SENEGAL - Following the example of some twenty German top companies, over the past two years, a handful of Belgian companies have also joined a pilot project on circular migration for highly educated African youth. They come to work in Belgium for a few months in a company that offers them a full-fledged job, build a network here and gain a lot of business experience, after which they return to their homeland to take the lead themselves.

For Africa itself, circular migration could open the door to the much needed large-scale industrialization of the continent. Independent journalist Filip Michiels went to Senegal for the weekly magazine Trends and noticed on the spot that more and more young people are just as well-educated as they are ambitious. They also want to get rid of the existing, paternalistic model of development aid. In their eyes, economic migration to Europe is primarily a story of unskilled young people without any future prospects; they themselves see their future in Africa today. Also at the government and at universities the criticism of the hopelessly fragmented "aid" at micro level from the West is getting louder and louder.

Supported
€ 2.250 allocated on 21/12/2017.
ID:
FPD/2017/1477
Grant:
Pascal Decroos Fund

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