Abstract
Migration is witnessed throughout the world, this is even true for a third world continent such as Africa, where individuals tend to move from one place to another propelled by diverse push and pull factors. This paper brings forward the degree of migration movements in Africa. Additionally, it seeks to understand the impact(s) of migration within the continent. It argues that migration in Africa is not a new phenomenon as it has been witnessed since colonialism often as a result of forced migration. However, post the colonial era, Africa has observed an upsurge of migration movements both documented and undocumented. This is manifested by the fact that Africa has remained an underdeveloped continent coupled with vast economic hindrances including unemployment, political instability, low growth rates, terrorism and corruption. In this vein, individuals move from place to place for better economic opportunities for themselves particularly to Western, Eastern and Southern African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Botswana, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Angola, Rwanda and Namibia. The paper concludes by outlining that if Africa is to limit and manage the evergrowing migration movements, then African heads of states should possibly improve their border patrol security, enhance rural agriculture and improve rural service delivery programmes. Moreover, to implement robust, well monitored and managed policies that intend to support and complement the policies of the African Union (AU), regional bodies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) with regards to African migration.
Highlights
Human migration is witnessed globally, this has been the case for centuries and mainly driven by various factors which include among other things lack of basic education opportunities, poverty and famine just to name a few
This paper has explored the implications of continental migration from an African perspective
It has argued that migration in Africa is not a new occurrence and has been witnessed here since the colonial era through forced migration
Summary
Human migration is witnessed globally, this has been the case for centuries and mainly driven by various factors which include among other things lack of basic education opportunities, poverty and famine just to name a few. In 2017, there were an estimated 258 million migrants both in developed and developing countries (United Nations, 2017) By narrowing this to Africa, migration is not a recent development, individuals here have moved from place to place as a means of searching for better livelihood opportunities even before Europeans segregated and had their footprints within the continent through colonialism. The subsequent sections delve into the available scholarly literature pertaining to migration trends in Africa This is done by unpacking the causes of migration, factors that make individuals move and what pulls them to other regions and/or countries. Migration is normally defined as the movement of individuals from one place to another either internally or internationally and is often driven by the motive to equip themselves with better economic opportunities (Kok, 1999). For the purpose of this paper, I will utilize Kok’s definition of migration as it is widely used in literature pertaining to migration movements from a global perspective
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