Overcoming the North-South Divide in Global Migration Governance

This essay is part of a series of articles cosponsored by the Africa Program and the Global Order and Institutions Program and edited by Stewart Patrick, under the auspices of the Carnegie Working Group on Reimagining Global Economic Governance.

In the Global North and in some of the relatively more affluent countries of the Global South, migrants are facing rising barriers. Yet, as their average populations age, these same countries are faced with the prospect of slow economic growth and stagnating incomes unless they find new sources of labor. Meanwhile, in the Global South, and particularly in Africa, the supply of labor considerably exceeds demand. In this fraught international context in which migrants are often political scapegoats, establishing how to facilitate safe, regular migration in a way that meets the needs of both destination and origin countries remains one of the most daunting challenges in global governance. An essential step on this journey is getting a more accurate picture of the actual scale and patterns of global migration, especially from Africa.

A period of alarm over migration hardly seems the ideal moment to seek solutions to the emerging global mismatch in the demand and supply of labor. Yet there is at least one concrete step that can be taken: investing more in global migration policy research. Too much current migration research, driven by political fears, focuses on how to slow down or stop migration from the Global South to the Global North, and it feeds into a migration crisis narrative. If more intellectual work was devoted to finding imaginative and politically acceptable ways to address the global labor demand and supply mismatch, looming constraints on growth could be relieved. It would then become easier to address the root causes of discontent—stagnating or falling living standards in aging societies. Countering alarmism around migration stands to benefit both destination and origin countries.

Migration Misconceptions and Narratives

In this year of elections, it is rare to find a country where migration is not a hot-button topic. Frequently, right-wing populist parties raise migration as a political issue and link it to underlying, contested understandings of the nation and of national identity. Migration policy’s rising prominence reflects discontent in destination countries over living standards that have stagnated among the middle class, the working class, and the poor in the wake of financial crises, the coronavirus pandemic, and long-growing inequalities. But importantly, it also reflects popular misconceptions around the state of global migration. These erroneous beliefs have contributed to a sense of alarmism in the Global North. They have encouraged exaggerated narratives of uncontrolled mass migration, while obscuring the powerful pull factors that are driving demand for immigrants in those same countries.

According to the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) recent World Migration Report 2024, global levels of migration—that is, the proportion of people living in countries in which they were not born—rose from 2.3 percent to 3.6 percent between 1970 and 2020. What the IOM does not mention is that only ten years earlier, in 1960, the migration rate was 3.1 percent. In other words, there have been oscillations in the global rate of migration that put current figures and the notion of a “migration crisis” into perspective. Indeed, some economic historians believe that the global rate of migration was even higher than the current level during the mass outmigration from Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. In general, it is thought that migration has oscillated around an average of about 3 percent since the mid-nineteenth century.¹

The IOM is not alone in, perhaps inadvertently, stirring alarm over movements of people. Recently, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported a record rise in the number of displaced people, which reached 120 million in 2023. This aggregate number includes several categories of people, most of whom are internally displaced in their own countries. An increase in the number of displaced people is concerning, but does not imply an increase in international migration. The number of international refugees and asylum seekers crossing international borders is 45 million, representing less than 0.6 percent of the global population. Moreover, 69 percent of these migrants are located in neighboring countries, and 75 percent are in middle- or lower-income countries, rather than in wealthy Western countries. Even the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has used the term “migration crisis” in the headline of a recent commentary on the G7’s options for coordinated migration policy.

Given these widely held misconceptions, the climate for the global governance of migration is gloomy, and multilateral institutions seem ill-equipped to deal with current challenges. This was not the expectation in 2015: That year, the UN member states approved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which embraced the objective of “orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration,” and the IOM—created in 1951—was at last formally integrated into the UN system. Unfortunately, these steps have not been matched with global commitments on common migration goals and values. In 2018, the UN adopted several global pacts on refugees and migration, but these are essentially compromise statements and are, unlike treaties, not legally binding. Even so, several prominent states of the Global North and South, including the United States, refused to sign them. In the current political climate, even maintaining explicit support for existing commitments on migration and refugees is increasingly difficult. Support for the historic 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN’s 1967 Refugee Protocol is on the wane, and governments are withdrawing from some of the conventions’ provisions or otherwise failing to meet their obligations under these instruments.

