In our December 19, 2013 article entitled “Explaining the Ethiopian
outmigration: incentives or constrains” we alerted readers and policy makers in
Ethiopia about the push, pull and mediating factors of outmigration in general
and outlined the factors as they relate to Ethiopia. In this short article we
aim to discuss further the incompatibility between macroeconomic growth and
outmigration and close the piece by outlining potential mitigation strategies.
By the end of 2013 and early 2014 the world witnessed yet another
shame of Ethiopians. Voices of men, women and children in Saudi Arabia,
Lebanon, Libya, Southern Europe and Southern Africa are instantly being transmitted
across the globe through the use of advanced information technology. Saudi Arabia
alone deported at least 165,000 Ethiopians within the span of few weeks.
Demonstrations were held in Kuwait and Israel against African immigrants. The
European Union has erected various forms of fences against immigrants from
Africa. As Emnet Assefa of Addis
Standard, a journalist in one of
the local newspaper noted, “[o]ver the last few years, news of young Ethiopian
men and women found dead inside jam-packed containers loaded on heavy duty
trucks has become a routine media exercise both locally and in many parts of the
continent.” Abuses, abductions,
disappearances and killings of Ethiopians in the Middle East,
North Africa,
and Gulf States has
become common. On Thursday March 20, 2014 the (U.S. based)
National Public Radio (NPR) run a heart-wrenching story of an Ethiopian young woman
who took unbelievable levels of risks and investments to reach the shores of
the United States. While outmigration is the history of mankind, as indicated
in the holy books, for example, modern day migration, particularly migration
into the Middle East, is documented to be associated with calamities.
Detentions of Ethiopians for violating the immigration laws of other
countries (such as in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe), deportations, refugee camps filled with Ethiopians, and
sending the remains of Ethiopians who died in their search for better lives and
liberty has become routine. Disturbed by the depressing news and the total failure
of the Government of Ethiopia (GOE), the
Ethiopian diaspora held noisy protest demonstrations in front of the Saudi
Arabian and Ethiopian embassies, collected petitions, contributed and donated some funds to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to aid returnees and
painfully listened to the information provided by foreign based radios and
websites. While these are normal reactions and laudable works, they are nonetheless
temporary measures and will not serve as mitigation strategies unless one
understands the causes, scale and depth of the problem, and consider a range of
possible policy options.
The Horn of Africa has been and continues to be one of the hot spots
of major human movements in the world. Civil
wars, secessionist conflicts, tribal-clan warfare, famine, land scarcity and
evictions, and poverty have been the causes of both internal displacements and cross
border migration. At the time of writing this article, tens of thousands of
Sudanese refugees are reportedly crossing the border and entering the Ethiopian
territory in search of security. The civil wars in North and South Sudan,
tensions and skirmishes in the Eritrean-Ethiopian borders, sectarian and
secessionist movements in Somalia and the Ogaden, ethnic, religious and clan
tensions, land grabs and repression have been some of the culprits of the
migration.
In addition to the instability and government failures in the region, it
is important to note that globalization often manifests itself in the form of
increased movement of capital, freer movement of goods and services, internationalization
of production and investments, and information about labor demand. Hence, outmigration
must also be examined in the context of the global trends in the import and
export of labor. Immigration magnet countries generally have labor shortages as
in the Middle Eastern countries while exporting countries benefit from
remittances. In other words, one might be tempted to ask whether the remittance
that a country receives from the export of both skilled and unskilled labor
drives a government’s policy towards emigration. This question is pertinent to
Ethiopia as the country exports both skilled and unskilled labor and its annual
earnings from remittances is estimated at about 3 billion dollars, a figure
that is more than the revenue it obtains from exporting products. In addition,
the government has been trying to finance mega projects through the issuance of
low interest and high risk diaspora bonds.
However, consistent with theory, Ethiopians spend their remittance
earnings on consumer goods and alleviating family hardships. Remittance
expenditures on consumption goods, particularly imports, therefore, is believed
to have played their own roles in exacerbating the high cost of living in the
country and widening its trade deficit, in addition to raising the birr’s real
exchange rate and escalating real estate prices. Anecdotal evidence also shows
that a good number of Ethiopian diaspora members are deeply involved in the
real estate sector, particularly housing. Using its monopoly power on land, the
government has been engaged in evicting entire neighborhoods, including the
forced removal of the remains of the dead from grounds that traditionally
belonged to the churches, and building roads and auctioning the confiscated lands at artificially inflated prices that are often
set through insider trading of information. This is in addition to continuously
raising rental prices. The use of remittances in real estate thus could only
add fuel to the fire, thereby making housing unaffordable to residents. Anecdotal
evidence also shows that remittances have played their own roles in fueling
corruption and heightening rural and urban land speculation.
