SETH ONYANGO, BIRD NEWSROOM
AFRICA is experiencing “reverse migration” as skilled workers who left the continent in search of greener pastures in North America and Europe return home to work and invest.
The trend, detailed in a recent report, comes on the back of improving economic conditions in most African states, coupled with political stability and good investment sentiment.
With Africa’s rising economy and decreasing conflicts, the United Nations opines African immigrants have found incentives.
A report by pan-African private equity firm, Jacana Partners, found that nearly 70 per cent of African MBA students in top US and European schools planned to return home after graduation.
Similarly, an International Organisation for Migrants (IOM) report found that about the percentage of East African migrants, mainly Ugandans, Kenyans and Tanzanians in the United Kingdom, were willing to return home permanently.
“The continent’s political leaders also appear to have arms open to receive the returning Africans. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Union’s economic development organ, even created an African diaspora programme that it says is strategically important to Africa,” the UN said.
Despite, the improving African economy and the decrease in civil conflicts, the “going-back-home phenomenon” appears to be driven, at least in part, by family reasons.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the continent’s labour market was characterized by the brain drain phenomenon, when skilled Africans went abroad in search of better life and opportunities − but buoyed by a jingoistic attitude − more skilled workers that left are returning home.
Meanwhile, more people of African origin are also settling on the continent, citing racism, extremism and the pursuit of “belonging” as their reasons.
A pan-African effort to encourage the African diaspora to return home − an initiative that commenced in 2019 in Ghana – has been initiated to mark 400 years since the first documented slave ship from Africa landed in the Americas.
According to the Organisation of Economically Developed countries ((OECD), return migration helps enrich the skills sets in the home country, and, even though only a limited share of the highly skilled return, they help raise the stock of human capital in origin countries.
“Public policies aiming to relieve households’ financial constraints, such as agricultural subsidies, can represent incentives for return migrants. Return migration holds great development potential, stemming from the financial, human and social assets embodied in returnees,” reads its report on migration in part.