Restrictive Policies in the Global North

Many countries of the wealthy Global North have erected higher barriers to the admission of refugees and migrants. In the United States, Joe Biden’s administration issued a proclamation in June 2024 that set limits on asylum applications, imposed penalties for those who apply and fail to meet the standards for refugee status, and promised tough consequences for those who cross the border and fail to apply for asylum. The administration has also committed more border control agents to the field (while calling on Congress to fund an additional 2,000). Tougher enforcement of border laws has led to a sharp fall in illegal border crossings, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, but not below the level that would allow these interim restrictions to be lifted.

Shortly before the U.S. proclamation, in April 2024, the European Union formally adopted a long-discussed Pact on Migration and Asylum. In addition to establishing a formula for EU members to share responsibility for refugees, it has similar objectives to Biden’s proclamation, including provisions for more border guards and assessment staff, quicker assessments, and quicker actions to remove people who do not qualify for asylum. It also empowers EU countries to impose “expedited border procedures” when facing exceptional influx pressures.  

Meanwhile, the EU and individual EU countries have stepped up initiatives to financially reward transit countries that detain or reverse prospective migrants to Europe. However, such policies have contributed to instability in transit and origin countries. Experts attribute the military coup in Niger last year in part to then president Mohamed Bazoum’s support for EU policies to restrict the movement of migrants in transit northward through Niger. One of the first acts of the military regime was to abandon this policy.  

Deals with Egypt, Tunisia, and Mauritania to stem the flows of migrants and refugees to EU countries have also been criticized. Efforts in Tunisia have generated particular criticism, as its government has been accused of ignoring human rights concerns in the methods it has adopted to block migrant exits in the direction of Europe (to Italy, in this case). The UNCHR said it was “very concerned by the increased targeting in Tunisia of migrants, mostly from south of the Sahara, and individuals and organizations working to assist them.” The UNHCR added there has been a noticeable “rise in the use of dehumanizing and racist rhetoric against Black migrants and Black Tunisians.”   

In the United Kingdom, the ill-fated scheme to send people who do not qualify for asylum to Rwanda was an unthinking reaction to the failure of the British exodus from the EU to reduce the rate of immigration. Indeed, post-Brexit Britain experienced a sharp rise in net immigration, including a surge in incoming Romanians and Bulgarians.² The now-ruling Labour Party, though it has abandoned the Rwanda scheme, nevertheless seems to believe it should mimic the failed narrative of the defeated Conservatives. The new prime minister, Keir Starmer, told The Sun “Read my lips—I will bring immigration numbers down. If you trust me with the keys to [the prime minister’s office,] I will make you this promise: I will control our borders and make sure British businesses are helped to hire Brits first.”

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, all countries with a long history of immigration, are also taking steps to reduce the number of immigrants, especially low-skilled migrants and their dependents.

Promising Initiatives in the Global South

In the Global South, trends have mostly been in the opposite direction, with countries showing a greater tolerance for migrants and more liberal immigration policies. Since 2000, initiatives in MERCOSUR and the Andean Pact countries of South America have increasingly opened borders and accommodated displaced people and irregular economic migrants. In Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engages little beyond bilateral labor agreements to accommodate low-skilled migrants, but since 2015 it has introduced visa-free travel for several categories of business and professional travelers within the region.

At an African Union Summit in 2018, African leaders agreed to a Free Movement of Persons Protocol to the Abuja Treaty (1991) on African economic integration. This agreement set out a three-phase opening of borders: first to short-term visitors and students, then to prospective residents, and finally to job seekers and other Africans aiming to buy or establish businesses. Enthusiasm waned after the summit, however, and only four countries ratified the protocol.

Nevertheless, the general African trend toward openness has momentum. Some of the more advanced regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the East African Community (EAC), have established regional passports and allow visa-free travel among themselves. Their regional protocols also proclaim a commitment to employment rights across borders—though in practice work permits remain national responsibilities. Some subsets of countries within the African RECs allow for cross-border travel with digitized identity documents only, accommodating cross-border communities and commercial and schooling links. The African Development Bank’s visa-openness index shows significant and steady progress toward openness since its first publication in 2016.

Overall, the Global North and South are heading in opposite directions on the issue of border openness. This is linked in part to their development circumstances: Developing countries have less to lose in the form of wealth, quality of life, and quality of social infrastructure and services than do rich countries. Africa is at a point in its development where there is widespread recognition that barriers between its relatively small national economies stand in the way of access to larger markets, sources of capital, and skills. As for South America, its rapid progress toward openness when it comes to the movement of people is also partly a function of necessity: Even right-wing governments in the region have been forced to deal with the reality of the mass exodus of migrants from Venezuela.

