{"id":27120,"date":"2026-10-26T11:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/moving-africa-labour-mobility-free-movement-and-the-democratic-governance-of-belonging\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T11:03:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:03:21","slug":"moving-africa-labour-mobility-free-movement-and-the-democratic-governance-of-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/moving-africa-labour-mobility-free-movement-and-the-democratic-governance-of-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving Africa: Labour Mobility, Free Movement and the Democratic Governance of Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bulletin en ligne du CODESRIA<\/i>, No. 15, Octobre 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kayode Fayemi<\/strong>, School of Global Affairs, King\u2019s College, London, UK<\/p>\n

Keynote address delivered at the CODESRIA 2026 Democratic Governance Institute, on Migration Governance: Rethinking Mobility and Democratic Agency in Africa <\/i>(with the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana). <\/i>Ilishan, Ogun State, NIGERIA, Friday 9 October 2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Protocols<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The Chair of this session and Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, Professor Godwin Murunga; the Deputy Executive Secretary, Dr Ayemi Lawani; the co-directors of this Institute, Professor Mary Setrana of the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana and Dr Faisal Garba of the University of Cape Town; the resource persons, Professor Elieth Eyebiyi and Dr Margaret Monyani; our rapporteur, Mahuna Nicanor Sinhou; distinguished laureates; ladies and gentlemen.<\/p>\n

Let me begin by thanking CODESRIA for the invitation and the honour of speaking on the final morning of this Institute. Keynotes usually open a meeting and set its agenda. Mine comes at the end, after ten days in which you have done the hard intellectual work. So instead of introducing a field you have spent two weeks reconstructing, I want to examine what your conversation about democratic agency and mobility demands of those of us who have sat in government, made budgets, signed protocols and, too often, failed to implement them. And I want to place before you an argument that I believe sits at the heart of the theme you have chosen\u2014which is, that the question of migration governance and democratic agency is a question about the kind of African political and economic order we are trying to build.<\/p>\n

I have looked at your programme with some envy. You have discussed the pastoral corridors of the Niger basin; the mining frontiers of Zimbabwe; climate migrants reshaping Toliara; internal migrants seeking services in Lusaka; returnee women in Casamance and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire; migrant women made invisible in Niger\u2019s migration policy; encampment in Malawi; and schooling under displacement in Cameroon\u2019s North-West. Collectively, these papers show that Africans<\/i><\/span> <\/i>are<\/i><\/span> <\/i>not<\/i><\/span> <\/i>waiting<\/i><\/span> <\/i>for<\/i><\/span> <\/i>policy<\/i><\/span> <\/i>to permit<\/i><\/span> <\/i>them<\/i><\/span> <\/i>to<\/i><\/span> <\/i>move<\/i><\/span> <\/i>because<\/i><\/span> <\/i>they<\/i><\/span> <\/i>are<\/i><\/span> <\/i>already<\/i><\/span> <\/i>moving<\/i><\/span> <\/i>and<\/i><\/span> <\/i>governing<\/i><\/span> <\/i>their<\/i><\/span> <\/i>mobility<\/i><\/span> <\/i>from<\/i><\/span> <\/i>below<\/i>.<\/span> The question for policy is whether the state will catch up with its citizens or continue to stand in their way. I will make five arguments and end with ten proposals that I hope will go beyond this room.\u00a0Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bulletin en ligne du CODESRIA, No. 15, Octobre 2026 Kayode Fayemi, School of Global Affairs, King\u2019s College, London, UK Keynote address delivered at the CODESRIA 2026 Democratic Governance Institute, on Migration Governance: Rethinking Mobility and Democratic Agency in Africa (with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rs_blank_template":"","rs_page_bg_color":"","slide_template_v7":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[332,287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulletin-fr","category-news-fr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27121,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27120\/revisions\/27121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codesria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}