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Yordanos Seifu Estifanos Correspondent
Many people from African countries, especially the youth, leave their homes in hope for a better life. The Global North contributes to these migration movements in various direct and indirect ways, from destroying the livelihoods of farmers and fisher (wo)men to the changing climate. Under these conditions migration is often the only way for young people to survive.

A great number of African countries are in the early-to-middle stages of the demographic transition with huge potential of an increasing number of youth. Of the major constraints that preclude African countries from realising a potential demographic dividend, climate change and resource exploitation stand on top. Although these factors have intensified in recent decades, they have always been present, embedded in historical and structural relations which can be traced back to the era of the industrial revolution and colonisation. Being confronted with increasing climate change hazards (some of which are climate change induced) and growing competition for African resources, mainly by countries in the Global North, the youth from different African countries are responding in different ways. Migration, both internal and international, is one of these responses to climate change and resource exploitation as well as skewed historical and prevailing twisted economic, political and power relations. Migration being inherently age selective, youth migration is particularly prominent. Consequently, many African youths question the actions and inactions of international actors as well as the unfairness of global economic inequalities through migration.

The conventional narrative regarding African migrants who are heading to countries in the Global North, however, is that they are irregular (another way of saying illegal) migrants. They are defined as such by politicians and, at times, by the general public of destination countries. Hence, depending on the internal socioeconomic and political conditions in destination countries, an African migrant could be welcomed as a legal migrant or rejected as an illegal one.

By taking examples and cases from different African countries, the case is otherwise. It shows that it is rather the direct responsibility of countries in the Global North to welcome African migrants as long as the former directly or indirectly contribute to migration, i.e. through climate change and resource exploitations. Hence, developed countries should relax their migration policies towards so-called ‘irregular’ migrants, some of which use migration as one of the adaptation strategies to climate change induced hazards and resource exploitation.

Around 70 percent of African populations depend on agriculture. Severe and prolonged droughts, flooding, and loss of arable land due to desertification and soil erosion reduce agricultural yields and cause crop failure and loss of livestock, which endanger rural and pastoralist populations. The decreasing availability of land is amplified by the need for alternative renewable energy sources and the resulting diversion of food crops such as maize into bio-fuel as well as an attempt to produce bio-fuels from non-food crops, driven by a global effort towards reducing the impact of climate change.

Moreover, because of an ever-increasing consumptive world — a major factor underlying climate change — the need for food has increased at the global level. This is causing competition for land and water resources across Africa. Accordingly, arable land in Africa has been seized in the recent past and will continue to be seized to provide food and fuel to wealthier nations. Pundits compare this rush for land and water resources to the colonial plunder and the reintroduction of colonial time plantation economies. This worsens the already fragile food security situation in different African countries rather than bringing the promised energy security and climate change mitigation.

In this regard, Naomi Klein adds, ‘when heat stress and vicious storms wipe out small farms and fishing villages, the land will be handed over to large developers for mega-ports, luxury resorts, and industrial farms. Once self-sufficient rural residents will lose their lands and be urged to move into increasingly crowded urban slums’

Migration and Resource

Exploitation Nexus

Economic globalisation operating through the actions and inactions of deregulated multinational corporates and profit-driven investors penetrates into impoverished countries’ economies in search of resources and markets. Coupled with governance and capacity problems countries of the periphery are caught with, this disrupts local economies.

Moreover, neoliberal reforms intensify increasing inequalities, leaving millions of citizens impoverished in the countries (Chomsky 1999). Besides deteriorating living conditions and growing inequalities, globalisation processes operating through mainstream media and the entertainment industry create ideological and material linkages that allure and attract citizens in periphery countries.

Juxtaposed against these are the governments in countries of the global north which are building more and more high-tech fortresses and adopting draconian anti-immigration laws as well as intervening in the politics of periphery countries under the pretext of national security and, at times, under the guise of establishing democracy. Consequently, ‘migrants who understand the economic interests behind cultural facades react by circumventing restrictions, by crossing borders without documents. Individually they attempt to equalise life-course opportunities. “Illegal” migrants question the legitimacy of inequality and the morality of global apartheid’ (Hoerder 2002, 578).

As part of its historic relation with the so-called Francophone countries, France has been looting energy and other resources from Africa for a long time now. Gabon’s forest was exploited by France in the past, as is Mozambique’s by China today. Also, France has been intervening, in the name of national security, in Francophone countries’ conflicts over oil and other resources, or started those conflicts herself.

The Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest producer of cacao. Coffee and mineral oil make the country economically even more interesting. In 2005, however, French companies exported 75 per cent of all the production profit from Ivory Coast. In this regard, Tiken Jah Fakoly, an Ivorian singer, argues that although Africa is done with colonisation, colonisation is not done with Africa: ‘After slavery they created colonization; and after colonisation cooperation, and cooperation is another form of colonisation, because now our economy is colonized.’

Aminata Traoré, writer and former minister of culture of Mali, is more articulate in pointing to the nexus between exploitation and migration. She asks, ‘Now that you have devastated the ecosystems, dulled the people’s mind and humiliated them with the result that they have turned into complete conformists, how can you dare to tell these people they should stay at home, while at the same time you take everything from them what they needed to live a dignified life in their countries: How? If you don’t want someone to come to your country, give him the opportunity to manage his wealth himself. Don’t take from him that what he needs to live dignifiedly at his home, while simultaneously locking your doors twice. He will necessarily search for what you have taken from him. Yet, are the free countries of Europe capable to understand this?’

There is a direct connection between climate change, the large scale exploitation of fishery resources and migration from the Global South to the Global North. In addition to directly worsening the food insecurity situation through weather variability, floods, untimely rain and other climate irregularities, climate change induced transnational actions and inactions that create disruption and dislocation in numerous African countries. Under these circumstances the mobility of populations becomes a condition for basic survival.

Often, the discourse on the connection between resource exploitation and migration is limited to a perspective on the traditional agriculture economy. However, the massive exploitation of the European fishery industry in African coastal waters has an enormous impact on the movement of young people escaping the destruction of their livelihoods.

Furthermore, as indicated above, people from rural areas of Ethiopia used migration as one of the responses and adaptation strategies for climate variability and resource competition. Youths from western African countries, like Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, also use migration as one response to the resource exploitation which is further intensified by climate change induced problems.

Migration policies in the Global North, however, often preclude these migrants from entering their countries. While the exploited resources are free to move from Africa to Europe, physical and legal barriers are erected against migrants from impoverished countries preventing them from maximizing their potential as well as benefiting from globalization. This is despite the fact that these migrants are prime victims of climate change, resource exploitation and related problems. It is farcical that borders are serving as revolving doors for citizens of the global north while they are impassable walls erected against irregular migrants from Africa and beyond. – Pambauka