Authority and Inclusion: Reconsidering Integration in a Fragmented Age

This paper explores the meaning of refugee integration in a fragmented age where multi-culturalism is said to be dead. It focuses on the results of recent research in four cities in South and East Africa, which showed an increasing tendency towards new forms of association that the author termed “communities of convenience”. The author reflects upon the lessons that these highly mobile African urban contexts offer for refugee integration in Britain

Passage, Profit, Protection and the Challenge of Participation

Accepting that successful 'development' is premised on a population's participation in a collective undertaking, we must understand urban residents' interactions and ambitions. In African cities being transformed by geographic and social mobility, it is umigration, urbanization, African cities, social cohesion, integration,

LSE Festival 2021: trying to keep people out of cities will drive them underground

States have tried to limit people’s movements in an effort to contain COVID-19. But keeping people out of cities denies them the ability to better their lives and escape from persecution and repressive hierarchies. Underground economies will flourish unless we empower city authorities to act independently, says Loren B Landau (University of Oxford and University of the Witwatersrand)

Human Development Impacts of Migration: South Africa Case Study

Controls on human mobility and efforts to undermine them continue to shape South Africa’s politics, economy, and society. Despite the need for improved policy responses to human mobility, reform is hindered by lack of capacity, misinformation, and anti-migrant sentiments within and outside of government. This report outlines these trends and tensions by providing a broad overview of the limited demographic and socio-economic data available on migration to and within South Africa. Doing so highlights the spatialised aspects of human mobility, trends centred on and around the country’s towns and cities. It also finds significant development potential in international migrants’ skills and entrepreneurialism. By enhancing remittances and trade, non-nationals may also expand markets for South African products and services. Despite these potential benefits, there are severe obstacles to immigration reform. These include a renewed South African populism; the influence of a strong anti-trafficking lobby; a European Union (EU) agenda promoting stricter border controls; poor implementation capacity; and endemic corruption among police and immigration officials. There are different, but equally significant problems in reforming frameworks governing domestic mobility including perceptions that in-migration is an inherent drain on municipal budgets. Recognising these limitations, the report concludes with three recommendations. (1) A conceptual reconsideration of the divisions between documented and undocumented migrants; between voluntary and forced migrants; and between international and domestic migration. (2) An analytical respatialisation in future planning and management scenarios involving regional and local bodies in evaluating, designing and implementing policy. (3) To situate migration and its management within global debates over governance and development and for ‘migration mainstreaming’ into all aspects of governance. The success of any of these initiatives will require better data, the skills to analyse that data, and the integration of data into planning processes.migration, urbanisation, governance, South Africa, policy reform, capabilities

Managing Migrationin Southern Africa: Tools for Evaluating Local Government Responsiveness

Southern African cities are on the move. As elsewhere in the global south, populations are continuing to grow, shrink and transform in response to demographic and economic pressures (Crush et al. 2005; Potts 2009). As the foundation of government, local authorities are on the frontlines of managing the transformations of their communities in ways that provide stability and economic opportunities. Through an examination of six South African municipalities and Gaborone, Botswana’s economic and political capital, this report helps us come to terms with local governments’ responses to population mobility. This research suggests that few authorities across Southern Africa are positioned to capitalise on migration’s counter-poverty potential. This is partly due to general difficulties of grappling with structural poverty and their expanded mandates. Authorities also face specific migration-related challenges: the availability and use of data; patterns of budgeting and popular participation; and political resistance to newcomers. If addressed, these concerns would not only enable local authorities to respond more effectively to migration, but also to plan for economic development in a more strategic and sustained manner. This report provides a tool for assessing municipalities’ ability to respond and to help explain capacity variations. Our work identifies six primary indices for evaluating municipalities’ abilities and practices surrounding the management of human mobility and other population dynamics. Each of these includes a series of sub-measures for calculating aggregate and sub-area scores. While the measures outlined within are more indicative than exhaustive, they nonetheless allow for comparative analysis and point to areas for future interventions to improve local government strategies for poverty alleviation.DFI

Displacement and difference in Lubumbashi

Signs on the outskirts of the second largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) welcome visitors to ‘the city of peace’. Lubumbashi has a reputation as a haven of tolerance in a violent nation but how are displaced people treated