Shifting the Migration Narrative

Is there any scope for bringing the Global North and South closer regarding migration attitudes and policies? While progress in global pacts—and particularly legally binding multilateral treaties—is unlikely in the current political and geopolitical climate, contemporary gaps in attitudes and policies might narrow gradually with a shift in the public discourse surrounding migration.

The first challenge is for left and centrist parties in the Global North—and some richer countries in the South—to recognize that it is not possible to outflank the far right by accepting their framings about the dangers of migration. So long as discontent over living standards simmers among less-advantaged citizens in destination countries, unscrupulous nativist populists will be able to claim that existing measures to restrict migration have failed, and to blame migrants for economic and social woes. For left and centrist parties, restricting migration (and implicitly blaming migration for all manner of social ills) to compete with the right is likely to backfire.

Policymakers in rich countries should accept that they have a choice between faster economic growth enabled by migration, on the one hand, and stifling growth by blocking immigration, on the other. Most wealthy countries in the North—and some richer countries in the South—have populations that are aging quickly and are unable to fill the demand for jobs essential to sustained growth. To prevent economic stagnation, countries in demographic decline need to find ways to deploy more labor.

Excessively limiting migration will not address the worsening living standards and deteriorating public services for citizens and residents, which are the main causes of current discontent in Global North countries. Governments in richer countries need to find ways to attend to those concerns without alarming their populations about rising immigration. This could conceivably include finding new ways of meeting labor demands and raising productivity. Ideally, labor demand and supply countries could work together to find new modalities for labor migration as well as new forms of “virtual migration” made possible by the constantly expanding range of jobs that can be done remotely.

A Path Forward

For Africa, efforts to liberalize and formalize the intracontinental movement of people continue, but the priority externally is to focus on relations with the continent’s two major migration partners, Europe and the Middle East, to improve the circumstances under which Africans migrate and work outside the continent. Of the 40 million African emigrants counted in 2020, 52 percent went to other African countries, 27 percent went to Europe, and among the 12 percent in Asia, most were living in the Gulf states (author’s calculation).

The Gulf states need migrant labor, but many employers disrespect the rights of temporary migrant workers. Where bilateral labor agreements between African and Gulf countries exist, they offer minimal comfort for the migrant workers, and the representatives of the origin countries of the largely temporary migrants often do not back up the agreements. The willingness of some Africans to migrate to places where they will be living and working in relatively unprotected circumstances in the Gulf shows the mutuality of need, but the resigned attitudes of some of the migrants to arduous conditions show that they follow this path as a duty to their families and not as an aspirational pursuit.³

To improve labor conditions of migrant workers, African exporters of labor to the Gulf states could seek agreements in line with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) system. The TFW system entails long contract periods of, for instance, five years and full social and economic rights for the duration of the contract. Temporary rights are also granted for dependents, but not rights to immigration.

Drawing on the Canadian model could also be a way to improve relationships between Africa and Europe. Before European restrictions on migration were tightened, temporary migration by North Africans was frequently a preferred modality for both employers and employees. Returning to such a relationship could be mutually beneficial.

Africa and Europe have much in common including history, languages, and time zones. As Europe will have a growing need for labor and Africa a growing supply, the two continents should focus seriously on confronting the challenge of finding suitable modalities to match their needs. A long-term temporary foreign worker program is one such possibility. Spain’s new agreement on circular migration with Mauritania and Gambia, based on agreements with Morocco, Senegal, and some Latin American countries, should be closely examined as another possible model which, perhaps, could be modified and extended.

There might also be more virtual forms of labor supply that have not been fully explored. Already, many people in Africa undertake outsourced service-sector work for European companies and noncommercial institutions. The scope for outsourcing between continents is rapidly evolving and includes more and more services previously considered to be impossible to offer remotely.

Conclusion: The Migration Research Imperative

Unfortunately, much of the conversation on policy options today remains speculative because there is not enough empirical evidence on the dynamics of African migration. Current research funding to support the study of migration originates primarily in wealthy destination countries and thus tends to be focused on the short-term interests of the Global North. Many of the resulting academic papers concentrate on the search for the “root causes of migration”—which are assumed to be in origin countries only, ignoring the rich countries’ demand for foreign labor. Moreover, much of this work focuses on strategies to counter or choke off flows of people, rather than seeing migration as an integral part of the process of global development.

More research is needed on matching the demand and supply of migrant labor in a way that minimizes political disruption in destination countries and limits negative social and economic consequences in sending countries. More research is also needed on migration governance reform within Africa and other regions in the Global South to facilitate greater intracontinental migration. The focus of funding for applied research on migration policy needs to shift its orientation to assist in reframing the current narrative.

Notes