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By midcentury, climate impacts could drive up to 100 million Africans to migrate within their countries or regionally. Despite speeding urbanization, climate impacts will also force up to 4.2 million people out of coastal cities.
Most displaced people migrate not in search of a place but people—communities they know, trust, and can rely on for security, stability, and support while they get back on their feet. Thus, understanding existing or sought-after social connections must be part of policy responses for durable solutions to protracted displacement. Instead of place-based solutions—like camps—displaced people need multiple options to better navigate and move out of vulnerability.
The spread of the coronavirus in Africa is intersecting with the continent’s population displacement crisis. Protecting displaced persons and migrants will be key to reducing the overall rates of transmission.
Conflict and repressive governance have resulted in record levels of forced displacement as well as economic migration in Africa. These population movements, in turn, are generating new revenue streams for militant extremist groups and criminal networks.
Africa’s humanitarian crises have continued to worsen in 2017. Twenty million Africans have been displaced from their homes and 44 million are acutely food insecure.
A spike in political violence since mid-2016 has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in South Sudan since its decades-long civil war with Sudan.
A snapshot of Africa’s displaced populations reveals that 71 percent of Africa’s 18.5 million displaced persons are from 5 countries (Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo), and while much of global attention has focused on refugee migration into Europe, two-thirds of Africa’s dislocated population are internally displaced.
(See more recent readings on this topic here.) 32 Million Africans Forcibly Displaced by Conflict and Repression By Margaret E Peters and Michael K Miller, International Studies Quarterly, December 10, 2021 Authoritarian leaning governments find solace in emigration. It not only acts as a pressure valve releasing likely instigators of political contestation, but it also... Continue Reading
Missile and armed drone strikes by Houthi militias and hijackings by Somali pirates have destabilized maritime shipping from the Red Sea to the Western Indian Ocean, impacting security and trade for all of Africa.
Structural factors continue to drive higher levels of migration within and out of Africa. While this represents a vital source of labor for host countries, irregular migration continues to pose extraordinary risks.
An estimated 82 percent of the record 149 million Africans facing acute food insecurity are in conflict-affected countries underscoring that conflict continues to be the primary driver of Africa’s food crisis.
To break the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s long legacy of stolen elections, the country’s independent oversight institutions, civil society, and media will need the backing of SADC and international democratic actors.