OBBO: Progress fuelling deadly journey to Europe...

The UNDP just released a fascinating report titled Scaling Fences: Voices of Irregular African Migrants to Europe.

The report draws on the largest survey of its kind. “Almost 2,000 people from 39 African countries in 13 European nations were interviewed, all of whom had arrived in Europe through irregular means and not for asylum or protection-related reasons,” the UNDP boasted.

The short of it is that African migration to Europe is a much more complicated story than it is made out to be. They are surprising insights, and a lot to chew on.

Of the many gems, is that migration to Europe is not all because of poverty in Africa. It is also a result of progress in Africa.

A good “58 per cent of the migrants [surveyed] were either employed or in school at the time of their departure, with the majority of those working earning competitive wages at home,” we learn.

“They are of the ‘Springboard Generation’ – beneficiaries of two decades of remarkable development progress in Africa,” although some 50 per cent of those working still said they were not earning enough.

My favourite two, however, have to be how migration works differently for women, and what is likely to make a migrant return to Africa.

Female respondents, the report says, perhaps ‘‘jumped the furthest” — “scaling even higher ‘gender fences’ of patriarchal norms at home and exploitation during their journeys abroad — their vulnerability to abuse continues to form part of their experience in Europe.”

However, the gender wage gap between men and women in Africa significantly reverses in Europe, with women earning 11 per cent more, in contrast to the situation where they were earning 26 per cent less in Africa.

In Europe, women irregular migrants, though still facing sexual exploitation, reported lower levels of deprivation and were more successful in accessing a range of services. They were also in more settled accommodation than male respondents.

The second is that African migrants who do not want to live permanently in Europe are more likely to be earning. Higher proportions of this group also have a legal right to work and are sending money home.

I asked Mohamed Yahya, who was the research director of Scaling Fences, for the quirky juice on this.

His suspicion is that a part of it has got to do with social media.

African migrants in Europe go around taking photos against rich people’s Ferrari’s and fancy places, and posting them on social media even though they are homeless.

Back home, everyone thinks they are living it up. It becomes very difficult for them to return empty-handed, and wearing the mitumba (second-hand clothing) jacket they left with, when their neighbourhood expects them to be decked in Armani suits, and at least spot one gold tooth.

The counter-intuitive reading from that is if Europe wants African migrants to go home, then they should ensure they get work and succeed. The buggers will all troop back home to show off.

Yahya was also the research director on the UNDP’s thoughtful 2017 report Journey to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment.

Recently he was appointed UNDP Resident Representative in Nigeria.

Now they’ve made him a big man, we are all praying he won’t stop getting his hands dirty with stuff like Scaling Fences.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is curator of the ‘Wall of Great Africans’ and publisher of explainer site Roguechiefs.com.