In Africa, where development is unequal and some regions face growing conflict, highly skilled labour is likely to migrate. This will be a plus for receiving countries, contributing to their skills base and driving development. The flip side will be the brain drain in the less developed regions, says Msingathi Sipuka.
Postcolonial Africa has consistently sought to define a path of development that will bring prosperity to the continent and improve living standards for its citizens.
From the early theorisations of the first generation of post-colonial leaders like Nkrumah, to the Lagos Action Plan of 1980, to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and to the current Agenda 2063, the common thread has been regional and continental integration.
Indeed, the integration project has been at the centre of lifting Africa from the doldrums of global development.
Within the integration project, two areas have emerged as the most catalytic and have drawn the most attention from African leaders and policy makers.
The first is the integration of trade within and across the different regional economic communities of the continent.
The second, perhaps as a means to complement the idea of trade integration, is the free movement of labour across the continent.
At varying levels, the trade integration agenda has taken shape across the different regional economies. Notwithstanding, the level of intra-continental trade remains at relatively low levels when compared with that of other continents.
The picture is even bleaker when you consider the contribution of Africa to global trade. This reality is driven by a multiplicity of factors ranging from poor infrastructure connectivity between countries, the insertion of Africa into the global economy which has seen Africa maintain its place as an exporter of primary products with a low manufacturing base and inefficiencies at border posts.
AFCFTA and the free movement of labour
The introduction of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA) has elevated the trade integration project to new heights. The promise of an African market that connects 1.3 billion people across 55 countries with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) valued at US$3.4 trillion has created a new euphoria on the prospects for Africa.
As the AFCFTA takes root and trade starts to happen under the protocols of the agreement, naturally, the eye has shifted to the critical enablers that will lead to the success of the free trade area. Together with infrastructure and digital connectivity, the free movement of labour across the continent has emerged as a hot topic.
Many of the voices that have weighed in on the need to open up the continent’s borders to facilitate the free movement of labour have cited the traditional benefits of labour migration, namely, ensuring that skills are readily available to African member states. Indeed, the logic that a shortage of skill in one country could easily be filled by excess supply of the same skill from a different country is sound.
This can only happen when the conditions exist for labour to move without constraints. For the implementation of the AFCFTA, with its strong focus on building the productive capabilities and manufacturing sectors of countries, moving skills across the continent seems to be the way to go.
Over the past century, national, regional, continental and global labour migration flows have given us sufficient evidence to understand the migration patterns and their drivers.
Fundamentally, the primary driver of labour migration is economics. People move away from their countries in search of better economic opportunities. Countries with relatively lower levels of economic development (offering lower wages) are prone to higher outflows of labour to countries with higher levels of development (offering higher wages). Often this is what is referred as the wage differential between countries.
Key drivers of migration
Economics is one driver, the second which has much relevance in the African continent is security. Increasing levels of conflict and the growing insecurity of citizens is bound to result in outflows of people in search of both security and opportunities to earn incomes. Labour will move from less secure to more secure countries or regions.
Interestingly, in both instances, it will be the higher skilled components of labour that migrate first and successfully. It goes without saying that the drain of higher skilled labour from less developed or conflict countries will only perpetuate the conditions in those countries.
Across regions or areas where the wage differentials are relatively low, where workers can expect to earn similar wages, complemented by stable institutions and security, the idea of free movement of labour seems more plausible. In these conditions, movement of labour will only be at the margins, where there are actual shortages of skills. For example, the free movement of labour in the EU started with roughly 12 to 15 countries, all in Western Europe.
The wages in these countries were relatively similar, resulting in marginal movements. With the EU’s expansion of the free movement of labour to eastern and southern Europe, where wages are lower than the west, the rate and patterns of labour movement have shifted dramatically. Western Europe has seen a much greater inflow from both the south and the east - with a resultant loss of critical skills in the southern and eastern regions.
As the African continent considers the free movement of labour, it is in its interest to think hard and carefully on how it engages on this crucial policy issue. Africa is diverse in its economic development, with much of the continent still classified as underdeveloped. This general underdevelopment coexists with pockets of industrial development and economic diversification, which offer better opportunities and wage rates.
In an Africa that is unequal in development, with growing conflict in specific countries and regions, the tendency will be for labour, in particular the highly skilled, to migrate towards the more developed centres of the continent. For these receiving countries, this will positively contribute to their skills base and assist in further driving development.
The flip side will be the brain drain in the less developed regions and countries. A system of free movement of people implemented under the current African context, is likely to work against the continent’s less developed regions and countries instead of working for them.
It is likely to bring the required labour to the developed parts of the continent while creating enclaves of underdevelopment in the less developed.
Addressing the problem
So, what options exist for Africa on this sensitive but crucial policy issue? Certainly, the answer is not to curtail the migration of labour, that is like trying to stop nature. People have always moved across different regions and will always do so.
The first logical step is to bring the continental economy to some form of economic convergence across regions and member states.
The second is to intensify the efforts of silencing the guns. Africa has to lower the wage differential between its countries and end conflicts. That will ensure that the opening up of borders does not privilege the developed economies and works to the detriment of the less developed. But, this is a long-term game. We will not realise these two objectives in the immediate. So, how should we respond to the movement of labour in the immediate?
The answer lies in a coordinated and planned labour migration approach on the continent. Understanding what skill is needed where and developing instruments to deploy based on needs. In this regard, institutions responsible for driving the continent’s development across sectors and regional economic communities become vital.
The African Union will have to place this issue at the centre of its policy agenda and develop the necessary infrastructure for negotiation among countries.
Fortunately, the foundational institutional elements are already in existence but require strengthening. The African Union Labour Migration Advisory Committee has been set up to guide on issues related to the labour migration of Africans within the continent and beyond.
Continental organisations such as the African Union Development Agency are already building partnerships to develop innovative ideas that can strengthen collaboration among counties to facilitate the movement of labour by need for supply. The African Critical Skills Bank initiative is an example of ongoing thinking in this area.
The continental development agency has partnered with the African Export-Import Bank to develop a platform where countries can trade in skills based on their needs and excess supply. While the skills bank is still under development, it demonstrates how continental bodies can drive the required innovation on labour movement such that it promotes development across counties.
One argument that may be raised against this view is that remittances have grown to become the greatest share of development finance for developing countries.
Therefore, curtailing migration from countries in distress from an economic and security perspective will deprive them of the much-needed financial resources they currently get from remittance flows.
But, what long-term value do such remittance flows bring to a country when its best minds are dispersed across the continent and the world?
What long-term development impact do these resources have in the context of a brain drain?
Certainly, an uncoordinated approach to the free movement of labour on the continent in the immediate has the great potential to deepen the chasms of inequality between countries and regions, working against agenda 2063.
Dr Msingathi Sipuka is Chief of Staff at the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) and writes in his personal capacity