Confirmations, Coffins and Corn: Kinship, Social Networks and Remittances from South Africa to Zimbabwe

Despite much optimism about migrant remittances’ power to combat poverty, we know too little about their long-term consequences in sending communities. Through an intensive qualitative study of three districts in Zimbabwe – Chivi, Gwanda, and Hurungwe – this paper explains why significant resource flows from migrants to South Africa have done little to eliminate chronic poverty. Part of the explanation stems from the districts’ political economy: where remittances help generate income, this largely replaces streams lost through the country’s overall economic decline. Further investments are often discouraged by poor physical infrastructure, the shortage of inputs, and market precarity. While other studies identify such material factors, this work draws particular attention to how the moral economy of remittances also directs resources away from income generation and towards ‘social’ and ‘god taxes’: paying for neighbours’ immediate needs, investing in events and infrastructure intended to boost one’s social status, or donating large sums to the church. Underlying this is a paradox: where networks are weak, as in the case of the communities with more recently formed mobility patterns, there are few pressures on migrants to remit. Yet, while social networks are critical for extracting resources from migrants, local expectations within sending communities often mean that moneys are spent on maintaining a social safety net and social status rather than directed into financially productive investments. However, this is not irrational spending but rather an investment in social standing and safety: selfishness and self-enrichment in an environment of generalised poverty can result in social isolation and occasionally threats to property and lives. Such findings have important implications for understanding how remittances are directed and our expectations regarding their potential effects at promoting social protection and poverty alleviation.DFI

Counting the Cost of Securitising South Africa’s Immigration Regime

Over the past decade, South Africa’s political leadership has increasingly framed international migration as a threat to national, physical and economic security. This has been accompanied by popular and political calls to strengthen border controls and increase enforcement through detention and deportation. This development will bring potential costs and benefits to the economy and real, direct costs to the taxpayer. At present, there is no publicly available financial information on South Africa’s expenditure on immigration enforcement and no estimates of the potential costs of increasing immigration control. This report constitutes an initial effort to estimate these costs. It finds that the costs to the South African state of enforcing its migration policy are largely unknown to the South African public and the state itself. Through an analysis of public records and budgets on the police, defence force, and other associated public bodies, this report suggests that direct expenditure on enforcing immigration is relatively modest as a percentage of GDP, or when compared with countries in Europe and North America. However, in absolute terms, the figures are high by African standards and not adequate to support a programme of action that can accomplish the government’s stated objectives. In part, this is because significant funds are spent (unsuccessfully) on defending the government for failure to comply with the law.DFI

Human Development Impacts of Migration: South Africa Case Study

Controls on human mobility and efforts to undermine them continue to shape South Africa’s politics, economy, and society. Despite the need for improved policy responses to human mobility, reform is hindered by lack of capacity, misinformation, and anti-migrant sentiments within and outside of government. This report outlines these trends and tensions by providing a broad overview of the limited demographic and socio-economic data available on migration to and within South Africa. Doing so highlights the spatialised aspects of human mobility, trends centred on and around the country’s towns and cities. It also finds significant development potential in international migrants’ skills and entrepreneurialism. By enhancing remittances and trade, non-nationals may also expand markets for South African products and services. Despite these potential benefits, there are severe obstacles to immigration reform. These include a renewed South African populism; the influence of a strong anti-trafficking lobby; a European Union (EU) agenda promoting stricter border controls; poor implementation capacity; and endemic corruption among police and immigration officials. There are different, but equally significant problems in reforming frameworks governing domestic mobility including perceptions that in-migration is an inherent drain on municipal budgets. Recognising these limitations, the report concludes with three recommendations. (1) A conceptual reconsideration of the divisions between documented and undocumented migrants; between voluntary and forced migrants; and between international and domestic migration. (2) An analytical respatialisation in future planning and management scenarios involving regional and local bodies in evaluating, designing and implementing policy. (3) To situate migration and its management within global debates over governance and development and for ‘migration mainstreaming’ into all aspects of governance. The success of any of these initiatives will require better data, the skills to analyse that data, and the integration of data into planning processes