This archive report was first published on 27 October 2019.
Published on October 27, 2019, a report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) titled Scaling Fences: Voices of Irregular African Migrants to Europe has shed light on the motivations behind the migration of African migrants to Europe.
Contrary to the common assumption that poverty drives irregular migration, the report found that many of the migrants have formal employment back home and are fairly educated. However, they are often driven by stagnating career growths, inability to save for the future, and low incomes.
The report, based on a survey of 1,970 migrants from 39 African countries, found that despite earning competitive incomes back home, half of the respondents said it wasn't enough to support their families. Another 38 per cent said they earned just enough to get by, while 12 per cent admitted to earning enough to save for the future.
Once in Europe, the migrants were often influenced by the 'apparent shame' of not achieving their 'mission' of sending funds back to families and communities. However, when they did send money back home, they spent just a third of their pay to support their families.
According to the report, these findings raise important questions about the quality of jobs and opportunities for personal advancement in Africa. 'It would seem that despite being relatively successful in economic terms within local contexts, available opportunities fell far short of meeting respondents' aspirations,' the report says.
UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner noted that the core message arising from the study is that migration is a reverberation of uneven development and particularly of a development trajectory that is failing young people. He emphasized the need for policymakers to focus on long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes.
