As anti-migrant tensions rise in South Africa, so too do debates about how the South African government is controlling and managing migration, as well as governing it, amid competing concerns, including citizens’ demands, the protection of migrants’ rights and South Africa’s diplomatic relations with its regional and continental counterparts. Migration is inherently transnational, and its management cannot be the responsibility of one country alone; greater cooperation with other African countries in migration management deserves particular attention.
For a long time, South Africa has been calling for regional cooperation in migration management. The 1999 White Paper on International Migration recognised the importance of international, bilateral and multilateral cooperation in addressing migration; the 2017 White Paper on International Migration further emphasised continental and regional migration policy frameworks; and, in the recent 2026 Five-Point Plan, cooperation with continental counterparts in managing migration is now explicitly one of the five pillars.
This opinion piece explores how South Africa can strengthen cooperation with countries of origin and transit to address irregular migration, deportation and readmission, while also tackling the underlying drivers of migration. It argues that such cooperation must move beyond policy commitments towards practical, coordinated and measurable action.
The fifth pillar of the 2026 Five-Point Plan
The fifth pillar of the Five-Point Plan is centred on cooperation with countries of origin and transit, coordination of deportation and repatriation, information and intelligence sharing, engagement with African counterparts on the causes and patterns of migration, and building a coordinated continental response.
Regional and international cooperation is not a new commitment; South Africa has long engaged with countries of origin and transit through bi-national commissions (BNCs) and other bilateral mechanisms, facilitated largely by the department of international relations and cooperation (DIRCO). At the regional level, there are existing protocols, frameworks, plans and strategies that have been guiding cooperation among the countries, such as the SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons (2005), the SADC Labour Migration Policy Framework and Action Plan (2020–2025), and the SADC Common Regional Policy Framework on Refugees and Asylum Seekers (2019), as well as the Migration Policy Framework for Africa (MPFA) and Plan of Action (2018–2030), the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment (2018), and the African Common Position on Migration and Development (2006) at the continental level.
However, the fifth pillar of the 2026 Five-Point Plan is more directly concerned with addressing the migration-management challenges currently confronting South Africa, including irregular entry, deportation and repatriation, information and intelligence sharing, and the drivers and patterns of migration.
For these commitments to yield tangible results, however, regional cooperation must move beyond diplomatic engagements and high-level agreements towards a structured and functional regional and continental implementation mechanism. How will this envisaged cooperation differ under the FPP? How will this envisaged cooperation work in practice, and what mechanisms will ensure that it translates into more coordinated action rather than ending in diplomatic meetings, agreements and reports?
What could cooperation look like in practice?
As with any policy, implementation is the backbone of its success or failure. How can South Africa turn its commitment to regional and continental cooperation under the fifth pillar of the 2026 Five-Point Plan into something that works in practice?
Firstly, on cooperation with countries of origin and transit, the fifth pillar should build on and strengthen existing bilateral migration and border-management mechanisms, including the Bilateral Joint Technical Committees and BMA, SAPS, SANDF and Sars coordination, make migration-management issues a more systematic part of their work, and connect domestic border coordination with counterpart agencies across borders. The fifth pillar could therefore strengthen their permanent, year-round role in coordinated migration management.
On coordinating deportation and repatriation, available bilateral agreements are largely concerned with labour mobility and employment; however, the most difficult problems in migration management in South Africa are currently irregular entry, deportation and readmission. Therefore, bilateral agreements should move beyond labour mobility. Building on the SADC Coordinated Border Management Guidelines, information should be exchanged between border agencies, and communication mechanisms between neighbouring countries should be strengthened to address irregular entry through irregular migration routes, smuggling networks and fraudulent documents.
The existing approach should be consistent with the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) concept of Integrated Border Management (IBM), which emphasises, among other things, inter-agency and international cooperation, integrated information systems, coordinated procedures, intelligence and risk analysis, and established communication channels between neighbouring states. This means that cooperation should go beyond joint patrols and periodic operations towards a more integrated system of information sharing, joint risk assessment and coordinated operational planning. South Africa and its counterparts can draw lessons from the European Union. The European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur) provides a common framework for information exchange and operational cooperation between national border authorities and Frontex, and supports risk analysis and coordinated operational planning.
The agreements should also specifically provide for cooperation on deportation and readmission through cost-sharing and formal acceptance of nationals to avoid the ‘deportation revolving door’, a problem already recognised in the 2017 White Paper on International Migration. Through these bilateral agreements, joint migration-management committees should be established to meet regularly and review progress, trends and specific responses. Above all, countries should not just sign agreements; there should be mechanisms to address and resolve non-compliance.
