Europeans' emigration 'being denied to Africans'

A prominent African civil society leader has called on Europe to allow migration from Africa for the next 15 years, saying it was the only solution for a continent in transition.

Speaking to The Times during a recent conference in Nairobi on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, Jean Pierre Elong Mbassi said that Africa was going through a transition, with more and more people moving from villages to towns.

"The balance is shifting from mainly rural to mainly urban and such transitions are very difficult to manage everywhere. We have to tackle the growth in population in a way that you never had to in your own context because the speed of urbanisation in Africa is higher that it was anywhere else," he said.

It is estimated that there will be 100 million slum dwellers in Africa by 2020, many of them without water, sanitation or electricity.

"What solution did you find in Europe when you were dealing with this transition? You expelled people to other territories, to the US, as far back as the Mayflower. This is what we call adjustment through migration.

"This has been denied to Africa. You are closing your borders. So what is left? We have to try to share what we can produce."

Mr Elong Mbassi is the Secretary General of United Cities and Local Government of Africa (UCLGA) and coordinator of the Municipal Development Partnership for Africa, both of which were involved in the organisation of the conference.

The Times' participation was made possible by Echos Communication, a Brussels-based NGO that is also involved in the 1,000 Families exhibition now open at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, part of a project called Building Unity Through Diversity. The exhibition was also held in Nairobi during the Africities conference.

Mr Elong Mbassi said that Africa's transition was causing poverty as any growth in wealth was being eaten up by the growth in population.

However, he stressed that, as with any transition period, the situation would ease with time.

"Things will be easier by 2020 when more people will be living in towns than in rural areas. Then productivity will start to grow. But until then we need the international community to help us through this transitional period.

"We are talking about less than 20 years. But these 20 years are critical and if you deny this to us, where is your sense of human dignity and solidarity?"

Mr Elong Mbassi made an impassioned appeal to Europeans to remember their own waves of immigration.

"You did this yourselves, pouring into the US and Australia. What would have happened had Europeans been denied that? In Ireland they were dying of hunger. The only solution was to leave.

"We are all human beings. When you were fighting Adolf Hitler, we did not stand aside. Our blood has been spilled with yours in Europe. What are you people doing for us?"

Mr Elong Mbassi made his impassioned appeal following a press conference during which he pointed out that $5 billion a year was required for the next 15 years to ensure water and sanitation.

"It might sound like a lot of money but it is what the Americans and Europeans spend every year on their pets. Are human beings worth less than pets?"

Malta currently has an annual immigration of around 0.5 per cent of its total population and it spends around one per cent of its GDP for the handling of its illegal immigrants.

Number crunching

• Development assistance in 2004 reached $79.5 billion, with 46 per cent of this going to Africa.

• Debt reduction packages worth $38.2 billion have been approved for 28 countries, 24 of them in Africa.

• Inflation in Africa stood at 7.9 per cent in 2005.

• Africa's average external trade balance was 6.3 per cent of total GDP, varying from a surplus of 19.8 per cent in oil-exporting countries to a deficit of 6.6 per cent in non-oil-exporting ones.

Millennium Development Goals:

• Three countries have managed to halve the number of people suffering from hunger, while 14 are on track to do so by 2015.

• Three countries have managed to provide universal primary education - while 11 are on track to provide it by 2015.

• 75 per cent of UN peacekeeping personnel and 57 per cent of resources in 2005/6 are dedicated to Africa.

• According to Transparency International, 31 of the 44 African states scored in the category of "rampant corruption".

• 21 countries improved their economic freedom (Wall Street Index) while 14 saw it decline.