Africa on the Move: Migration, Labor Mobility, and Integration

If Africa's future depends on creating millions of jobs, a politician spending too much time trying to stop people from moving, and too little time helping them move to where the opportunities are. Let me start in South Africa, where migration has once again become a flash point in domestic politics. But this is not just a South African story. Across the African continent and globally, governments are grappling with how to manage borders, create jobs, fill labor gaps, respond to demographic change, and maintain social cohesion. At the same time, the African Union's vision of deeper integration depends on something very basic, the ability of people, skills, and labor to move more freely. Yet tensions remain between national political pressures and regional ambitions, raising fundamental questions about who moves, why they move, and who benefits. So today, we're moving beyond the politics of the moment to ask bigger questions. What role should labor mobility play in Africa's economic future? Why does migration generate such strong political reactions? And how do we ensure that mobility becomes a source of opportunity rather than division? [music] Welcome to Into Africa, a podcast where we explore Africa's geopolitical landscape, its evolving global role, and the challenges and opportunities shaping the continent's future. [music] I'm your host, Ogeonaborgo, senior fellow and director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. To help us make sense of all of this, I'm joined by two guests who come at this issue from very different but deeply connected angles. Amanda Bisong brings the policy and governance lens. She is a lawyer, researcher, and policy expert working on migration, labor mobility, trade, and regional integration, [music] including how African countries can turn agreements like the African continental free trade area into real opportunities for people and businesses. She also sits in that interesting space between academic research and practical policy work. Our [music] other guest is Daniel Yu. Daniel U brings the jobs and entrepreneurship lens. He is the founding partner of the Africa jobs fund which is focused on creating high productivity jobs as a pathway out of poverty. He also co-founded and [music] led Wasoko, one of Africa's major businessto business platforms working with informal retailers across the continent. So between Amanda's work on policy and mobility [music] and Daniel's experience building businesses and jobs across Africa, this is exactly the conversation we need to have. Amanda and Danielle, thank you both for joining me on Into Africa. >> Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. >> So let's get right into the conversation and I want to start with a deliberately provocative question to the both of you. So is Africa's biggest migration challenge actually not migration at all but the failure to build economies and institutions capable of managing mobility? Amanda, let me start with you. When you look at the migration debates today, both in Africa and globally, what do you think is the biggest disconnect between how migration is discussed politically and what the evidence actually tells us? >> Thanks for a very interesting question and thank you again for inviting me to be part of this podcast. I think when we look at the discussions around migration particularly and I'll start from the African perspective particularly in Africa we address the issue of migration in I'd look at two separate camps right one group of African countries completely ignore the fact that migration occurs and migration is a daily practice at every border crossing you go to you have lots of people traders farmers moving across borders as largely informally or crossing at different points, not the formal official border crossings. And this goes on unchecked and happens on a daily basis. You have rural communities, you have community leaders that sort of govern this kind of migration that happens. So they know who moves from which community to the other community and it's very fluid and happens on a daily basis. And then on the other side is the highly politicized version of the migration discussions that we're seeing now which really looks at migration as a negative issue looking at migrants scapegoating migrants as criminals or as people taking jobs or putting them in a negative light. And so then there's a lot of focus now on the issues of migration governance and migration. Now whether you look from the African perspective, whether you look at the fluidity and the informality of movements that occur on a daily basis or you look at this very highly politicized debate that occurs in capitals with a lot of media coverage and a lot of sensitive words that are being used there, provocative discussions, very emotional. The truth is that on the continent people are moving on a daily basis and we do not have enough policies or the policies that are in place and not actually being implemented to support the movement of people. So you have people moving either in informality and being exposed to precarity or you have people who are also I mean really focused on in the society as being negative their presence in that society being negative. Now if you look at on the more global perspective there are a few things that happen when you're looking at the discussions between the the political discussions and what the evidence actually tells us. So the first one is where do people actually go right and the political debate wants us to believe that a lot of Africans for example move to Europe and to North America and to other