Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs Minister Amon Murwira has urged Southern African countries not to allow migration to become a source of division, arguing that the region must confront the economic conditions that continue to push people across borders.
Speaking in Durban around the 46th Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit, Murwira said migration should be treated as a shared regional challenge rather than an issue that drives neighbouring countries apart.
His remarks came during an interview with SABC News specialist correspondent Sophie Mokoena, where the discussion moved beyond immigration enforcement to questions of industrialisation, regional integration and relations between Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Murwira’s intervention comes at a sensitive time for Southern Africa. Migration has become increasingly prominent in public debate, particularly in South Africa, where high unemployment and pressure on public services have intensified calls for tighter immigration controls.
Zimbabweans make up one of the largest migrant communities in South Africa, reflecting decades of economic, family and social ties between the two countries. Movement across the region, however, extends far beyond the Zimbabwe-South Africa relationship.
Workers, traders, students and families routinely cross borders throughout Southern Africa. Many do so legally, while undocumented migration remains a challenge for governments trying to balance regional mobility with national immigration laws.
Murwira argued that SADC should look more closely at what drives that movement. Poverty, unemployment and uneven economic development remain powerful reasons for people to leave their countries in search of opportunity elsewhere.
His position raises a difficult question for Southern Africa: how far can regional integration progress when the movement of people remains politically contentious?
SADC has spent decades building closer economic links between its members. Businesses trade across borders, regional supply chains connect industries and major infrastructure projects increasingly depend on cooperation between several countries.
Movement of people has proved more complicated. South Africa sits at the centre of that tension. As the region’s most industrialised economy, it remains a major destination for people seeking employment and economic opportunity. Yet South Africans themselves face high unemployment, inequality and pressure on public services.
Those conditions have created an increasingly difficult migration debate. Concerns over undocumented immigration frequently intersect with frustration about jobs, housing and access to services, while anti-migrant campaigns have placed further strain on relations between South Africans and foreign nationals.
Similar questions are emerging elsewhere in Africa as governments pursue deeper economic integration. The African Continental Free Trade Area is intended to create a vast continental market by reducing barriers to trade. Regional blocs such as SADC and the East African Community are also working towards closer economic cooperation.
Yet integrating markets without addressing the large differences in economic opportunity between countries presents its own challenge. Goods and capital may move more easily, but people will also continue moving towards places where they believe they can find work and build better lives.
That makes industrialisation particularly important to Murwira’s argument. Stronger manufacturing, mineral processing and regional value chains could spread economic activity more widely across Southern Africa. Countries that currently export raw materials could retain more value by processing them locally, creating industries and employment around resources they already possess.
Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana and Namibia hold significant mineral resources, while South Africa remains the region’s largest industrial economy. Better connections between those economies could create more production and employment across the region rather than concentrating opportunity in a handful of urban centres.
Infrastructure will also matter. Reliable electricity, railways, roads and efficient border crossings are essential if Southern Africa wants businesses to invest across several countries and build genuinely regional supply chains.
Creating stronger economies would not end migration, nor should that necessarily be the objective. People move for education, business, family and professional opportunities even between prosperous countries.
Greater economic opportunity at home could, however, change the nature of that movement by giving more people a genuine choice over whether to leave.
Zimbabwe and South Africa provide an immediate test of how such cooperation might work. Both governments have been engaging over the repatriation of Zimbabwean citizens at a time when migration has become increasingly prominent in South African politics and public debate.
Managing undocumented migration remains a legitimate responsibility of governments. Countries have the right to enforce immigration laws, secure their borders and address concerns about crime or pressure on public services.
Regional cooperation does not remove those responsibilities. It does, however, raise the question of what happens after enforcement.
Returning people across a border does not resolve the economic circumstances that may have driven them to migrate. Without stronger economies and more employment across the region, migration pressures are likely to remain.
That is where Murwira’s message carries wider Pan-African significance. Africa is pursuing an ambitious integration agenda based on greater trade, investment and economic cooperation. Its success cannot be measured only by how easily minerals, products and capital cross borders.
Regional integration will also be judged by whether it creates meaningful economic opportunities for the people living within those markets.
Southern Africa therefore faces two challenges at the same time: governments must manage migration lawfully while building economies that spread opportunity more evenly across national borders.
Murwira’s message to SADC places those two issues in the same conversation. Migration may be where the pressure becomes visible, but unemployment, poverty and uneven development are often where that pressure begins.
