The State, Refugees and Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa
International Migration, (1998)Abstract
Population displacements, refugees and migration are not only common phenomena, but are also on the increase in sub-Saharan Africa. Although scholarly explanations for the causes include political oppression, economic adversities and environmental degradation, conflicts and wars account for the bulk of sub-Saharan Africa's refugees and migration in recent years. These explanations are themselves dependent on, or symptomatic of, more fundamental causes, including ``the problem of the African state'' and its failure to address the region's environmental crisis. States have shown incapacity to equitably distribute scarce resources among competing constituents or promote fair competition for these resources. By this, the state not only revives old tensions and sharpens deep-seated contradictions in society, but aggravates conflicts which in turn lead to refugees and migration. Although environmental decadence is known to produce refugees or induce migration, the state is reluctant to establish credible environmental regimes capable of halting or reversing the current trend in ecological degradation. The exigencies of the international economy create further salutary conditions for conflict and environmental degradation. The pressures to adopt structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in order to meet external debt obligations, for example, obligate sub-Saharan governments to be outward-looking rather than enhance their capacities to address the fundamental internal factors underlying the induction of refugees and migration. Once refugees and migration are induced, the effects are felt by the refugees themselves, the home governments as well as the host country. Refugees undergo traumatic experiences, the home government suffers from brain drain, and the host country is compelled to stretch its resources beyond limits to accommodate the new arrivees. While refugees further abuse the environment, illegal emigrants may resort to drugs pushing and prostitution (in the case of females) as part of their innovative survival strategies. Sub-Saharan African states can significantly minimize the incidence of refugees and migration by shifting from the traditional partisan posture to distribute meagre resources fairly among the diverse social constituents in the state. Also, shifting environmental conservation from the margins to the centre of public policy will go a long way to reduce the number of persons who would otherwise be proactively or reactively displaced by ecological pressures.