Notwithstanding the above, the GoE has been claiming that the country has
been enjoying double-digit real economic growth for about one decade. The
growth statistics however has been questioned by several economists and as of
late even magazines that used to be known for echoing the government’s line of story
have started to question the validity of the government provided statistic.[2] Secondly, the country is known to have
achieved “stability” since 2000, while at the same time neighboring countries
such as Sudan and Somalia found themselves embroiled in escalated internal
conflicts and with their neighbors. These stories spark a number of important questions.
First, given that the country is claimed to be at “peace” with itself and is
also a peace-maker in the Horn of Africa (such as contributing troops in
Somalia, Sudan and beyond), and with a “federal multi-party system” in place, why
would one observe documents and criticisms against the government? Why should the
residents of a land with a growing economy and “federal democracy” choose to emigrate
en mass?[3]
In other words, could outmigration and economic growth move in the same
direction or move in different directions or have no association between
themselves at all? To answer these questions in the context of Ethiopia, one
needs to review the relevant literature.
Figure 1: Graphical representation of
migration transition theory*
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*Source:
de Haas (2010) Migration transitions: a theoretical and empirical inquiry into
the developmental drivers of international migration’. IMI Working Papers.
Oxford, University of Oxford
A quick review of the relevant literature suggests that as development
level increases immigration increases as the country becomes a magnet for
foreigners and its own diaspora population. However the association between
emigration and economic development is negative. Figure 1 shows the migration
transition theory of de Haas (2010), which is now popular among researchers on
migration. Validating the migration transition theory in the context of
Ethiopia requires an empirical research. Unfortunately, empirical research on
economic, social and demographic data is generally hard in developing countries
because of data reliability and more importantly the politicization of such
information.[4]
To test the validity of de Haas’s (2010) model, we reviewed the academic and
policy literature, applied qualitative-phenomenological methods of research and
outlined policy options.
In its November 2012 report, the International Migration Institute at Oxford
University confirmed the common knowledge of Ethiopians, and documented that between
1960 and 2000 Ethiopia’s outmigration was one of the lowest in the Horn of
Africa.[5]
Authorized emigrant population (including asylum seekers) in 2000 was less than
300,000 - lower than Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen. As a
percentage of the size of the population, Ethiopia’s outmigration was also the
lowest. However, this statistics requires
further analysis as the impacts of conflicts in Eritrea, Tigrai, Ogaden and
Somalia, famine, conscriptions for the
various wars and the red terror were responsible for driving thousands of
refugees to the Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya.
Fransen and Kuschminder (2009:17) of
Maastricht University[6],
citing the World Bank, confirmed the findings of the International Migration
Institute and stated that “migration flows out of Ethiopia are relatively small”.
The World Bank estimated an emigration rate of 0.6 percent of the population in
2005, which amounts to a stock of 445,926 persons”. And in-migration (refugees
from neighboring countries) and outmigration of Ethiopians to neighboring
countries as refugees, according to the UNHCR, balanced one another, suggesting
that the net migration during the period was close to zero. However, like the
Institute of Migration’s data, Fransen and Kuschmider’s work heavily relied on
limited literature review and extrapolated statistics using data from IOM,
UNHCR, OECD and the World Bank. Their results therefore, may not be useful to predict
or understand the scale and form of the migration current crisis. Furthermore,
an important factor in analyzing international data is that most of the reports
contain only the number of refugees that have been recognized. For instance the
World Bank’s recent report does not include registered asylum seekers or the
number undocumented Ethiopians living out of their country. The bank reported
that between 2009 and 2011 the number of Ethiopian refugees who have been
granted refugee status were respectively 121,886; 154,295 and 288,844,[7]
showing an annual growth rate of 26.59% and 87.2%. In sum, obtaining reliable data
and information about the Ethiopian outmigration is a major issue.
Unfortunately, the unreliability of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diaspora
Department figures compound the problem.
