A Time to look into the very problem as potential benefits amidst seemingly incorrigible challenges
The recent analysis of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies revealed that the African nation has generated approximately one million new migrants over the past year. This marks a steady increase in migration within and out of the continent only to worsen the longstanding plight Africa has been suffering from for two decades now. This is simply because Africans’ migration has, for long, been tied to liabilities that should be both discouraged and contained.
It happens that, Africa’s challenges vis-à-vis ever increasing (e)migration pattern made the continent think about the inevitable worst. The gap between the policies theoretically developed to mitigate migration and the size of the phenomenon appears hard to narrow. This is importantly because the leading factors attributed to the crippling effects alarmingly persist. Limited economic opportunity, conflict, repressive government, and growing youth populations largely contribute to the dynamics and are not lessening.
The challenges stemming from the migration dynamics look persistent with no meaningful and innovative endeavors, on the ground to cease the ever-soaring outflow. If so, Africa’s response to the enduring realities should be measured and expected to parallelly introduce an innovative measure to utilize the phenomenon to help the continent. How Africa can reap (economic) benefits from its huge emigrating people while it continues its effort to narrow gaps through long-term policy measures? This analysis focuses highlighting on what Africa should build its efforts up alongside existing long-term and policy-informed measures.
Works to do
As a continent, Africa is a source of both the low and high-skilled emigrants to advanced economies contributing a great deal of active and operational force to the countries’ overall growth. But the same Africa has widely been portrayed as a geography where unproductive and liable people originate from, to reap the socio-economic benefits of industrialized nations in the global north. As such Africa keeps itself in a web of repeated efforts focusing largely on stemming outflow through futile polices of discouraging mechanisms profoundly funded by the West.
While moderate policies that would help regulate the migration dynamics are encouraged to pursue, Africa should work around the clock to use migration as a boon for addressing the challenges posed by the dynamics. Beneath a condensed articulation of relevant works to do will ensue. This would help Africa benefit directly from its emigrants and consolidate its regulatory endeavors to manage the irregular outflow successfully. Three to-do suggestions are outlined.
Magnifying Contributions
Africans have already fallen into the trap of compunction and are compelled to blame themselves for the migrants’ presence in the advanced economies. The West successfully coined such a negative discourse as the “African Migration crisis.” What Africa talks about its migrants of all types in Europe is all bad. It is commonplace for the continent to work largely in the long term to manage the nonexistent “crisis.”
All this begins with recognizing African migrants’ healthy contributions of all forms the Western communities desperately need. Africa needs to understand that its migrating communities' indispensable role in the Western countries is to keep the wider region prosperous. Strong political and media endeavors should balance the damaging publications made and propagated by the European press with the too-common pictures that try to show the migration of young Africans.
Africa’s effort to glorify its migrants’ significant contributions to the global north's economies could easily be substantiated. Several findings published by the gigantic International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) revealed that large immigration waves raise domestic output and productivity in both the short and the medium term with no negative effects on the aggregate employment of the native-born population. These findings point out that African immigrants, in particular, contribute well above their assumed weight in many respects which makes the magnifying efforts of African migrants’ contribution more productive.
Engaging African Emigrant Communities Directly
Empirical evidence from such particular countries with huge sizes of emigrants as Türkiye and India proves the importance of a direct engagement with settled migrant communities. The direct engagements of several forms of direct engagements the countries continue making with their migrant communities have resulted in the outstanding and sustained utilization of the communities.
Africa usually shifts focus to give more attention to its migrant communities in the West when the hosting countries or regions in the West set agendas. The little approach Africa does, toward the migrants here and there, is due to the dollar-ingrained projects the Western institutions fund. Otherwise, Africa maintains loose and sporadic engagements with its migrant communities. The wider focus remains on controlling the migrant “crisis” the media propagate. Now more focus needs to be on approaching settled African migrants in advanced economies directly and engaging with them. A couple of priorities are expected to be drawn for effective engagements.
Identifying and empowering the migrant communities comes first. African migrant communities across the advanced economies will be identified on the grounds of the need to form a new form of broader societal identity recognized by their continent of origin and for new purposes. Consecutive discussions with such communities will enhance the already existing but overshadowed Africanness leading to the formation of a solid new identity. Such established societal identity needs empowerment which the continental organization is expected to promptly process. An empowered community of African migrants with organizational recognition at the continental level provides a fertile ground for effective and sustainable engagements.
Then comes providing every relevant support the engagements need. A concerted support of all forms provided by the continental and subregional organizations of Africa accelerates the multilayer engagement between the already empowered African migrant communities and the continent of Africa. The African Union’s unique and leading role plays a key part here. This is simply because the idea of promoting African migrants and their immense contribution to advanced economies is a shared interest that intersects, and boosts for that matter, interests at the national level.
Toning Policies More İnto Engaging Activities
Here looking into the policies at continental and national levels intended to mitigate the alleged migration crisis in a new fashion is paramount. For instance, the revised Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (MPFA) presents a policy direction aiming to govern migration in the long term. This however has three problems and not achieving anything close to what it has been intended to succeed.
First, it is inward-looking in such a way that the continent is made to believe that it has to deal with the nonexistent migration crisis it presumably created and is solely responsible for. Second, the policy is funded by the West representing an unfair interest of Africa, and is there to serve their purpose. The last and most important deficit tied to the policy appears to be its focus on time and relevance. The focus reflects the deceptive idea that more Africans are migrating within Africa than to Europe disabling Africa not to develop policies that engage and utilize its migrant communities abroad. As such, Africa needs to incorporate efforts to toning policies up more into engaging activities that will result in outcomes in the short and middle terms.
Africa-based media and media that support this noble cause of promoting African migrants' role in advanced economies are key here. Such policies that are intended to show effects in the short and middle terms need strong media promotion in disseminating discourses across the continent and beyond.
Concluding Remark
Migration features the continued challenges of Africa before and after independence. As the number of productive human power leaving Africa increases, measures that fairly respond to the potential challenges will have to innovatively be produced. Africa has to come to terms to know that the alleged migration crisis will help mitigate the challenge. Thanks to empirically, not politically fantasized, pieces of evidence across the globe that African migrants have been significant contributors to the Western economies in particular and the global economy in general. The positive contributions of African migrants, therefore, per se should be recognized and utilized to moderately manage some seemingly incorrigible challenges Africa is expected to timely address.
References
Migration Policy Framework for Africa and Plan of Action (2018-2030)- https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/35956-doc-au-mpfa-executive-summary-eng.pdf
The Macroeconomic Effects of Large Immigration Waves- https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/WP/2023/English/wpiea2023259-print-pdf.ashx
Power of the Purse: The Contributions of Black Immigrants in the United States-https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/black-immigrants-2020/
Comments