Does migration enhance or hinder Africa’s development? Discuss with reference to regional and external migration.(

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Migration and development with regards to Africa are two interdependent processes. In the hopes of diversifying their sources of income through development, people become mobile by seeking better living conditions, education and more advanced labor markets. Migration allows goods, services, skills and labor to be spread across Africa this is a positive thing in terms of the continents development as it becomes more productive.

Today climate change and the fearsome competition for land, has made rural life in Africa critically unsustainable and borderline to poverty because of declining productive resources. As more African countries begin to industrialize and it’s agricultural sectors decline, urbanization rates have begun to accelerate. These migrants, who are normally low skilled/unskilled, are moving from the rural areas to urban areas in the hopes of securing a job and experiencing the glamorous big city life. However this reality is flawed, a mass rural urban migration has had a negative impact on development. Rapidly growing populations in urban areas has put pressure onto African authorities that are now struggling to accommodate everyone through social services jobs and education.

About 20 percent of the migrants in Africa are refugees. Briefly exploring some of the consequences and impacts generated by this sort of displacement include psychological and gender issues, inequality, social fractionalization and violence. Refugees’ adopt survival skills that often have negative impacts on both them and their hosts. Sexual exploitation, violation of their human rights, illegal and unsustainable farming are all examples of situations these African migrants might experience including resorting to theft, substance abuse, relia...

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... allows these migrants to gain access to foreign natural resources, goods and services. Accumulation of wealth over time enables these international African migrants to provide financial resources in the form of remittances to their country of origin. Rural households may become heavily dependent on remittances and unexpected events such as a global financial crisis would result in higher rates of unemployment especially amongst migrant workers, therefore decreasing the flow of remittances. On the other hand remittances may provide capital for entrepreneurs, so Africans may sometimes diversify their sources of income from initially receiving remittances. Research shows that remittances impact the typical African individual more effectively and that remittance flows better stability than both investments and foreign aid to Africa during the most recent global crisis.

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