E.g., 04/24/2024
E.g., 04/24/2024
Africa (sub-Saharan)

Africa (sub-Saharan)

Beyond intraregional migration, sub-Saharan Africans migrate to North Africa, Europe, North America, and beyond. The research offered here focuses generally on two aspects of sub-Saharan migration: the outcomes for these migrants and their children once they have settled in their countries of destination, the United States among them, and the roles that diasporas and development policies can play in the economic improvement of these African nations.

Recent Activity

Cover image for Reassessing Recruitment Costs
Policy Briefs
November 2022
By  Kate Hooper
Cover image for Financing Responses to Climate Migration
Reports
November 2022
By  Lawrence Huang, Ravenna Sohst and Camille Le Coz
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Articles
Instructors teach an African dance class in Miami.
Articles
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Reports
May 2022
By  Meghan Benton, Samuel Davidoff-Gore, Jeanne Batalova, Lawrence Huang and Jie Zong

Pages

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Policy Briefs
February 2019
By  Susan Fratzke and Camille Le Coz
EU Migration Partnerships: A Work in Progress
Reports
December 2017
By  Elizabeth Collett and Aliyyah Ahad
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Books
October 2016
By  Kathleen Newland, Elizabeth Collett, Kate Hooper and Sarah Flamm
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Reports
September 2016
By  Christopher Horwood and Kate Hooper
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Policy Briefs
October 2013
By  Kathleen Newland
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Policy Briefs
September 2013
By  Michael Clemens

Pages

Returned migrants participate in development work in Burkina Faso.

The European Union has tried to leverage development assistance to address root causes of migration from Africa, including poverty, instability, and conflict. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, unveiled in 2015, has supported more than 250 programs totaling nearly 5 billion euros across 26 countries, but has had only partial success addressing the underlying drivers of migration, as this article explains.

africa intracontinental movement

While intraregional migration is a pillar of the African Union's focus on enhancing regional integration and economic development, visa-free travel or visas upon arrival are a reality for only about half of the countries on the continent. Progress towards free movement for Africans has occurred mostly at a subregional level, as this article explores.

A farmer in Tanzania tends to crops.

Climate-induced migration can lead to tensions and violence between host communities and new arrivals. This conflict can flare up at various levels, including among rural farmers and herders in relatively peaceful countries such as Tanzania.

climate change migration flood

Climate change is affecting human movement now, causing internal displacement and international migration, and will do so in the future. But the impact is often indirect, and rarely is the process as straightforward as one might think. This article provides an overview of research on how climatic hazards drive and affect migration, reviewing which types of people might migrate and under what conditions.

A gathering in Tel Aviv for asylum seeker rights

Israel has a remarkably open immigration system for anyone who can prove Jewish ethnicity. But as this country profile explores, migration is extremely difficult for non-Jews, including asylum seekers. This article describes immigration flows under the Law of Return and examines labor migration and the rise in asylum seekers, reviewing the main challenges that have emerged within the last three decades.

 

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Video
June 3, 2021

This conversation marks the release of an MPI policy brief and reflects on how mobility systems in sub-Saharan Africa have adapted to meet the public health challenges posed by COVID-19, and what lessons can be learned.

Video, Audio
April 22, 2021

This webinar examines what roles diasporas could play in the development cooperation programs of countries of destination, as well as the potential challenges and opportunities for policy design.

2021.4.8 IOM Muse Mohammed Syrian Refugees Leaving Lebanon   Covid
Video, Audio
April 8, 2021

Marking the release of an IOM-MPI report, this two-panel discussion, features introductory remarks by IOM Director General António Vitorino and examines how the pandemic has reshaped border management and human mobility in 2020 and what the lasting impacts may be throughout 2021 and beyond.

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Expert Q&A, Audio
March 2, 2021

Climate change and international migration both are global issues with aspects that countries try to manage through treaties, pacts, and other types of agreements. But most of the global governance frameworks that exist for climate-induced migration require only voluntary commitments by states.

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Expert Q&A, Audio
February 5, 2021

Climate change is already affecting how, whether, and where people migrate. But environmental change is likely to become more extreme, unless the world takes serious action now. How might changes made now impact what future migration looks like?

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Recent Activity

Reports
February 2024

Remittances are a vital lifeline for migrants’ families around the world and an important source of revenue for many low- and middle-income countries, especially in times of crisis. As more people turn to digital financial technologies for these money transfers, this shift holds the potential to shake up the rigid remittance industry and boost development benefits. But it also brings new challenges, as this report explores.

Video, Audio, Webinars
November 16, 2023

This webinar examines the challenges that refugees and other migrants face in—and place on—secondary cities, municipal capacity to respond to needs, the types of support required at national and other levels, and how development actors can better partner with secondary cities and local actors. The discussion features the launch of a related report.

Articles

Credit cards, bank accounts, and other financial services are often critical in order to fully participate in the modern world. Yet many refugees and other forced migrants have trouble obtaining these seemingly simple tools, preventing them from full integration. This article outlines humanitarian migrants’ needs for financial services and the barriers that can arise.

Reports
November 2023

Small and mid-sized cities are some of the fastest growing in many parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa. Yet life in these cities can present a variety of challenges for migrants and displaced persons. This report examines these challenges in secondary cities in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda, and how local, national, and civil-society actors are working to address them.

Articles

Is climate change a major driver of migration and displacement? From where are people leaving, and where are they going? This informative primer, a Climate Migration 101 of sorts, provides answers to basic questions about climate change and migration, starting with how and where climate change triggers human movement.

Expert Q&A, Audio
October 19, 2023

African migrants turn to the strength of kinship-based support systems in pursuit of stability as they settle in a European landscape that is sometimes made precarious by their legal status and shifting policies. This episode discusses use of the kinship networks, including to exchange or broker identity documents between migrants along the migration journey and at destination.

Articles

Despite the widespread impression that people inevitably migrate away from climate-vulnerable areas, many adapt to environmental changes, choose to remain in their homeland, or simply cannot leave, due to a lack of money, connections, legal avenues, or other means to do so. These “trapped populations” may be among the most affected victims of climate change, this article explains.

Video, Audio, Webinars
September 26, 2023

During this MPI webinar, climate experts and regional authorities outline the challenges related to climate change and human mobility that local communities, national governments, and the IGAD region are confronting. The speakers discuss priorities within the region to address climate-related displacement, the engagement of various stakeholders, efforts to facilitate safe and orderly migration, and potential solutions. 

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