Beyond the Present: Migration Governance for Regions and Inclusive Development

Nshimbi, C. C., I. Moyo & J. Laine (2020). Beyond the Present: Migration Governance for Regions and Inclusive Development. In: I. Moyo, C. C. Nshimbi and J. P. Laine, (eds). Migration conundrums, regional

integration and development: Africa-Europe relations in a changing global order, 275–280. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Beyond the Present: Migration Governance for Regions and Inclusive Development

Christopher Changwe Nshimbi, Inocent Moyo, and Jussi P. Laine I

At the beginning of this book, we were faced with a migration conundrum and the way in which it plays out in Africa- Europe relations as well as in intra-Africa relations. A general perception and, in fact, a particular narrative exist in the media, in academic literature and in many a political discourse that migrants and migration pose security threats. Countries that are economically better off particularly raise this alarm that migrants from their less well-off neighbours and further afield bring problems into their territories. Problems cited range from diminishing the ability of recipient national governments to provide social services to their own citizens to threats on the physical security of citizens to threats to law and the potential disruption of order to threats on national security (Ferrer-Gallardo 2008, 2010; Papadopoulos and Tsianos 2013). In short, migration from regions such as Africa is unwanted and raises concerns in places such as the EU about crime and the national security of the region and its member states (Ferrer-Gallardo and Albet-Mas 2013:530). The 11 September 2001 attacks on the US helped reinforce this view, based on the argument that immigration control had failed and thus contributed to the attacks (Faist 2002).

Yet, historical continuities suggest that migration is a potent force that can also positively transform societies. In Africa, migration is thus an important instrument for development, providing essential mechanisms and strategies for survival for migrant-sending countries/communities and the migrants themselves. Recognising this, the African Union (AU) crafted a policy and formulated a position on migration to guide member states in ways they can employ migration for development (African Union 2006a, b). The latter view, and the policy and position adopted by the AU, raises prospects of recognising that migration is an important factor among the many that define global processes in the world and that it is also an essential contributor to development. With such a view, holding migration responsible for disorder and insecurity diminishes, as the prospects it offers to both receiving and sending countries come to the fore. For example, the financial remittances migrants make to their countries of origin are touted for not only contributing to the macro-economic development of those countries but transforming migrants’ sending communities and their families too (Jemaneh 2016; Kleist 2018; Maphosa 2005, 2007, 2009; Moyo and Nicolau 2016; Sander and Maimbo 2005; Tevera and Chikanda 2009).

But this, and, of course, the apparent contradictions, confusion, challenges and, yes, the positive experiences and outcomes of migration elucidated in this book, makes it clear that addressing the challenges associated with migration and seeking the best out of it clear the conundrum which it appears to be. Certainly, Africa-Europe migration points to the need to move beyond ill-informed populist narratives of African migrants flooding Europe. It points to the need to imagine a future in which the migration conundrum the two regions are experiencing is jointly handled to promote development and well-being on both sides of the Mediterranean, and not its “boderization” (Moreno-Lax 2018:120), so as to keep out migrants from Africa. As a result, this chapter attempts to point in that direction as it briefly recollects and attempts to show how the contributions in this book have delivered on the promise made at the beginning. That more migration occurs within Africa than towards destinations outside of the continent is well documented and articulated (Nshimbi 2017). However, a contradictory narrative persists which suggests that Europe is under threat of being inundated with migrants attempting to escape poverty, war and conflict in Africa (Nshimbi and Moyo 2016). This view in and of itself creates tension between the parties. But even within Africa, between member states of the same regional economic communities (RECs) as well as the AU, tensions exist due to attempts by some countries to curb migration into their territories from other African countries.

Thus, intra-Africa migration, and particularly the form characterised by cross-border informality, is discouraged and restricted in/by some African countries. Correspondingly, migration stirs a xenophobic backlash in such countries, which places migrants from within Africa in a limbo. This calls for proactive and robust mechanisms at national level and at the level of the RECs to ensure migration is handled in line with the prescriptions and guidance laid down by the AU, as some contributions to this volume suggest (e.g. Chaps. 2, 3 and 9). Indeed, the analyses of migration in this volume point to the need for effective migration governance, which should lead to functional regions in which inclusive development is promoted. Going further, therefore, this volume suggests three broad implications of the migration conundrum on Europe- Africa as well as intra-Africa relations and inclusive development. In the following sections, we briefly consider these implications.

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In Chap. 2, Oloruntoba examines the causative factors and dimensions of the global migration crisis and concludes that history shows that countries that seem to be comfortable at a given stage in time are not guaranteed to be in such a position in the future. In Chap. 3, Aniche argues that a reciprocal relationship exists between migration and sustainable development and concludes that while documented migration tends to beget sustainable development, undocumented migration tends to

endanger it. The relationship between migration and sustainable development can thus be summarised as follows:

documented migration generally leads to sustainable development and undocumented migration negatively impacts on or undermines sustainable development. This is the context within which we invoke the notion of migration and sustainable development, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which target ending poverty in all its forms everywhere (UN 2015). The fact that undocumented migration militates against the achievement of sustainable development as encapsulated in SDGs should be taken as a clarion call for an effective management of migration so that there is a win- win situation for both migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries. This calls for Europe and Africa to determine a comprehensive and effective global migration policy which fosters documented migration leading to sustainable development and not the securitisation of borders which engenders undocumented migration, which in turn endangers sustainable development.