developed countries. But the research, the evidence on the ground shows us that 80% of migration movements occur within the continent, right? So most Africans move within the continent. So the first issue about that is who is moving and where are people actually going to. And if you look at flight data, you would see that one of the most mobile continents is Europe actually because there are lots of Europeans moving around the continent or moving to other countries. And another thing that goes into the discussions into the political discussions is this issue about poverty causing immigration. So who moves is one question but why do they move? The discussion is mostly that people move because of poverty they're trying to look for jobs and they're trying to earn a better living for their families. But if you do look at the details of why people move, you would see that there are lots of reasons there. Some people are displaced. Some people move for jobs. Some people move for family reasons. Some other people move just because they want to. There doesn't have to be a huge reason behind a reason behind movement. Some people just want to move because part of the human nature is the fact that we do move. Then there's a lot of mixing in the political debate about who is deserving of being present in a certain space or who isn't. So maybe pitching refugees versus uh economic migrants like the media likes to call them. And then another issue we see also in the media in the political narratives is around the strict rules or the enforcement of migration certain migration policy. So we think well the stricter the policy then the more effective it will be in deterring migration and this is all around when we talk about deterring migration into certain countries. So we think, well, if we have stricter migration rules, if we have a stricter, tighter enforcement policies, if we build the walls, if we have the checks, if we do the deportations, then people will no longer come. But what we see instead in evidence is that you have stricter rules. You build the walls and people find alternative routes exposing them to more danger, more procarity. And the winners of this are the smugglers because then they're able to charge more and push people into more dangerous routes. And then the last point I would make about this is also looking at the economics of it, right? Because this also pops up in the political discussions. migrants take our jobs, migrants take our houses and some of the narratives that we've seen floated in the media uh recently. But then when you look at the details, you actually see that migrants do contribute net positively to the domestic economies. Migrants pay taxes. Migrants benefit not only the domestic economy but also domestic workers because most times migrants are able to take certain jobs. And so then you see the domestic workers within that economy are able to move up a wrong and take some higher jobs because migrants are taking some of these other jobs that they would have done. So so the the economic evidence suggests otherwise from the political narrative. Now the question that I often get is okay so if the evidence is saying one thing why is the political narrative saying something else contrary to the evidence? And I can't give you an answer for that right now. And Amanda, I think we're going to come we're going to discuss more on that even further in this conversation, but this is a good place to bring Daniel in as you speak about the economic aspect of this debate. And Daniel, you spend a lot of your time thinking about jobs and poverty reduction. So, is labor mobility receiving enough attention as a development tool? Should we be thinking about labor mobility differently as an asset for economic development and regional integration? rather than simply a policy problem. >> I think labor mobility is perhaps the most underfocused intervention. When we talk about actually addressing poverty, creating jobs, developing skills, integrating with global economies, there are just so many benefits to doing labor mobility effectively that it's shocking to me that, you know, in the whole world of various interventions and what people look at in terms of actually improving people's lives and ultimately driving structural transformation within lower middle- inome countries that, you know, labor mobility is not more at the forefront of what's being discussed. And so absolutely I think labor mobility should not just be seen as some kind of political or you know perhaps you know security imbued area but really this is an economic survival and catalytic intervention to look at. And so, you know, if you look at countries that have created organized, streamlined pathways, it's undoubtedly the case that they've seen these benefits across not just their economic outputs, but also their social and educational development as well. There have been all sorts of different case studies that have looked at for example the mobility of nurses from the Philippines to various global markets as well as IT workers from India to various global markets. And to just you know touch very very quickly on the classic you know brain drain trope. Is it the case that because Silicon Valley recruited lots of IT engineers from India back in the 90s and 2000s that India somehow lost or ran out of all of their software developers? No. the exact opposite happened. Everyone and their nephew, you know, decided to invest in educating themselves to become an IT software developer and related fields. And so actually the supply overall of that trained talent in the origin country increased. And that's what we see again and again across the