Africa: Africans Migrate for Jobs Mostly Within the Continent - Why Regional Skills Partnerships Are Needed
[The Conversation Africa] In 2024, 25.1 million Africans were living in other countries on the continent. Labour migration has long been a defining feature of Africa's economic landscape.
In 2024, approximately 25.1 million Africans were living in other African countries, highlighting the continent's heavy reliance on regional labour migration. Migrant workers are predominantly concentrated within certain sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing, which collectively account for around a fifth of all migrant labour.
These workers hold a mix of medium-skilled, high-skilled, and low-skilled jobs. This sectoral concentration is crucial when discussing global skill partnerships. Currently, most bilateral agreements involving African countries focus on specific sectors like healthcare, construction, and information technology, with the hope that some trainees will migrate while others contribute locally.
However, these agreements often overlook the reality that 80% of African migration occurs within the continent, such as between Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire or Uganda and Kenya. Bilateral arrangements do not support or formalise these flows. Furthermore, these agreements create a "two-track" system, separating domestic skill development and migration to specific countries, disregarding workers who may prefer opportunities closer to home.
Additionally, these agreements lack scalability and flexibility, requiring significant resources to establish and tailor to each partner country's needs. Lastly, the absence of regional coordination leads to fragmented standards and qualifications, causing administrative inefficiencies. To address these issues, global skill partnerships should evolve into a three-track model: a domestic track for local labour markets, an international track for pathways to high-income destination countries, and a regional track for structured mobility within Africa.
This regional track would formalise existing informal mobility, standardise training and qualifications, and provide legal protections for workers. By addressing skills gaps efficiently and creating a balanced ecosystem of mobility, this approach would better meet the needs of African countries and their workers.
Written by urgent.news from AllAfrica's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
