The Impact of South Africa's Immigration Policies on Intra-Africa Trade and Development

Introduction

Over the decades, Africa has been described as a lost cause and hopeless continent (Landsberg, 2018). Slow economic growth and calamities associated with insecurity and weak governance coupled with stagnant development cannot be well understood without revisiting the legacy and political economy of colonialism, imperialism and apartheid regimes (Amtaika, 2017, Honwana, 2013 and Nugent, 2012). The ‘scramble for Africa’ and what Adekeye (2010) calls the ‘Curse of Berlin’ produced ambitious leaders as colonial collaborators, resulting in envisaged proxy wars, military coups and squandering of Africa’s resources (Landsberg, 2018: 16-17). The legacies of colonialism and African leaders’ self-inflicted woes made Honwana (2013: 23) argue that:

African societies struggle with economic decline and decay of infrastructure, strained healthcare and educational systems, high unemployment rates, and insecure livelihoods.

The protracted history of colonialism and imperialism left Africa fragmented geopolitically, but also underdeveloped socially and economically (Kornegay and Mthembu, 2020). Emanating from these invasions, its perpetual conflicts often describe Africa and civil wars, poor and autocratic leadership and governance, abuse of human rights, trafficking and human trafficking, organised crime and drug, cross-border migration, fatal diseases, armed violence and poor service delivery (Amtaika, 2017). Attempts to reclaim its development and governance led to the formation of organisations such as the Organisation of African Unity (1963), renamed African Union, NEPAD, and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and African Renaissance (Scholtz and Fakir, 2016). Foreign interference through aid and military interventions continues to perpetuate the looting of Africa’s natural resources (Landsberg, 2018).

These challenges have led to a new generation of Pan-Africanists who stand together in advocating for African solutions to African problems, especially in tacking conflicts and underdevelopment (Landsberg, 2018, p. 18). Institutional foundations exist with well-intentional initiatives, such as African Continental Free Trade (AfCFTA), Trade Invest Africa Unit (TIAU), African Growth, and Opportunity Act (Kornegay and Mthembu, 2020). However, these initiatives are often undermined by anti-immigration policies, which, instead of promoting intra-continental trade and developmental state, make it impossible for countries and entrepreneurs to freely trade. Thus, narrow and conservative immigration policies developed and adopted by most African countries have contributed to the scourge of Afro-xenophobia, racial and conflict, and violence, as mostly witnessed in South Africa (Tshishonga, 2015). Global economic crises further worsen Africa's situation, which disables most African governments to even provide citizens with basic social and economic resources (Honwana, 2013).