data. And so I think just to echo on Amanda's point, it's really really critical for anyone looking at the space to actually look at what the evidence says, be data driven, and then from there have a level-headed discussion on what are the most effective policies to ultimately create the benefits that we're all looking for. >> Well, thank you so much, Daniel. And before we go into specifics on policies, I really want to stay with this broader question, this broader discussion on migration and labor [clears throat] mobility. As both you and Amanda have pointed out, mobility has been part of Africa's economic and social fabric for generations. So why does it feel as though migration has become more politically sensitive at the very moment when economies may need greater movement of people and skills? And Amanda, let me pull you back into the conversation here and take one current head issue that is in the headlines today. When we look at the current debate in South Africa, do you think the conversation is really about migration or is migration being used as a proxy for deeper frustrations about governance, service delivery and economic opportunity? I think one point you mentioned is the fact that we are seeing um negative discussions around migration when we should actually be looking towards integration and possibly promoting mobility on the continent. Now it's not a one-off thing that's happening in South Africa. It's something that it's a pattern that we've seen repeated across several African countries. So South Africa is what's currently in the headlines. Before South Africa, we've seen things like this happen in Tunisia. We've seen them happen in West Africa, Ghana for example, Nigeria at some point, but at different phases of the development of African countries. We've often seen that this discussion around migration and migration being used as a proxy for different issues within the economy often pops up and migrants are often the the easiest scapegoat that certain groups can reach for whether political or otherwise. Now the conversation in South Africa on the surface it looks like it's about migration right we have just seen March and March with their deadline to get people out of the country undocumented foreigners to leave the country. We also saw uh from some of the media coverage that this operation was not only targeted at undocumented foreigners but foreigners in general. So whether or not people did have their papers, most people were faced with threats and had to leave the country for fear of their lives. Migrant communities faced a lot of insecurity and the institutions of the state, the police and the rest were unable to offer them protection. And this we saw in major cities, but this was also in some of the suburbs that we saw these kinds of things happening. But if you look and if you listen to what they're saying and also there's been a lot of research on this. Lauren Landal from Zenoatch I think an Africa center on migration studies in South Africa has done some work on looking at the patterns of xenophobia and migration over the years in South Africa. And basically what they've seen is that this pattern really focuses unemployment on poverty on weak public services inequality. These are the issues at stake here and it's not really about migration but it's about people trying to address some of the issues that they see within the broader society. So whether it's trying to get jobs and thinking that well migrants are taking all the jobs or it's increasing poverty and thinking that well migrants are the cause of this poverty or it's weak public services. Let's not forget at some point people went into uh hospitals in South Africa to say well if you are a migrant you need to leave because health care services are free only for South African citizens and not for migrants. really because public services are overstretched. thinking that migrants are at the course of this or also inequality where migrants are leaving certain lives and the people within the society are leaving other lives and you think well they're taking our jobs, they're taking our money and all that and migrants are blamed for that rather than looking at the political situation that has led to this inequality or the political situation that has led to the unemployment and the public services that are actually declining across African countries. So I think at the end of the day the issue here is not really about migration but it's really about other issues that should be dealt with in politically but are not being dealt with and politicians are also using some of these narratives as a copout for not providing the services or the responses that they should. >> So on this on on politicians here Danielle let me bring you in not that you're a politician but let me bring you in here. So when policymakers and politicians frame migration as a security or border management issue or a crisis that needs to be managed, what important economic realities tend to get overlooked here? >> Well, I think the baseline economic reality that's overlooked is the lack of economic growth. I mean to what Amanda was just talking about in South Africa, GDP per capita has not increased for over 20 years in South Africa. So of course when you have these baseline economic struggles where you know people's material lives are not improving they don't have access to more opportunities they look for scapegoats and unfortunately people who are other who are easy to separate out you know culturally you know they take the fall for this but this is absolutely not their case whatsoever as Amanda pointed out the data is very very clear that actually the vast majority