Notwithstanding the above
difficulties, in our December 19, 2013
article, we attributed
the Ethiopian outmigration mainly to push factors and following
the norm in the migration literature, we outlined the factors under four major
categories. We have reproduced them here for the benefits of our readers. The
four categories are (1) Supply-Push (Predisposing or Repulsive) Factors- which
drive/force migrants out of their country of origin. Examples include poverty,
the lack of economic opportunities and jobs, economic downturns, political
oppressions, abuses of human rights, religious intolerance (constraints), wars,
conflicts and insecurities in the home country; (2) Demand-Pull-factors- which
in general are positive and are responsible in attracting migrants. Examples
include: higher wage rates and better standard of living in destination countries;
higher and steady demand for cheap and unskilled labor in destination
countries’ informal economies (domestic work, construction, services such as cleaning,
restaurant and fast food services), political and religious freedom in
destination countries; (3) Mediating Factors, which are divided into two conflicting
factors: (a) Facilitating/encouraging factors- which are the ones that trigger,
enable and accelerate departure. Examples include the availability of visas,
passports, transport, communications, information, recruiters, brokers,
traffickers and smugglers, porous borders, and the resources needed for the
journey, distance to and between sending and destination countries and length
of transit periods. (b) Restraining/constraining factors or intervening
obstacles- are the ones which work against making the journey – such as the
lack of the ones described in (a) above, high migration costs, perceived risks,
stricter controls of recruitments, stiff punishments and penalties against
smugglers and traffickers, rogue employment practices in destination countries;
and (4) Social network (pull) factors - such as the existence of relatives,
friends and acquaintances in host/destination countries, available
opportunities for family unifications in host countries, or when individuals
send money to bring other family members to join them into the new (host)
country- a chain migration which results in migration fields or clustering of
people from specific countries into certain neighborhoods or small towns in the
new (host) countries (e.g. China Town, Vietnamese Town, Little Ethiopia, etc.
in North America). Mediating factors also include success stories of the diaspora.
Returning to the issue about the link
between economic growth and migration, in the case of Ethiopia, unlike the growing
domestic product data reported by the government and the high rise buildings
and construction projects that are undergoing in recent years, the human development indicators generally show that there has been little progress in
alleviating poverty in the country (According to UNDP’s 2011 survey, Ethiopia is in
the low human development category—positioning the country at 173 out of 187
with 87.3 percent of the country’s population lived in multidimensional poverty
(MPI)). Despite the
big push and donor support, early human development indicators reveal that
Ethiopia, unfortunately, will not be able to meet many of the MDG goals by
2015. Thus, the GoE must blame itself for washing away the donor propelled gain
in the economy by inflation. Perhaps, a
better indicator could be creating a misery level tracking index, which can be
computed by the sum of the
country’s inflation rate, unemployment rate, augmented by annual changes in
outmigration and subtracting the country’s economic growth rate. In this respect, in a
recent paper, Abebe Shimeles and Andenet Delelegn (see African Development Bank Group Working paper No 182 September 2013),
using household data that was collected by Addis Ababa University in
collaboration with Oxford University and the University of Gothenburg attempted
to empirically examine the welfare effects of rising food prices (inflation). They
show that between 2000 and 2006, the Ethiopian economy has had a cumulative
welfare loss of 53%. The “true” level of welfare loss was 12% worse than what
was estimated by the GoE’s statisticians. Between 2007 and 2013 Ethiopia has
seen a series of sharp increases in the cost of living, reaching as high as 64%
in 2008. The country also “officially devalued the Birr by over 102% against the U.S. Dollar
between November 2007 and February 2013 despite being
warned that devaluation would not have its intended
effects without addressing the country’s economic fundamentals.
While the increases are not unparalleled
by the history of hyperinflation, the growth claim made by the GoE appears unparalleled
indeed. The ramifications of these inaccuracies for economic planning and hardship
(misery index) and outmigration, in an environment of the feminization of
poverty are serious. Inflation also has wealth transfer effects and widening
inequality especially when it occurs under an environment of full control of
land by the government, credit channeling, excessive money supply and
monetization of government borrowing, and political-party owned and state owned
enterprises. Indeed, there are numerous signs indicating that the government’s Growth
and Transformation Plan (GTP) “belies the reality on the ground”, is a “misguided
economic policy”, and too “fanciful” to
trust. As one of the pro-government local papers noted, the GTP was just one of a “number of
fashionable ideas and initiatives” … concocted by the
late Prime Minister Zenawi and his party elites…” -
the concocted ideas being just a “theoretical synthesis” rather than being practically
applicable to the Ethiopian context. As predicted by Ken Ohashi, the then World
Bank Country Director for Ethiopia, the GTP has become unsustainable, all signs indicating its failure. The tell-tale signs are
indicated by: the government’s
neglect of the manufacturing sector of the economy (Economist, March
02, 2013,
Enku Magazine’s interview of Mr. Mushe Semu, May, 2013 edition, Reporter,
October 5, 2013, Addis Fortune, March 9,
2014); the gloomier picture of the flower industry (Reporter,
February 8, 2014);
the sharp declines in the country’s exports (Reporter: October 5, 2013, January 11, 2014, Addis Fortune), the deterioration
of the country’s indebtedness (Ezana Kebede, 2014);
the credit crunch facing the private sector (Reporter, February 8,
2014); the negative ramifications in foreign exchange shortages (Wall Street
Journal,
January 6, 2014, http://en.dagongcredit.com/content/details20_7992.html); the deprived
private sector: (IMF); the rising
tide of corruption (World Bank, Global Financial
Integrity,
Hassan) and disturbingly, the falsely trumpeted “gains” in
the agricultural sector, where most of the out-migrants originate (AllAfrica.com, January 19, 2014).
