It is good to hear a wise and sensitive voice on immigration controls. Mamphela Ramphele — former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, former MD of the World Bank — is studying the management of migration trends as co-chairperson of the United Nations Commission on Migration. She brings a breath of fresh air to the challenges that migration poses.
Never before, says Ramphele, has the world seen such large numbers of people living outside their country of origin — up to 200-million — with every expectation the numbers will continue to grow.
Almost all countries are now touched by the phenomenon. The old distinction between countries of origin, transit and destination has become redundant. Many countries now fall into all three categories. Still more confusing are the motives for migration, with families having complex mixtures of economic, social, political and personal reasons for moving.
And where are they heading? For many young people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa has become attractive — and is finding it difficult to absorb the flows, which have increased faster than the economy. Although official figures show only 120 000 people applying for asylum in South Africa in the past decade, another million Africans have moved there. ”We are like a little Europe, without her resources,” Ramphele says.
The world’s most prosperous states, which have been in the vanguard of globalisation, bear a significant responsibility for the forces sustaining migration, she argues. Globalisation has not only made millions aware of their relative poverty but has given them the means of migration.
Remittances are providing developing states with almost twice as much as international aid. But the benefits are outweighed by the losses of skilled manpower — nurses, doctors, teachers and social workers. South Africa has been assisted by the migration of health and education personnel from neighbouring countries, but to the detriment of its neighbours.
The brain drain has to be tackled, Ramphele says. She rules out a ban on skilled people leaving — because it would be ”inconsistent with my belief that migration is motivated by the … desire to gain a better quality of life”. She also rules out compensation from richer to poorer countries, because the richer ones would not pay up.
She favours a return to the Millennium Development Goals, under which the industrial nations commit themselves to work in partnership with developing countries to achieve poverty reduction. Both developed and developing states need to engage in more long-term workforce planning, improved pay and conditions, and an end to discrimination, she says.
”We can no longer afford to pretend that international migration is unnecessary and unwanted, or that it can be obstructed by the erection of increasingly restrictive barriers,” she adds.
”There is now a growing recognition that such barriers have fuelled the human smuggling industry, encouraged economic migrants to abuse the asylum system, and led to increased levels of irregular migration.” — Â