of people who are coming and working in destination markets are you know net contributors in terms of paying taxes also generating more demand for economic activity within those countries being complimentary to the skills and work that people are doing. But you know when you have systems that are not producing material improvements and prosperity for people then you know you you end up with these you know unfortunate outlets that are just completely not the challenge and the problem whatsoever. So I think you know really what we should be looking at is what can South Africa do to actually produce economic growth again and you know if we solve that problem and you know we have a societal structure that's focused on growing the pie then that's the kind of circumstances in which everyone is going to be able to to have a better life and also where you know South Africa and any other country that's you know in this kind of growth oriented position is going to be able to be a beacon and a destination for unlocking prosperity for for the wider regions as well. >> So let's think more broadly at the continent here. Amanda, how important is labor mobility to Africa's economic future? We see figures that say about 12 million young Africans enter the labor market each year and the African continent is only producing about 3 million formal jobs on an annual basis. And so this is sort of the current reality on the continent today. So how important is labor mobility to Africa's economic future particularly as the continent seeks to create jobs for its growing youth population? So I think labor mobility is one of the tools that African governments can use in fasttracking their domestic growth. Right? Whether it's if you're looking at the Philippine style of exporting labor from targeting particular sectors like exporting labor to other countries outside of the continent or it's promoting mobility within the continent because while there are no jobs within certain or fewer jobs within certain countries, there are also other countries that do lack certain skills. on the continent. So if you take for example fintech, there are regional hubs that are coming up either in Kenya or in Nigeria or in Seneagal. And within these regional hubs, there are certain skills that are missing. So if you're able to develop the skills within your local youth population to feel these demands, then labor mobility does play a key role in there. But the issue is we can't talk about labor mobility without talking about skills. So yes, while there are 12 million plus approximately 12 million young Africans looking for a job each year, the main question is what skills do they have? Are they able to fit into the vacancies that are existing either on the continent or outside of the continent? And I think this is where we need to have the discussion with governments about developing these skills because it's one thing to sign to realize that you have a young population and sign bilateral labor migration agreements with destination countries, but it's also another thing to identify what kind of jobs are these people going to do in the destination countries. You don't want to have 12 million domestic workers. Not like there's anything wrong with domestic workers, but you also need to be able to upskill this population so that they're able to fit into the demands not only of your regional domestic economies, but also in the international market because within the international job market also there are vacancies. there are skills that are needed and so you want to be able to skill your local population to fit into these available vacancies. So that being said, labor mobility is one of the tools that can be used but not on its own. You need to attach uh skills development to that. And you don't only need to look at destination countries in Europe or in the Gulf. You also need to look within the continent to fasttrack some sort of mobility within the continent. Identify where are some of the job vacancies on the continent? where some of the skills and matching these skills with the available job vacancies in addition to labor mobility remittances I think is another thing that African governments are particularly interested in because when you have workers foreign workers abroad they often send remittances and these remittances can help in the development of the communities the domestic economies and I think this is one thing particularly that African governments are looking at but not to see labor migrants or migrant workers as a cash cow. I think we need to see it as a long-term strategy to say okay here we need to have these we need to identify these sectors we need to identify these skills we need to set up pathways for people to be able to move whether it's through bilateral labor migration agreements but then also we need to create the possibility for remittances to come back to the country and we need to really figure out how these remittancies will be used to develop the communities and the domestic economy in general. So there is a huge possibility for labor migration to boost economic development in Africa. But it's all about sequencing and really aligning the policies in a proper way as to bring these benefits to deliver these benefits and not just signing bilateral labor mobility agreements. >> Yeah, thanks Amanda. And Daniel, based on your own experience as a successful founder of one of Africa's largest businessto business platforms, what does the evidence tell us about the relationship between labor mobility and economic growth? Well, I would from a techfounder perspective going to my prior profession, I would just kind of point out