elsewhere. The economic circumstances of the rural dwellers are generally poor and there would appear to be little chance of any positive change:
few if any modern facilities, such as schools and hospitals, are available locally or in the near vicinity, and there is little chance of earning the money needed to pay even for the necessities of life, let alone any luxury items.
56. In terms of details the IBRP/OECD study then noted that the West African suhregion extending from Senegal to Cameroon, is characterised by a greater degree of seasonal migration than is found elsewhere in the African continent. During the long dry season, male migrants from the inland countries (eg. Upper Volta, Mali and Niger) as well as from the Northern parts of Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria move in a Southward
direction to the coastal areas of the subregion. The inland areas are poorly developed and migrants from those countries migrate to seek employment in the urban areas of more economically endowed countries. Most of the commercial and administrative centers and seaports are located in the coastal areas, Migrants from the inland areas migrate to these coastal areas to work for two to five months before returning 'iOT.e to cultivate their farms with the onset of the next wet season. For the most part, these migrations are spontaneous and uncontrolled; organizations for recruiting workers do not operate and workers have no formal contracts with their
employees (Prothero, 1965). Ivory Coast, Ghana and Senegal are the major receipients and Upper Volt3, Togo and Mali are the major sending countries in this seasonal pattern of migration. From the available census data on foreign nationals in these countries (Table 4), it is estimated that more
than 3 million West: Africans were living outside their countries of nationality around 1975. Of these, about 48 percent were in Ivory Coast with nearly
half of these being nationals of Upper Volta, Although Ivory Coast had a very significant proportion of foreign nationals in her coral population around 1975, their movements to and from the country zc- veil as the degree of seasonality is not knowr. since no study on the sub;;?:;;: yas been made
so far. Ghana and Senegal are the next destinations of migrants. About 7
percent of the population of Ghana was comprised of foreign nationals in the 1970 census, a sizeable proportion of these (42 percent) were Togonationals and 27 percent were Upper Volta nationals, The flow of immigrants into Ghana has been reversed by the economic problems which the country has been facing since Che l?.t£ 1960s as well as the Alien conoliance order of
1960. This order requited all foreign nationals without valid resident:*
permits zo leave the coijntr---. 'Che recent trend in .^icr^t ion to and from
Country of Origin
Foreign Nationals by Country of Nationality and Country of Enumeration, Censuses, Circa 1975 (in 000s)
Destination Ghana Ivory
Coast Senegal' Sierra
Leone Liberia Gambia Upper
Volta Togo
T;Otes: .ic-Uf-'ibU- N ■- not known but included in "other Africans" ca
vi - ir'creiftii Nations, I* = Foreif/.n-born persons: c = includes Guinea Bissau Sources'. K.C. Zacliariahs "Oumographic Aspects of Migration in West Africa1' 1?7&S
Bank draft Report.
(1) Selected from U.W. , ']orld Population Trends and Policies: 1977 l-onitoring . 1, 197?, pp. 261. "~
28
-Ghana is suggestive of a possibility that currently the growth of -Ghanaian population might not quantitatively be affected by migration. Regarding future trends, the forecast made to date is that "a constant number of immigrants is perhaps the best guess that can be made for Ghana during the next 5 to 10 years" (Zachariah and Conde, 1979). Senegal has been the third most important country of immigration in West Africa. Nearly 10 percent of her total population was made of foreign nationals around 1975, the majority coming from Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and Mauritania. Senegal was a traditional destination of Upper Volta and Mali emigrants, but
was soon overtaken by Ivory Coast because of the better economic conditions and employment opportunities in the later destination.
57. Among the immigration countries of West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Gambia have the smallest number of immigrants. In 1962, there were 32,000 foreign-born persons in Liberia of whom 11,000 were citizens of Liberia born abroad and 21,000 were aliens. The corresponding figures in 1974 were 13,000 and 46,000 respectively. This accounted for 4 percent of the total population of Liberia. About 38 percent of the Aliens originated from outside Africa, (ie. USA, Lebanon, and European countries), 26 percent from Ghana and 19 percent from Guinea. A majority of these immigrants lived in the region where the capital city (Monrovia) is located and known for iron-ore mines. Foreign nationals in Sierra Leone represented 2.7 percent of the total population in 1963 and 2.9 percent in 1974. In 1963, more than half of the foreign nationals in Sierra Leone were Guineans. Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana and Gambia were the other countries of origin of immigrants. Among the immigrants of non-African origin, Lebanese and citizens of the United Kingdom were most
dominant. Gambia had the smallest number but one of the highest proportion of immigrants in 1973. Nearly 79 percent of these immigrants came from Senegal and Guinea. Estimates of net migration for nine West African countries by the World Bank is shown in Table 5. It is observed that Ivory Coast had a net gain of over 1.3 million persons during 1965-1975, followed by Ghana 163,200 and Senegal 296,000. The major net losers were apparently Upper Volta, Mali and Togo in that order. Ideally, if the West African subregion as a whole were closed to migration and if accurate data on intrasubregional movements were available, the total of column 3 (Table 5) would have been zero. That this is notthe case indicates the extent of inaccuracies of data on emigration and hence the need for caution in interpreting the data in Table 5.
(iii) Consequences and overview
58. According to Wallerstein new permanent urban population which were normally above the level of unskilled labour emerged in colonial West Africa. Permanent urban dwellers were often second-generation immigrants.
But, as elsewhere in the world, they were able, in an expanding economy, to advance themselves. Second, there was a new permanent rural middle class element in cash-crop areas whose ancestors did not reside in the same rural area. Third, Syrian-Lebanese merchants who had migrated to West Africa had begun to inter-marry with the local population. Finally,
there was a fourth group, the West Indians. There was no permanent European-settler class in West Africa, possibly owing to the "mosquito".
29
-Table 5
Wet Migration Estimate (000s) in Selected West African countries, 1965-1975
Net Decadal Migration As % of Foreign Nationals ufetime __
Country in the country Net