The Real Migration Crisis Is Not at Europe’s Borders, It’s in Africa’s Job Markets

After an interview with the Voice Newspaper from the recent gathering of policymakers, government institutions, civil societies, media and community representatives in The Gambia at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Conference Centre for the National Dialogue on Migration to discuss regular migration pathways, one truth became clear: migration is no longer just a movement of people, but a cornerstone of The Gambia’s national development strategy. However, if you want to understand the future of global migration, don’t look at Europe’s borders; look at the young Gambian standing at the coastline of Bakau and Tanji, debating whether to risk his life just to have a life. The global conversation about migration often paints a shallow picture of desperate people fleeing danger and wealthy states struggling to cope. But this narrative hides a deeper, more uncomfortable truth. Migration from the Global South is not simply a humanitarian crisis; it is part of a political economy where migrants risk everything not only to escape hardship, but also to sustain their families, while smugglers turn human movement into a thriving business. Nowhere is this more visible than in The Gambia, one of the smallest countries in Africa but one of the most migration-dependent in the world, with a population of approximately 2.42 million.

The economic reality in The Gambia explains why so many leave. Decades of low-income growth, weak industrialisation, and precarious agricultural livelihoods have created an environment where young people see few meaningful paths to progress. Youth unemployment remains painfully high, and entire communities survive on subsistence farming whose productivity is constantly battered by climate shocks. In such a context, migration isn’t viewed as a reckless gamble; it has become a rational survival strategy.

Ask a young Gambian why they consider taking “the backway” to Europe, and the answer is almost always the same because there is nothing for us here. Countless interviews and studies confirm this sentiment. For many, migration is the only way to transform their economic prospects, support their families, and build a future they cannot imagine at home. And while the dangers of irregular migration are well known, the rewards are equally powerful. Remittances from Gambians abroad accounted for nearly a third of the national GDP in 2024, which amounted to 32 percent, one of the highest ratios in the world. These funds cover expenses such as food, healthcare, school fees, housing, and even small business costs. In other words, migration has become an unofficial social safety net in a country where formal economic opportunities are limited. When parents depend on money from children abroad to survive, migration becomes more than an individual choice it becomes a household strategy.

But this is only one side of the story. The other side is far more troubling. As demand for migration grows, so too does the economy built around it. Smugglers operating along a transnational chain stretching from the Sahel to Libya’s coast have turned human mobility into a high-profit industry. They offer forged documents, risky sea crossings, and “safe passage” through some of the most dangerous routes in the world. Their business thrives precisely because legal migration channels remain limited or inaccessible. The harsher the border controls, the more valuable smugglers become. This creates a vicious cycle: economic hardship pushes people to migrate, lack of legal pathways pushes them toward smugglers, and the profits generated by these journeys fuel even more organised smuggling networks.

The system feeds on itself. The Gambia’s experience shows that irregular migration is not a temporary emergency, nor simply the result of poor decisions. It is a structural outcome of global inequality. It is the predictable result of a world where opportunity is unevenly distributed and where the Global South must often rely on remittances rather than domestic job creation to sustain entire economies. So what can be done? If policymakers continue to treat migration as a security issue alone, they will only strengthen the very smuggling networks they claim to fight. A more effective response requires addressing both sides of the issue. That means expanding legal migration opportunities, investing in youth employment, supporting diaspora-led development, and cracking down on the corruption that enables smuggling to flourish. It also means understanding migration not as a failure of individuals, but as a failure of economic systems that offer them too little reason to stay.

The Gambian who stands at the beaches of Bakau and Tanjie deciding whether to leave is not making a reckless choice. He is making a rational one in a world that has not given him many options. The question is not why he wants to leave, the question is why we have created a global system where leaving feels like the only path to dignity.