Post-COVID Mobility: West African Youth Migration and the Place of AU and ECOWAS

Migration can be beneficial to both the migrants and the host countries. However, it is important to note that these benefits can only be realised if the economic gap between the two countries is reduced. Otherwise, the lack of economic development may be a major factor for increased migration, leading to an unsustainable situation in which migration is a necessary but ultimately ineffective solution. It is specifically unemployment, poverty, persecution based on political affiliation, sexual orientation, and ethnoreligious conflicts that have prompted West African migrants to migrate to developed countries, referred to by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) Countries. West African youths who are educated have fallen victim to the pull factors associated with brain drain since they are able to benefit from better conditions of living in their host countries. Over the past few decades, approximately 33% to 55% of educated African youths from countries such as Angola, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and others have migrated to OECD countries in search of better opportunities. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the persistent rise in poverty and unemployment rates, West African youths have been migrating to OECD countries, particularly Europe. Nonetheless, the main objective of this paper was to assess how regional organisations like the African Union can cooperate with ECOWAS to provide framework mechanisms for regulating West African migration that will reduce the risk of human loss and enhance continental dignity in the region. This paper interrogated the stance of the African Union on curtailing West African youth migration in the wake of COVID-19. This paper adopted a qualitative desktop research approach that used secondary materials from published works and migration databases of the International Organisation for Migration, the African Union, and the ECOWAS to analyse the subject of the study. The study was framed around the migration governance theory to understand the policy frameworks of the African Union and ECOWAS. The paper provided findings and recommendations for the study while concluding that AU and ECOWAS need to work towards a framework tackling the migration crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent worsening of the social, economic, and political situation of the region.