Overview of Methods for State Collaboration on African Migration beyond the Continent

Overview & Synopsis

While most migration in the Africa region is intraregional, African migrant workers represent a growing share of the migrant labor force globally, particularly in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. The inconsistent and fractured nature of labor migration governance across these regions has increased the challenges for migrant workers in obtaining decent work and in securing the protection of their rights. The importance of remittances as a contribution to economic development has also grown and with it the priority to strengthen and harmonize labor migration standards. African countries adopted a number of continental-wide and regional commitments and strategies to improve cohesion. While these are helping to address issues on the continent, African countries face continuing challenges to protect their migrant workers outside the region and to realize a fair share of the benefits. Bilateral and multilateral agreements play a particularly important role. This paper explores the key challenges and various means for strengthening collective action that can improve migrant workers’ access to decent work opportunities, and yield a fairer sharing of development benefits among African countries and countries of destination.