By Abdelmonem Fawzi
Asizeable number of young Africans see no future at home.
This is why they undertake perilous journeys to Europe in search of a better life.
This is also why we need to reframe migration as a means for the recovery and resilience of the continent from Covid-19 and other external shocks.
We can reframe migration as a development agenda and a method for the reduction of poverty in our continent.
We can do this simply through the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The area represents one step towards a tighter-knitted African continent.
However, analysts widely believe that the impact of the area will be limited in the absence of greater freedom of movement for workers, families, and other Africans.
The good news is that remittances to Africa amounted to $78.4 billion in 2020, three times higher than the foreign aid received by the continent in that year, according to the latest figures.
Nevertheless, the problem is that most migrants confront a spectrum of social and economic challenges across all sectors of society. The reason is that many states regard free movement as a potential security threat.
Religious fanatics, separatist groups, and other militants have committed acts of violence and destroyed public and private properties across the continent.
They use porous borders to spread ideologies, arms, and fighters from one country to another.
States commonly respond to these threats by closing themselves off from their neighbours.
Yet this strategy is often counterproductive.
Due to the porosity of African borders, it is difficult for many states to single-handedly police their perimeters effectively. This makes coordinated regional efforts acquire greater importance.
The million-dollar question is: Are we willing to welcome fellow Africans brothers?
A 2016 survey by pan-African research network, Afrobarometre, found that 56% of Africans support peoples’ ability to freely cross borders to work and trade.
There was, however, still significant scepticism, especially in North Africa.
Support was strongest in West and East Africa, notably the places with the most advanced sub-regional movement frameworks, with the largest public support in Burkina Faso, where 81% of respondents supported the idea.
In Egypt, meanwhile, just 31% of respondents were in favour of it. The same was true for 76% of Kenyans, 62% of Nigerians, 49% of South Africans, 46% of Tanzanians, and 41% of Algerians.
These statistics reveal that the perceived benefits of regional integration vary in different sub-regions.
It is thus not surprising that xenophobia has reared its head in South Africa and in the Maghreb region, where scepticism of free movement is significant.
Such issues merit careful consideration by the proponents of freer movement.
The African Union (AU) initiatives to promote free movement, a unified AU passport, and a common African market are all geared towards achieving the dividends of an open border system.
Most of these initiatives have been hampered by the stalled approval and a scattershot commitment to continental free movement.
Instead of a borderless Africa, the continent seems to have an interlocking set of border restrictions that allow for free movement of some individuals between certain countries.
The clearest case of this is the ECOWAS sub-region whose citizens can easily enter and reside in other member states without a visa.
In addition to these sub-regional agreements, individual countries have also slowly liberalised their border requirements on their own.
Benin, the Gambia, and the Seychelles are the continent’s most open countries and the only ones to allow visa-free access for all Africans.
However, the AU has formulated several policy frameworks to address, manage, and promote migration and mobility aimed at ensuring safe and orderly intra- and inter-regional, continental, and global migrant flows within and out of Africa.
Accordingly, the Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) and its Plan of Action (2018-2030) as well as the AU Free Movement Protocol (FMP) are the continent’s flagship migration policies.
If effectively implemented, the protocol will lessen mobility restrictions across Africa and spur economic growth, thanks to improved entry, establishment, stay, and exit procedures for African citizens across the continent.
Despite its significance in removing mobility barriers, little progress has been made in the ratification and implementation of the FMP, due to low-level awareness about the protocol among African citizens, particularly the civil society and the media.
In this regard, the AU collaborates with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the main German development agency, in the field of international development co-operation and international education to promote the implementation of continental and regional migration policies in Africa, with a focus on labour migration and free movement, through the GIZ’s support to the AU on the Labour Migration and Free Movement Project.
In light of the foregoing, the secretariat of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), an organ of the African Union, held a three-day Media Sensitisation Forum, in collaboration with GIZ and the interim Morocco National Chapter of ECOSOCC. (I will write about this soon).
It remains to be said that African countries should put their differences aside to build a prosperous continent for their citizens.
This is imperative at a time when the continent is preparing to undergo a massive population boom.