The other component of the fifth pillar of the Five-Point Plan is engaging African counterparts on the causes and patterns of migration. It is not as though the root causes are not known: poverty, unemployment, limited economic opportunities, political instability, conflict and insecurity and limited and poor access to services such as health, education and social services in the region. These conditions have pushed people out of their countries of origin, while South Africa, which is relatively better positioned economically and in terms of access to opportunities and services, pulls them in. Again, coordinated efforts across the region to address the drivers are not a new proposal. Just to mention a few, SADC Vision 2050, Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020–2030, the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap 2015–2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and AU Agenda 2063 are some of the regional strategies and agreements aimed at addressing these drivers.
However, the persistence of these conditions suggests a gap between regional policy commitments and tangible outcomes. Bilateral and regional cooperation should therefore focus on translating existing commitments into measurable, jointly implemented interventions in major areas of origin, rather than creating further strategies without effective implementation.
The obstacles
As always, moving from policy to practice is met with several challenges: political, institutional and operational.
In the South African migration situation, South Africa, as the receiving country, might be prioritising irregular entry, border control and deportation, while countries of origin may be more concerned with employment opportunities, the protection of their nationals and access to legal migration pathways. Due to this conflict of interest, countries may not agree on what constitutes the main migration problem or on how it should be addressed.
The political sensitivity of international migration is another obstacle. How receiving countries treat foreign nationals, either through government migration control measures or actions of the general public, may be perceived as targeting particular nationalities. This can create diplomatic tensions between countries of origin and destination and undermine the cooperation required to implement the fifth pillar. Taking, for instance, the recent 2026 anti-migrant protests and attacks on migrants, Ghanaian nationals have petitioned the International Criminal Court over the alleged xenophobic violence. Also, Ghana sought to have the issue of xenophobic attacks against African nationals placed on the African Union’s agenda, while South Africa argued for a broader continental discussion on migration rather than singling out South Africa. This demonstrates how the issue of migration management can quickly move from a migration-management issue to a political issue.
For coordinated action on migration, relevant institutions should be in place and have the capacity to carry out the job. Bilateral agreements might be signed, but if immigration departments, border agencies and other relevant institutions lack adequate financial, technical and human resources, implementation might fail.
Way forward
Given a practical implementation plan and the potential obstacles, for coordinated migration management to be successful, the action plan should be able to answer certain questions: Who does what, when, how, with what resources, and how do we know it worked?
Clear responsibilities for each counterpart should be outlined in the agreements and strategies, at the national, bilateral, regional and continental levels. Clear timelines for actions and measurable targets must be set. Dedicated funding should be put in place for such coordinated action and, above all, clear mechanisms for resolving non-compliance, including procedures for escalating unresolved issues to senior officials or the relevant bilateral or regional structures, should be in place.
Coordinated efforts, regionally and continentally, should focus on addressing the root causes of migration, including poverty, unemployment, limited economic opportunities, political instability, conflict and insecurity, and inadequate access to health, education and social services. This will make migration within the region and across the continent a choice rather than a necessity. Reducing the conditions that make migration a necessity can reduce pressure for irregular and high-intensity movement.
Bilateral, regional and continental cooperation in strengthening border infrastructure and documentation systems is crucial not only for preventing irregular entry, but also for facilitating the timely identification, deportation and readmission of people who have no legal right to remain in South Africa. Emphasis is also placed on making migration management a shared responsibility through mechanisms such as deportation cost-sharing, which can strengthen the incentive for all parties to cooperate.
Avoiding countries becoming merely signatories with limited commitment to implementation, through clear mechanisms for resolving non-compliance and established procedures for escalating unresolved issues to senior officials or the relevant bilateral, regional or continental structures, is of crucial importance. This would ensure that agreements are not merely commitments on paper but are backed by accountability for implementation.
Ultimately, South Africa cannot manage migration alone, but neither can it afford cooperation that exists only on paper. The fifth pillar provides an opportunity to turn longstanding regional and continental commitments into practical, coordinated and accountable action. Its success should ultimately be judged not by the number of meetings held or agreements signed, but by whether it reduces irregular migration, improves the management of deportation and readmission, and helps address the conditions that make migration a necessity rather than a choice.
Dr Charity Mawire is a migration researcher and international relations scholar. Her research focuses on migration governance, gender, refugee protection and social cohesion in Africa, with particular interest in migration policy and humanitarian responses.