that it's incredibly difficult right now to build out a truly Panaffrican business with Panaffrican talent because of how segregated African countries are against each other when it comes to allowing for collaboration and flow of talent between them. So the reality right now is, you know, if you're starting a new tech company and you have a founding team with one member from Nigeria, another from Kenya, someone else from South Africa, the easiest place for you to set up your headquarters is Dubai because at least they'll give you the visas for everyone to be based there, no problem. But you try to, you know, set up that headquarters in, you know, Nairobi or Johannesburg or or Lagos and, you know, there's a very high probability that they'll reject, you know, your co-founder from being able to be based with you there. And this is absolutely insane that there are these levels of barriers and difficulties to building out Panaffrican teams and talent. And this is absolutely a huge barrier to unlocking economic growth and job creation because ultimately, you know, if we're going to build the Panaffricanized businesses that are ultimately going to scale up and generate the job demand that's needed to employ those 12 million young people who are entering the workforce every year. It cannot happen if we are chopping up each of our different territories and basically restricting the teams within them to only kind of build up until that size up within those boundaries. So in the same way where it would be ludicrous for Belgium to request that 90% of all the staff members of a European HQ office in Brussels be Belgian. It's equally ludicrous for an individual African country to require that 90% of the staff be in their nationality when that business is trying to be Panaffrican. So I think this is one of the most difficult things and I think we'll get into it as we talk about the protocol and free movement of people. But this is absolutely one of the biggest obstacles that I see as well to unlocking the economic opportunities. Well, thank you for that, Danielle. And I think this question is for the both of you as I reflect on your response now and the thoughts that Amanda shared. So, can Africa really achieve the ambitions of the African continental free trade area without significantly improving the movement of people and skills? We talk a lot about free trade, but honestly, can there really be a single African market without freer movement of workers? Amanda, let me start with you here. The simple answer is no. [laughter] And that's because on the continent, so if we start from the way trade happens on the continent, right? You basically load your goods from the factory onto a truck. That truck has a truck driver and a mate that does the loading of the goods. These two people need to be able to have access into the next country. So if you're driving the truck, say for example from Ghana to Nigeria, these two people, the driver and the mate need to have access to Togo Benin and then Nigeria. And with the Echo free movement of people, that's possible. The Ghanaian driver can actually move from Ghana to Nigeria. But if we look at a more interesting part of the continent, say southern Africa, and you're moving goods from South Africa to let's say Malawi or to Zambia, you need to be able to cross the different countries. That South African driver needs to have the right to cross the different countries. Not only the driver, but the driver and his mate needs to have the right to cross the different countries all the way to take the goods to Malawi. In Africa, most of the goods move this way. very few goods move on a train without people accompanying it. So the nature of the African market is that goods are accompanied by people. That's one aspect of it, right? But also if we're looking at the other aspects which Danielle had referred to building Panaffrican businesses and the FCFDA is all about unlocking the potentials on the continent whether it's for manufacturing or high-end manufacturing or different also in services you need people to be able to move to certain hubs for this. So if you're building a car manufacturing business for example in South Africa then you need engineers from all around the continent to be able to come to that job or if if if the factory is located in Morocco you also need engineers from around the continent to be able to access the jobs that are available there. If you're building service industries for that car manufacturing. So think about the seat production fabrics and all that needed nuts and bolts needed towards the car manufacturing process. You need people with the skills that are able to set up these anciliary industries and they will not all be Moroccan or they will not all be South African. Some of these businesses do exist right now in different pockets in different sides of the continent and the idea is to bring them together to form some sort of regional value chains that support the development of these larger industries or larger sectors. So we cannot do that if people are not allowed to move or if people are allowed to move only within their regions. I mean in some regions in West Africa and East Africa they're freer the opportunities for people from those regions to move a bit more freely but when it comes to crosscontinental movement to think about moving from one regional economic community to another it becomes a bit more complicated and like Danielle said it's probably easier for a European to set up a business in Africa and employ Europeans than for Africans to move within the continent for some of these businesses and that's just because of the nature of the policies