Now that we
have shown outmigration is incompatible with a growing economy, the GoE and the
donor community need to take the bull by the horn and address key issues that hold
the economy from growing and also the drivers of emigration. The ruling party cannot escape re-examining its land policy and
restructure the ownership structure in the economy, liberate the markets so that
private enterprise would flourish; it should allow the archaic finance industry
to respond to the realities of the economy; seriously fight inflation and
corruption, grant the poor the freedom to vote on policy, and put in place
sound controls against illicit financial flows and human smuggling; design and
implement sound population development and family planning policy; restructure public
and private information dissemination institutions to allow robust debate on national
policy. The government needs to guarantee
and respect private property and put in place reliable investor protection
mechanisms. More importantly, it needs to take concrete conflict prevention
strategies and open the political space at home in order to reduce political
instability and minimize the probability of yet another round of large scale
outmigration. The available data and the realities on the ground strongly show
that both inter-migration and intra-migration have become serious issues for
the country. The GoE therefore needs to consider establishing a research center for migration
studies in one of the universities.
Outmigration
also requires reforming the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of
Labor. Like other nations, Ethiopia, on behalf of its citizens, needs to promote
cooperation and negotiate minimum labor standards in host countries. It must
push migrant recipient countries the International Convention on the
Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families (ICRMW), one of the core international
human rights treaties. For
emigrants who go to specific destinations, the government can create incentives
for minimum level of skills certifications. It needs to provide coping mechanisms
and establish a desk in the embassies for handling physical, emotional and
sexual abuses and cultural prejudices faced by immigrants, in general, and women
in particular. The remittance obtained from destination countries could justify
the additional costs of providing the above services. The country must be able to
pass and implement effective regulation against “agents” and human smugglers. The government also needs to re-examine the de
facto policy of using remittances (i.e. exporting people) as developmental
instrument, for the macroeconomic effects are ambiguous at best.
The Ethiopian diaspora community must
also do its part. Most of the diaspora institutions are divided, weak and
poorly managed. Similar to the politics inside the country, the diaspora is divided
along political, ethnic and regional lines. Hence, there is no “national
consensus” and the government’s diaspora policy has become part of the problem.
The GoE leaders often face booing and protest demonstrations when they travel
abroad. They in turn label their critics as “extremists”, “chauvinists” and
even “terrorists”. The diaspora is predominantly unengaged and a small
proportion appears to be opportunistic. The majority fears reprisal from the
government for showing dissent or for not cooperating with the embassies. With
regard to the economic impact, other than the remittance, the magnitude of diaspora’s
“contribution” to development appears to be a moot point. Furthermore, unlike
out-migrants of other countries, Ethiopian out-migrants seem to have failed to pay
attention to the ongoing politics of their respective destination countries.
The use of immigrants as political punch bags by the Saudi authorities could
have been minimized if Ethiopian migrants were paying attention to the upcoming
of large scale and politically-motivated deportations. Finally, Ethiopian
immigrants must take lessons from the recent deportations and establish strong centers
in their respective destination countries and create a global network that
supports the community in times of crisis.
[1]
This article was compiled from the speeches that were made at the 3rd Annual
International Conference of Ethiopian Women in the Diaspora which was held in Washington
DC on March 22, 2014. We thank the leadership team of the Center for the Rights
of Ethiopian Women for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts with the
participants of the conference.
[3] According
to a 2010 Gallup Poll, 46% of Ethiopia’s adult population wishes to leave the
country, if allowed.
[4] At
the time of preparing this article Prime Minister Haile Mariam acknowledged
that key statistical information that relate to land, poverty and youth
unemployment, etc. is often exaggerated and often misleading.
[5] http://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/pdfs/projects/gmf-pdfs/global-migration-futures-using-scenarios-to-explore-future-migration-in-the-horn-of-africa-yemen
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