UN report says African migrants can foster national economic growth

ADDIS ABABA, May 31 (Xinhua) -- African migrants can foster national economic growth and structural transformation of their home countries, a UN report launched here on Thursday said.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report said with 19 million African migrants moving within Africa and 17 million Africans leaving the continent in 2017 alone, there's a huge potential for African nations to extract economic benefits from their migrant populations.

"African countries can yield benefits from migration by aligning migration, trade and investment policies with development objectives, harnessing diaspora for productive investment and adopting flexible labor policies to ease migrants mobility," said the report.

The UNCTAD report further said African countries can harness the potential for their diaspora population by facilitating their involvement in agriculture, construction, mining, services, information technology and manufacturing sectors.

The report also said free movement of migrants within African countries can help intra-country and intra-regional integration projects in the continent.

However, the UNCTAD report said lack of policy frameworks that recognize academic and professional qualifications in destinations and high costs associated with obtaining work permits are impeding highly-skilled migrants mobility in regional labor markets.

It said these challenges and other related obstacles should be solved to fulfill the potential of African migrants. Enditem