that we have. So if we do want to achieve the vision of the AFCA, the goals of the AFCA, then it's important for us to also unlock the free movement of people and skills because without that that's a key missing component, whether it's just retail you're talking about or manufacturing, whatever part of the trade process you're talking about, you need people to get these things going. And Daniel, I'm going to bring you back in here, but Amanda, I want to pick up on this point that you made because I know you've done a lot of work with the African Union and the African Union has long promoted freer movement across the continent. Why has the implementation of this lag behind? >> [laughter] >> There are several reasons for this and first couple of years ago with AU ECOS so the civil society body of the AU we of the African Union we did a couple of sensitization meetings or workshops across Africa and one of the striking results from these sensitization workshops was the fact that most policy makers did not understand the content of the free movement protocol. And you would think that after several years of talking about the free movement protocol, people would know what the protocol is about. But then you had people asking questions about the protocol and you realized well people actually equate free movement of persons on the continent to a borderless Africa. Now free movement of persons on the continent is facilitated access. That's not a borderless Africa. That's not shenen. So people think about free movement, they hear free movement and they think shenen, no borders, no checks, nothing. No, the way the protocol is set up is such that you still do have your checks. You still have border checks. Border officials are still able to determine who gets into a country and who doesn't. Countries are able to determine at which stage they can implement emergency measures to stop the implementation of the protocol. There are a lot of flexibilities within the protocol which actually reflect the understanding of the drafters of the countries on the continent because most of the fears of governments have already been taken into consideration within the protocol. So there are lots of reservations that countries can put in when signing up to the protocol. There are also lots of emergency measures that could be activated if you think that your domestic market for example is being overrun or for whatever other reasons stated within the protocol. But funny enough policy makers do not realize that these are in the document. So the first thing is actually the limited understanding of the policy by policy makers. The second thing is also national interest and sentiments. We've just spoken about xenophobia or afrophobia whatever you would call it. But there are some of these domestic interest and sentiments that think well we and we had some of these questions from trade unions also well-meaning questions saying well if governments do sign up to the free movement protocol then our domestic markets would be overrun by migrant workers and we want to protect our domestic markets. We want to protect our jobs for people from our country for the citizens and so we've had a lot of also interactions with trade unions and now with the ITU Africa which is like the major trade union congress for African countries we've also been doing a lot of sensitization on the free movement protocol to say well you do have this free movement protocol the African Union free movement protocol here are the benefits for migrant workers here are the benefits for domestic workers because your country signing the free movement protocol does not mean that you will lose all your jobs to migrant workers from country X and country Y. So there's a lot that has to be done when it comes to understanding what the protocol says and how it will play out in practice. >> Daniel, let me bring you into the conversation now as an entrepreneur. What are some of the biggest barriers that you see today? And I know Amanda has highlighted some of them. So from visas, qualification recognition, social protection systems or domestic politics or is it a combination of all of this? What are some of the barriers that you see? >> I would say it's the visas and the domestic politics. So to the extent of you know for me as an entrepreneur, as a founder, CEO or as an investor, I'm looking for the best talent that can build and scale up a business in the markets that I'm targeting. And that best talent might not necessarily come from within the borders of a 54 country continent that I'm looking to scale up and become you know regionally successful. So if that individual the best person for the job happens to come from a neighboring country or maybe a different corner of the continent and I am not able to hire and bring that person onto my team because of the visa regime. Um this is a loss uh not just for my business of course which you know would if I bring in the right leader potentially unlock you know greater growth more job creation you know their direct spending you know tax dollars paid to the the country where they would be living you know economic stimulus that's all being lost but it's also just losing out on greater integration and knowledge cultural exchange between different parts of the continent as well and so I think to me you know as a very you straightforward recommendation. I would love to see just even the skilled worker visa policies, you know, streamlined and organized in a better fashion right now. You know, just to give you one example, I remember back in my Wasobo days, I was looking at hiring a software engineer from Nigeria to potentially join our team in