People: Africa’s Biggest Future Export?
People could become Africa’s biggest export to the world’s most-developed countries in future, which wouldn’t be all bad news for the continent.
This is the implication of a slew of news reports in recent years about growing labour shortages in the EU and Japan, and the Dolphin Bay Brief’s interview with futurist Bronwyn Wiliams of Flux Trends, after we reached out to her in curiosity about the topic.
In a recent Daily Maverick op-ed, Jakkie Cilliers, head of Africa Futures and Innovation at the Institute for Security Studies, wrote that the populations of 29 countries, among them Finland, South Korea, Germany, Russia, Japan and Ukraine, are in absolute decline and “already in 2022, Europe had six million vacant jobs.”
Technology can fill part of the gap, “but artificial intelligence does not cut hair, drive garbage trucks and look after the elderly… the pull effect of labour shortages in rich European countries and elsewhere will eventually create an unstoppable momentum.”
Bronwyn pointed out that remittances from family members working on other continents already bring back more money each year to Africa than all the foreign aid and NGO-funds that the continent receives combined. More workers elsewhere could swell such inflows enormously.
She gave us many nuggets to chew, not all of them pleasant.
To grow our own economy, feed hungry children
Not all Africans are skilled – or even well-fed – enough to qualify for jobs elsewhere. Bronwyn has pointed out in the past that a staggering 27% of South African children are stunted due to malnourishment.
“Unfortunately, stunted children will never achieve their full personal potential. or be as valued by society and the economy as they could be. They will not become the sort of workers who are sought after or welcomed by foreign nations,” added Bronwyn, who has called, in some of her social media posts, for South Africans not to vote for corrupt politicians who are, effectively, “stealing the food from children’s mouths.”
“Feeding children properly to prevent stunting, and educating them well, are probably the best return on investment we can make in our collective future.”
The best investment that South Africa and other African countries could make in their own futures is to fix health and education, she told us. “Since these are the most important drivers of both individual and national growth and success, I’d say fixing them is the best return on investment we can make in our collective future.”
Stunting has been a problem in South Africa for decades and is not only a personal and social tragedy, but in all likelihood contributes to South Africa’s massive unemployment statistics, Bronwyn has said.
“An unstoppable momentum”
Jakkie Cilliers wrote in his Daily Maverick op-ed: “The future will almost inevitably see large-scale migration on a level unknown in several generations, possibly centuries. It won’t happen in the next two years but will steadily ramp up so that by mid-century, hundreds of thousands of people globally are likely to be on the move annually.”
This will be due to push and pull factors, he said. “The push factor will be caused by climate change and the lack of opportunity in regions such as Africa and the Middle East. The pull will be from declining populations and demand for labour in countries such as Germany, China, Russia, Poland, Japan and South Korea.”
A research paper by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Africa Europe Foundation found that currently, African migrants to Europe are not mostly “uneducated single men looking for welfare coverage,” as some might believe, but “young, educated people – almost half of them women – looking for jobs.”
Only 7,2% of African migrants in Europe are refugees – far fewer than the number from the single country of Syria.
Interestingly, Africa actually hosts a growing proportion of the global migrant population from all world regions, with more than 42% more migrants in 2020 than ten years before. People are not just leaving Africa, they’re coming here.
Africa is not a continent of massive exodus at this stage, the authors of the paper concluded.
Nomad visas: for capital, not people
Currently, migration is driven more by supply than demand: people flee slower, poorer economies for wealthier ones in search of more opportunity, Bronwyn pointed out.
The world’s most developed countries have not yet launched the policies welcoming masses of migrants, as is anticipated. Japan is unusual in already having loosened its famously anti-permanent immigration stance as it seeks to welcome more foreign workers; elsewhere there is not yet much demand for them, despite the implications of generous policies in the European Union regarding working and “nomad” visas.
“Nomad and working visa schemes are not about attracting workers but about attracting capital, which is quite different,” Bronwyn said.
Such schemes come in a context of rising ethnic and nationalist anti-immigration populism in Europe and some parts of older, richer Asia. “Basically, if migrant workers are perceived to be taking rather than bringing value – in other words, taxes – they will face nationalist and even racist resistance.”
Japanese robots with skin
Did you hear the news that Japanese scientists are putting human skin onto robots’ faces and making them smile? Ghoulish as this may seem, it has implications for our story: we put it to Bronwyn that perhaps the Japanese preferred robots-with-skin to immigrants. Not quite so, she said.
“I would say that this signals that perhaps people will value flesh and blood humans over artificial friends and helpers. Indeed, making robots appear more human by skinning them in flesh signifies that there is a desire for more and more human-like companions rather than more and more artificial replacements.”
Phew! We sigh in relief.
How can we keep our talent?
Should countries in the EU open their doors a little further to migrants, how can we retain our skilled workers?
We can’t, said Bronwyn. There is no way to keep either talent or capital from staying in a place where it benefits less than elsewhere, “without risking even faster and greater ‘escapes’ of value. You can only retain both by growing faster than your competitors.
“So, invest in the drivers of economic growth: health and nutrition, education, savings, culture, infrastructure development, policy stability, strong institutions etc.”
That said, exporting talent is not all bad news. As we mentioned above, the global migrant working diaspora, via remittances to family and friends, is a huge contributor to the home countries’ economies “And deepening interconnected financial flows and commercial ties with the developed world also increases opportunities back home,” said Bronwyn.
Why we write these stories
Dolphin Bay writes stories like this one because we like to explore interesting prospects for Africa and little-known trends on the continent. We also enjoy writing stories that disrupt our common preconceptions.
On this note, we were pleasantly surprised by the recent predictions by the International Monetary Fund that of the top twenty economies expected to experience the fastest growth rates in 2024, nine are African countries. These are Niger, Senegal, Libya, Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, the Gambia, and Benin. We also enjoyed writing the story above in this newsletter about economic optimism in South Africa.
Perhaps fewer people will want to leave Africa in the future than this story assumes!
Source: Dolphin Bay
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