Abstract
The human landscape in the Central African region is complex. Within and across boundaries, human mobility creates and recreates political, social and cultural configurations which present challenges to states. In the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, political instability raises the challenge of refugees. Beyond forced migration, the Central African region is also characterized by voluntary migration. This chapter aims to grasp the dynamics sustaining migration trends in this region so as to understand its drivers. It also analyses the actions and reactions of regional economic communities (RECs) as regional responses to tackle migration issues. The era of states managing migration on their own is apparently losing traction and is being replaced by a regional approach, which gives importance to RECs. The former is prone to control, to deter migration, whereas the latter perspective seeks free movement of people. The Central African region has many regional organizations, but only three are considered in this chapter: the Economic Community of the Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC) and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (EMCCA). Voluntary migration in Central Africa is the most dynamic and should be governed in order to make this region ‘a space of peace and of development’.
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Notes
- 1.
ECCAS includes the following countries: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea Equatorial, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Sao Tome Principe.
- 2.
‘Intractability’ as used by Achille Mbembe refers also to ‘simulacre regime’ being the way of doing things in Africa. If discourse on scarcity of migration data is so predominant in Africa this is a partial representation of things. Indeed, statistical data are not well kept due to bribery and smuggling practices undertaken by state officers willing to cheat in pocketing the migrants. See Mbembe (1992)
- 3.
The five regions are the North of Africa with the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU); the West of Africa with the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) and the Economic Community of the Western African States (ECOWAS); the East of Africa with the East Africa Community (EAC) and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); the Centre of Africa has its Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS); and the Southern part of Africa has its Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). But concrete politics is very complex; things are not going so well.
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Tshibambe, G.N. (2020). Perspectives on Contemporary Migration and Regional Integration in Central Africa. In: Nshimbi, C., Moyo, I. (eds) Borders, Mobility, Regional Integration and Development. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42890-7_4
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