.
• Removal and/or lowering of telecoms roaming fees and cross border bank charges.

Migration as development

The evidence from the effects of intra-African migration overwhelmingly show that it is positive for both the origin and host nations. The innumerable benefits that come with African’s moving, engaging, working, and doing business around the continent make it a critical and easy development policy. Furthermore, as the world enters a more fragmentary period, many policy makers have realised that it is critical that Africa come together to forge its destiny and prosperity. This is starting to happen again, particularly thorough multilateral African initiatives such as the CFTA for trade, and the Africa CDC for combating health challenges. However, the pan-African dream will never be realised through a set of narrowly focused initiatives, without a common connecting thread. That thread is people, African’s freely moving and migrating throughout the continent building ties and lives. That will be critical driver for development and cooperation across the continent. And as Nanjala Nyabola points out in her fantastic collection of essays on “Travelling while black” the pan-African dream whether cultural, political or economic will never become reality until we, accept each other as Africans rather than foreigners to be kept out.

[1] The Economic Development in Africa Report (EDAR) 2018 – Migration for Structural Transformation