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Knoll and Laine, in Chaps. 4 and 5, respectively, bring in the EU dimension to the Europe-Africa migration conundrum.

Knoll explores the implications of the 2015 so-called migration crisis on EU development policy and practice towards African countries. She examines how various migration narratives and interest constellations shape the EU and its member states’ strategic policy approaches to migration and development as well as their impact on EU development cooperation and spending in Africa. One of her conclusions is that the short-term gains the EU has seen in reducing irregular migration flows obscure the fact that the EU’s internal reforms on its system for managing asylum and migration lag behind. Laine takes a slightly different approach by examining underlying attitudes and prevailing narratives of African migration to Europe. With this, he argues that Europe’s attempts to “secure” or “protect” borders have failed because migration is often seen as a border security issue that needs combatting. Tshimpaka and Nshimbi too, in Chaps. 6 and 7, respectively, discuss migration with a take on the Europe-Africa dimension, but from the perspective of Africans intending to migrate and migrating to Europe and those already in Europe. Tshimpaka, for instance, argues that besides remittances, migrants from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country which geographically stretches from Southern to Central and Eastern Africa, exercise

intercontinental citizenship in order to help reinstate democratic governance in the DRC. He concludes that this practice also ignites local citizens back home, in the DRC, into action and forces the authorities there to abandon authoritarian tactics.

Nshimbi takes a different spin by primarily focusing on would-be migrants in Africa whose sights are, ultimately, on Europe.

Notwithstanding the popular narrative that Africans are desperately attempting to escape poverty (and, perhaps, war and conflict too) for better life in Europe, he argues that “poverty” as an explanation of the purported unabated attempts by the migrants to go to Europe is too simplistic. Instead, he argues, informality and borders provide meaningful concepts through which the type of migration that European authorities and border agencies seem to be failing to curb should be explained. He concludes that history and the way in which Africans fundamentally perceive and approach borders influence the African migrants’ orientation and attitudes towards the socio-economic and political realities of a globalising world.

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Moyo, in Chap. 9, picks the thread of informality in migration and focuses his investigation on migrant traders—those informal actors who cross borders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and beyond, for the purpose of buying and selling goods—operating in the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. He argues that the fact that these actors are constructed as informal suggests that they are placed on the margins of the socio-economic space. In making his concluding remarks, Moyo suggests the adoption of innovative ways of managing migrant traders for inclusive development and regional integration. Spel maintains the focus on South Africa–based migrants from other African countries, in Chap. 10, by examining their aspirations and the anxieties of South African citizens through a conceptual analysis of migration management and a narrative analysis of empirical data from the migrants living in the city of Johannesburg. She goes on to argue for an inclusive vision of the future that broadens the spatial framing of vulnerability and well-being. Still on actors engaged in migration and operating in the informal sector, Makhetha, in Chap. 11, focuses on artisanal miners from Lesotho working in abandoned and closed gold mines in South Africa. They, thus, examine the cross-border mobility practices of Basotho men working informally in abandoned and closed mines in Johannesburg and, further, explore not only how these artisanal miners negotiate access to South Africa without travel documents or with expired passports but also how they remit funds to Lesotho, since most of them are undocumented and lack access to banks and formal financial institutions.

That migration, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 2001 in the US, has been a contentious issue and source of tension between sending and receiving countries is undisputable. The contentions and tensions are also evident at both the macro and micro levels—between continents as well as between states, and between individuals in and communities within a migrant-receiving country too, hence the rise of antiimmigrant populism in Europe and the escalation of xenophobic violence against foreign African nationals in some African countries. As if to complete, sober up and balance the

contributions to this volume on the conundrum which migration presents itself to be, Kwenge, in Chap. 8, discusses the case of a real-life and empirical project that Freedom House South Africa, an independent watchdog organisation that works on expanding freedom and democracy globally (Freedom House 2019), conducted in 2016. The project sought to mitigate xenophobic violence in South Africa and, thus, set out to establish whether a planned multipronged intervention in a democratic state could prevent costly outbreaks of collective violence that undermined livelihoods and put democracy at risk. In her brief overview of the project, Kwenge reports that community actors and conflicting groups had to learn to cooperate and produce collective solutions to community problems.

A critical outcome of the project was the reduction in prejudice against outsiders and their sense of vulnerability. The relatively positive outcomes which have been achieved by Freedom House South Africa in terms of forging positive relations between South African nationals and foreign nationals in cities like Johannesburg and Pretoria are symbolic of the

approaches which need to be adopted in managing intra-Africa migration relations as well as Europe-Africa migration relations. In intra-Africa migration relations, this should involve resolving the crisis of identity in which Africans are self- hating, as manifested by killing migrants from other African countries in frequent and virulent xenophobic outbursts. In both intra-Africa and Europe-Africa migration relations, the common issue around which such relations can be built is the realisation that all people have what Oloruntoba (Chap. 2) refers to as a shared humanity. This shared humanity should motivate Europe and Africa to confront migration issues based on symmetrical power relations and not on the misguided view that Africans are flooding Europe and need to be stopped or at least boderised.

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