Africa's Migration Burden Reshapes Continental Economic Policy Debate

Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, used a Pretoria media briefing on Wednesday to reframe migration as a continent-wide economic challenge, pushing back against efforts to single out South Africa in African Union forums.

His intervention came directly after the 49th Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council decided not to discuss migration at the upcoming AU midterm review meeting, a decision that followed Ghana’s attempt to place xenophobia allegations on the agenda.

The economic data Lamola cited is striking. Research he referenced shows that nearly six in 10 Africans aged 18 to 25 have considered emigrating, driven primarily by the search for better economic opportunities. Roughly 45 percent of all international migrants from Africa stay on the continent, and more than half of that group moves within African borders. South Africa, Egypt and Côte d’Ivoire absorb the largest share of those intra-African flows.

That distribution matters. It means the economic pressures generating migration, and the costs of absorbing migrants, are not South Africa’s alone to manage.

Lamola pointed to recent events as evidence of how broadly those pressures are spreading: at least 144 deaths and disappearances off the coast of Mauritania, and large migrant arrivals at the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Both incidents, he argued, reflect continent-wide migration stress rather than any single country’s policy failure.

Meanwhile, anti-migrant sentiment has intensified inside South Africa. Protesters have argued that undocumented immigrants strain employment, healthcare and educational resources while not contributing through taxation. Lamola acknowledged the domestic pressure but rejected the characterisation of South Africa as uniquely xenophobic, insisting the government remains committed to protecting the rights and dignity of all residents.

His core policy argument rests on the 2015 Johannesburg resolution from the 25th AU Assembly, which called for a continent-wide migration conference to address mobility, development and irregular migration. South Africa, he said, fully supports implementing that decision. Any serious continental engagement, in his view, must examine migration’s relationship with peace, stability, economic development, regional integration and democratic governance together, not in isolation.

“It should not be just the burden of South Africa,” Lamola said. “It should be the burden of the whole continent, and therefore it must be discussed in a comprehensive way.” He warned that reducing the AU summit to a naming-and-shaming exercise focused on one country would produce no meaningful outcomes.

The minister called for evidence-based, research-driven discussions involving AU institutions and member states to identify the root causes pushing people across borders: climate change, economic disparities, unemployment, security breakdowns and democratic governance deficits.

On the human rights dimension, Lamola indicated that South Africa is cooperating with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is expected to visit the country soon. He positioned that body, rather than the AU Executive Council or leaders’ summit, as the appropriate forum for addressing rights concerns tied to migration.

His broader message to AU partners was clear: any migration debate that reaches the leaders’ summit should arrive as a formal report following thorough continental deliberation, not as a vehicle for targeted criticism without solutions.

Whether the AU’s institutional calendar and member-state politics will allow that kind of structured, comprehensive process to take shape before migration pressures force the issue onto the summit agenda anyway remains an open question.