The effect the Covid 19 Pandemic will have on migration from Sub-Saharan Africa

The effect the Covid 19 Pandemic will have on migration from Sub-Saharan Africa:

The Pandemic will almost certainly result in an increase in people wanting to leave their homes and a country they know and understand and make the difficult and dangerous journey across the Sahara Desert to the shores of the Mediterranean in the hope that somehow they will be able to improve their lot.

          Consider the following:

-         The population of Sub-Saharan Africa is about 1.2 Billion (2019 figures).

-         This is up from less than 200 million in 1950

-         The reason for the growth is mainly the introduction of Western Medicine in the Colonial era.

-         To say this growth is unsustainable is the understatement of the century.

How are African Governments coping with the situation?

-         The short answer is that they aren’t. 

Further:

-         Sub-Saharan population growth rate 2.657% per annum (UN 2019)

-         Sub-Saharan GDP growth rate 2.287% (World bank 2019)

-         Sub-Saharan Unemployment rate 6.176% (Int Lab Org 2020)

In other words the Economic Growth rate is lower than the Population Growth rate, a state of affairs that has persisted for more than one hundred years.

          This will almost certainly result in a continuing rise in the unemployment rate, meaning more people will feel they are unneeded and unwanted by the society they are supposedly part of.

China showed the world, with its one child policy that the way out of poverty is for the economic growth rate needs to be higher than the population growth rate. This hasn’t ever happened in Sub-Saharan Africa in recent times.

The advent of the Covid 19 pandemic will exacerbate the situation, although the figures emanating from Africa are probably not that reliable.

As an example: Total Sub-Saharan Covid cases reported: 2.5 million

South Africa reported cases                       1.45 million

Nigeria reported cases                                131 thousand.

The restrictions imposed by various countries in response to the pandemic have resulted certain staple crops such as maize and rice not being planted at the correct time, so there are likely to be supply problems  and food shortages in 2021 and beyond.

          Education in Sub-Saharan Africa tends to be patchy. 20% of six to eleven year old’s are out of school and about a third of twelve to 14 year old’s. About 30% of children receive a secondary education, although this has grown from about 11% in 1970. Girls tend to be disadvantaged in favour of boys.

So what we have is a population growing faster than individual economies are able to support them. We also have a growing cohort of uneducated or poorly educated children trying to join the workforce.

Added to the above almost without exception there is rampant corruption throughout the continent (Botswana is the exception, which has a ‘zero corruption’ policy). Some examples of Transparency International’s corruption index:

New Zealand                            1 (i.e. the least corrupt country in the world)

Australia                                   12

UK                                             12

USA                                          23

Botswana                                  34

South Africa                             70

Kenya                                       137

Nigeria                                      146

Sudan                                        173

Somalia                                     180(out of 180. i.e. the most corrupt country)

                    Despite investment in Africa, currently about $US 40 billion more leaves Africa annually than arrives there. Some of this is legitimate investment but much of it is money being sent, illegally as a result of corruption, to ‘safe havens’.

So a significant portion of the limited wealth of most African countries is being stolen by the ‘elite’ and hidden away in, often, Swiss Bank accounts, instead of it being spent on much needed, infrastructure, schools, hospitals and so on. Also many of the people employed in Government jobs are there because of who they are or who they know and they are not there on merit. So often the jobs are not done competently.

          More and more people, both in total and as a percentage of the population,  are already therefore being dumped on the scrap heap. The Covid 19 Pandemic will make this even worse, with many people feeling they have no option but to make a hazardous journey, through the Sahara Desert to the Libyan coast in the hope that they can find a way to Europe or even Australia as refugees.

          Over a number of years now, the developed world’s response to the refugee crisis has firstly been to politicise the situation, making any kind of solution more difficult to achieve, and then secondly all they have done is  just to protect their borders, without giving any thought to the longer term. (e.g. The ‘wall’ on the Mexico/US Border; The EU’s ‘Frontex’ operation, which has agents in various countries who cooperate with local police and whose aim is to stop refuges from even starting on their intended journey; also some EU nations have patrols in the Mediterranean stopping refugee boats; Australia’s ‘stopping the boats’ policy; Japan restricting any refugee intake- in 2019 Japan accepted 42 asylum seekers.)

          Should we care? Many will suggest that this is Africa’s problem and they should just get on with it and solve it themselves.

          In the long run this attitude will not work and the developed world will be confronted with a veritable Tsunami of refugees wanting ‘a better life’ and making more and more desperate and concerted efforts to move to a developed country. There are currently about 80 million people worldwide classed by the UN as refugees. This is growing every day and not all people looking ‘for a better life’ are included in this figure.

          What can the developed world do?

          Firstly make an effort, country by country, to persuade the African leadership that they could significantly improve their economies and their own situations, by actually having a policy to reduce population growth.

           Secondly Aid.

          Currently aid from Developed Countries to Sub-Saharan Africa is a paltry $US 50 million per annum (2018 World Bank).

          Australia’s contribution is $US 15 million. We might as well not bother.

          Generally this Aid is not particularly well directed or focussed, is competitive between aid providers and is often directed at ensuring the receiving country buys certain goods or services from the provider. So it wouldn’t be difficult to redirect it to something more productive:

Such as:

Birth Control Programmes.

Education Programmes. Especially directed towards girls and women( It is notable that the Indian State of Kerala has a literacy rate among women of 95% and a population growth rate of zero). So Zero population growth is possible.

          If possible any such programmes should be controlled directly by the provider. If any funds are paid to individual African Governments all this will achieve is to increase the flow of illegal funds being paid into Swiss bank accounts.

An initiative of this nature should not be seen as philanthropic. It really is just a hard-headed initiative by developed countries and will, if correctly initiated, ensure that Africa is viable and it will reduce the flow of refugees wanting ‘a better life’ in the first world.

If we, the developed world, do nothing we will live to deeply regret it.

Guy Hallowes.

February 2021