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MIGRATION, REMITTANCES AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA. Yves CHARBIT Professor at Paris Descartes University Director of the CEPED. 1. AN IMPORTANT ISSUE Do remittances contribute to rural development?. 1. A brief summary of the migration situation in Africa
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MIGRATION, REMITTANCES AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA Yves CHARBIT Professor at Paris Descartes University Director of the CEPED 1
AN IMPORTANT ISSUE • Do remittances contribute to rural development?
1. A brief summary of the migration situation in Africa • 2. The macro-economic dimension • (aggregates and indicators) • 3. The micro-economic dimension • (family poverty)
SOUTH-NORTH or SOUTH-SOUTH • MIGRATION?
TWO-WAY MOBILITY • INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION • INCREASED BY • INTERNAL MIGRATION
Total population x 3.3 in 45 years • Urban population x 10 in 45 years • The rural exodus: • 80 million West Africans
PROJECTIONS • FOR WEST AFRICA • 15 % city-dwellers in 1960 • 60 % city-dwellers in 2030
A less isolated rural worldMobile phone subscribers in West AfricaFixed line subscribers
II. THE MACRO-ECONOMIC DIMENSION • (AGGREGATES AND INDICATORS)
THE PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH DATA • No shortage of case studies on remittances to the rural world • But no global balance sheet available • Analysis by analogy • (Charbit, 2009)
Two indicators: • Remittances per inhabitant • GDP per inhabitant What is the correlation?
A fairly low correlation • R2 = + 0.33 (for 19 countries) • Interpretation?
A result which is both • predictable and desirable
III. REMITTANCES, FAMILIES, LOCALDEVELOPMENT • (MICRO-ECONOMIC DIMENSION)
SOCIALDEVELOPMENT • Situation: • Remittances mean that health, education and housing costs can be met • Thus benefiting the families, but also the rural communities
CHANGE IN FAMILYSTRUCTURES • Male migration: • almost 40% of women are heads of households in Africa (Lesotho)
A PROBLEM NOT SUFFICIENTLY STUDIED • Feminisation of poverty connected to emigration?
Female heads of household suffer serious disadvantages • Illiteracy. • Widowhood (or youth in the case of the husband’s migration). • Non-working, or involved in insecure, low-productivity work. • More dependents and non-working members.
More acute poverty? • In Senegal, female households are less exposed to cash poverty than those headed by a man(Charbit and Kébé, 2007)
Two accumulative factors • 1/Income from migrants is higher • in households headed by women • emigration of the husband to Europe or the USA • internal emigration in the other households • 2/ Mobilisation of social networks
IV. CONCLUSION • Remittances contribute to development: • at the macro-economic level (country) • at the micro-economic level (families)
They exacerbate the urban/rural imbalance • among many other factors, • all connected to structural development, the urbanisation of Africa
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION Yves CHARBIT Professor at Paris Descartes University Director of the CEPED 30