Kenya. And then I realized it's actually easier for them to get a visa to go to Canada than to come to Kenya. And so, you know, with [laughter] the situation that we're dealing with, it's going to be really difficult to kind of build up these Panaffrican teams. And so I think you know there's a clear case to be made even just on the higher skilled visa side when it comes to having a more mobile workforce that we could streamline that you know very easily I think across as many countries as possible and at least start to benefit from some of that integration while hopefully making progress towards the full implementation of the protocol as well. So Amanda, you've written about skills, partnerships, and managed migration. So what does a successful African model look like? >> I think from my perspective, a successful African model would utilize existing mobility patterns on the continent. I began this conversation by saying that there are people moving on the continent every day through informal channels. That movement is a bit more fluid, not really governed and all. And so a skills partnership would take into consideration the fact that there are existing mobility patterns on the continent, explore the potential of formalizing some of these mobility patterns, linking them up to skills development and more form of mobility with guaranteed rights and social protection and ensuring that migrant workers are able to benefit from this more structured governance of mobility. The skills partnerships are partnerships between governments or between governments and private organizations and development agencies where they engage in building skills of people in countries of origin to either move to countries of destination to work there or work within the markets work within opportunities in the domestic economies. But my argument would be that we would also need to expand that to look at the regional mobility patterns and take them into consideration because most of the movement on the continent is actually regional. >> Okay. So I'm going to go into sort of a rapid fire session here with this conversation cuz both of you have shared a lot here and I want to go into a session with just a few short questions just to get your responses on this. So, I'll start with Amanda first on this one here and then I'll go to Daniel. So, Amanda, what is one migration myth that really needs to disappear from the discussion? >> Migration promotes insecurity. >> Daniel, >> brain drain. Just because it rhymes doesn't make it true. [laughter] >> I see another episode loading on this conversation on brain drain cuz there's a lot to unpack here. [laughter] Second question, should Africa prioritize free movement before full economic integration or vice versa? Amanda, >> I think both can be achieved at the same time. I think it's a matter of sequencing and like we discussed when we talked about the AFCDA and the need to have skill free movement of persons along with the free trade in goods. I think it's a matter of sequencing and both can be achieved at the same time. So we would sell ourselves short if we think well we need free movement before economic integration or we think we need economic integration before free movement. I think we need to work towards achieving both at the same time. >> Daniel >> I would say actually that I do think you need much freer movement to make progress on full economic integration. I think what we've seen in the EU context is they've had their free movement now for many decades and that has absolutely driven deeper into economic integration but they still have a long ways to go even on the economic integration side. So I think the worst case scenario is where you wait for economic integration to occur before free bringing up movement because I think you're just holding yourself back there. But I think allowing more mobility, allowing more interaction and collaboration between African citizens is ultimately what's going to drive your long-term economic integration. >> Thank you. Now the next question. So what's one policy idea policy makers should stop talking about when it comes to the migration debate? Amanda, >> framing migration as a problem or challenge to be addressed. We always have that in the policy debates. And just as an extra, the whole talk about deportations, it's really, really terrible. >> Daniel, >> I would say treating migration as a monolith as one thing that's happening when the reality is there are enormous differences from someone who is coming to a country to do their PhD versus someone who is coming irregularly, informally across a border to do, you know, trade for one day and then go back. These are not the same thing. These are entirely different ways of being and and activities. And so really unpacking that and in some cases or or really just being more specific about what types of mobility we're talking about I think would be a huge leap forward in the policy discussion. >> So on that point on being specific, the last question here, what is one policy idea you think policy makers should start implementing immediately when we look at the migration debate? Amanda, >> so not a very short answer, but visa-free policies. Now, when I talk about visa-free policies, in some of the research that I have done, I've highlighted the fact that you need to be able to give visa facilitation, you need to be able to provide visa facilitation access to certain categories of individuals. So, for example, if we're thinking about the continent, if we're thinking about AFC, FDA, we need to think that businesses or business owners need to be able to access certain markets to determine whether or not