Category: Immigration

Re-invigorating the pan-African dream through migration

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

Losing Our Mind: Reversing Africa’s Brain Drain

Africa has a migration problem. Not only are thousands of the continents young men and women risking life and limb to try and make it to Europe, we are also losing some of our best minds. A 2013 report from the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found one in nine Africans with a tertiary education (2.9 million people from the continent) were living and working in developed nations in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Over the last 10 years this number has grown by 50% more than any other part of the world. Since 1990, Africa lost 20,000 academic professionals who left their countries and 10 percent of the continents highly skilled information technology professionals. The loss of Africa’s best and brightest is most keenly felt in the health sector, a study by Canadian scientists found that Sub-Saharan African countries that train doctors have lost $2 billion as the expert clinicians leave home to find work in the developed world.

The beneficiaries of this migration are the developed world. The findings of the study suggested that Britain was around $2.7 billion better off, the USA $846 million, Australia $621 million and Canada was $384 million better off. Yet in the developed world, particularly in the West a nativist, anti-immigration sentiment has taken hold. The places that have benefitted most from migration are becoming more hostile to it. This presents a perfect opportunity for Africa to tempt its doctors, engineers, artists, academics and other skilled professionals home. These people offer an unparalleled opportunity to boost our economies and enrich our societies, with the skills, capital, knowledge, networks and experience they could bring back home.

What is needed are the right pull factors to entice the diaspora to move back home. We need policies that make moving back to the continent more attractive.

 

Why the diaspora?

Development needs a skills and knowledge base. Healthcare systems need doctors and nurses to staff them. Infrastructure needs engineers to build them. The IT sector needs talented software and hardware engineers. And the private sector needs people with experience and global business networks if African business are to grow in a global economy. Africa could and should grow these capabilities, but that will take time, valuable time that we can ill afford to lose.

The diaspora offers the perfect way to jumpstart development with human capital. They could bring these much-needed skills, knowledge and networks into the economy while we continue to train more people. In addition, if they came home the diaspora would not only bring back the soft assets of skills and knowledge, they would bring back hard assets, money (in the form of savings and investment funds) that they would use to settle back at home, as well start and invest in businesses. In South Africa it is estimated for every skilled person who returns home to South Africa, nine new jobs are created in the formal and informal sectors. In China, educated skilled professionals, who left China to study and work, are returning. These “sea turtles” have come back with desirable skills, a network of international business contacts and new ideas to boost the economy. Elsevier (the publisher of scientific journals) has used its data to show that India is enjoying a brain gain of scientists returning to and moving to India (the study also shows a similar effect in China).

Thus, the question becomes, how does Africa turn its brain drain into a brain gain. What policies and measures are needed to make African professionals living in other countries want to move back home.

Making moving back easier

If the African diaspora are to be enticed to move back, then we must make it easer for them to do so. This means a smart mix of incentives that make it easier and attractive to move back to Africa.

Moving countries can be a complicated affair, not only do you have to move your stuff, but you also have to register with tax authorities, set up bank accounts and move assets, get all your documentation, insurance, get your children into school etc. Governments can do a lot to make this easier. First by making all of this tax free, the amount of money that governments would make from African migrants coming home and paying taxes on their fridge or money transfers is tiny in comparison to the value they would produce over years. Furthermore, these tax incentives should be extended to those who start new companies within a year of returning and to investments such as buying stocks, bonds and real estate. Second, allow for dual citizenship, this would allow diaspora migrants to become fully fledged citizens without facing the prospect of having to completely leave behind the lives they have built abroad. Coupled with this should be a fast track to citizenship, no one will migrate if they will be in an uncertain situation subject to the whims of an immigration officer, full citizenship will give them security. Third, making reintegration painless. Which means aiding migrants and their families settle in as painlessly as possible, such as helping parents find schools for their children, purchase health insurance and a one stop shop for getting all their official paperwork and documents. Ideally these are services governments should provide to all citizens, and trialling with diaspora migrants may be a way to pilot such a scheme before rolling it out for all. Finally, we must make it clear that we want our diaspora to come back home, that we value them beyond their jobs and financial assets. That our people are our greatest resource and the contributions they could make to our societies would help make economic, social and cultural development a reality. This can only be done by clear unequivocal statements from political leaders backed by policies which make the rhetoric reality.

Reversing Migration

Incentivising high skilled migration is something done by developed countries around the world such as the UK, Canada and Australia, now China is getting in on the game as well. All of them are seeking to attract high skilled migrants to fill gaps in their own labour markets and ensure they remain globally competitive. They all have policies aimed at attracting highly skilled, high earning migrants which fast track their migration and ease their integration into society.

Africa is not only not attracting highly skilled migrants, we are our losing our own highly skilled people, it is a situation that we should be actively looking to stop and reverse. Our hospitals lack the doctors and nurses they need to provide adequate care, our universities lack the professors and researchers they need to produce the next generation of leading minds and research, our governments lack expertise in any number of areas and our private sectors could desperately use people with high level skills, experience and networks. It will not be easy we are in a global competition for the worlds best and brightest, but we must start somewhere, and having the right policies to attract our diaspora brothers and sisters home is a good place to start.