these markets are viable. So, we're looking at investor visas. We're looking at visas for workers. We're looking at students visas. I mean, if certain countries are not interested in granting visa-free for 90 days to all African citizens, as is the trend that we're seeing now, you could actually just start with implementing some of the specific visa categories. So, maybe it's a 15-day visa-free business investor visa or it's a visa-free policy for students or for workers tied to a certain number of days. But, we really do need to look into our visa policies. >> Thanks, Amanda. Daniel, >> completely agree. I think any visafree or more streamlined visa process that we can implement would be a huge boom for pretty much any category that you look at. You know, one plug that I would maybe make in line with what I said earlier is having streamlined work visas for any university graduate from an African country to be able to go work in any other African country I think would be an immediate unlock in terms of scale up businesses, formal businesses that you know rely on having that uh higher skilled access to worker in order to grow. I think that would be a net net positive pretty much any way you look at it. So would be specifically in favor of that. But I think any visa simplification would be a huge benefit. >> Thank you both. You've given us a lot to chew on here. And you know, if we're having this conversation 10 years from now, although I hope we won't wait until 10 years to revisit this discussion, [laughter] but if we were having this conversation 10 years from now, what positive change in migration and labor mobility across Africa would you most hope to see? Since we ended on you, Daniel Amanda, >> improvement in social security policies for migrant workers. Currently, only 22 African countries out of 54 have social protection measures for migrant workers. And I think that we need to really improve on that, especially if we're going to tow the root of labor mobility. I would say absolutely having a more open discussion and nuance discussion about where the benefits are, where systems can be improved and looking at that benefit in having deeper integration on an economic level. That's what I would most hope to see. >> So, thank you both so much. But let me end a conversation today on a more personal and hopeful note. There's been a lot that we've discussed and if you had to and we do this on every Into Africa episode. So if you had to recommend one book by an African author or a song by an African musician that best captures the future you are hopeful for when you think about Africa's people mobility and potential. What would it be and why? Who wants to go first? I can kick off the one song that I would recommend that captures mobility in its potential, its dislocation, its opportunity would be Senagal Fast Food by the wonderful Amadu and Miam. [clears throat] >> Thank you Daniel Amanda. >> For me, I think it would be live and die in Africa by Saut. I have been having conversations with young people about what they think about mobility within the continent. And a sentence that struck me once was someone who said, "Free movement is mama Africa's gift to us." And I sat with that statement for a very long time and thought about it. And I think that this song sort of reflects that, right? That not every African young person wants to go out of the continent. Most people just want to have the ability to move within the continent either for tourism or for different reasons. But just hearing that sentence, free movement is mama Africa's gift to us. And listening to this song, thinking about the possibility of actually just being on the continent, most young people just want to be on the continent reflects also the fact that 80% of movement within Africa is intra regional or within the continent. So, so I think for me this song sort of captures that and also really responds to I don't know if you understand the Nigerian term Jakpa. >> Oh yes I do Amanda [laughter] >> more or less the movement the immigration of young people outside of the continent and and it sort of responds to that. It acknowledges that okay people may want to move and all but really saying look for me this is my choice living there in Africa. So I think that's what we hope to see also if we draw all these connections between the AFCA mobility of persons the fact that the continent is home to a lot of people and they want to make it home not really thinking about immigrating outside of the continent. So how to really have policies that will enable that young people make this kind of choices. >> Thank you so much Amanda and thank you Daniel. That's such a powerful note to end this episode on. You know, we migration is often treated as a problem to contain, but today's conversation reminds us that mobility can also be one of Africa's greatest assets if it is managed well. Africans will continue to move in search of work, safety, education, and opportunity. But the real question here is whether governments and regional institutions can keep up by building the policies, protections, and pathways that make movement safer, more productive, and more beneficial for migrants and the communities they connect. That is where the real opportunity lies. And so I want to thank you both again for joining us on this episode. And until next time, thank you everyone for listening to Into Africa. >> [music] >> Thanks for listening to Into Africa. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. You can find more analysis from the Africa program on our website [music] csis.org or find us on social media. Search for at CSIS Africa on X, LinkedIn and Instagram.