 | Mamphela Ramphele |
While there are nearly 200 million migrants across the globe -- equal to the population of the world's fifth-largest nation, Brazil -- there are no coherent international policies for dealing with the movement of people from one place to another and their integration in their new communities, said Mamphela Ramphele, a noted activist and former managing director of The World Bank, in a campus talk.
Ramphele, a member of the Global Commission on International Migration established by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2003, delivered the George Herbert Walker Jr. Lecture in International Studies on Oct. 26 in Luce Hall.
In her lecture, titled "Human Mobility: Challenges and Opportunities for the Globalizing World," she said the issue of migration should be a key international focus and called for greater cooperation between nations to fully realize the benefits migrants bring.
Noting that globalization has resulted in an increase in the movement of goods and services across the world, Ramphele said that the international community has failed to maximize the benefits of global migration and to address its challenges.
She pointed out that the number of international migrants has more than doubled what it was 25 years ago -- due, in part, to one of the pitfalls of globalization: the widening gap between the rich and poor. While "human beings have always migrated in search of greener pastures," Mamphele commented, today greater numbers of poor migrants are leaving their countries of origin in the hope of a better life.
"One in 35 people in the world are migrants," she said, adding that nearly half are women.
She told her audience that while the economies of wealthier, industrialized nations benefit greatly from the labor of migrants, it is "the poorest regions of the world that bear the largest burden of refugees."
Likewise, she said, the poorest countries -- already lacking a highly educated and professionally skilled populace -- are also challenged by the fact that their most enterprising and entrepreneurial citizens flee to other places of the world in search of opportunity.
"The loss of the brightest and most entrepreneurial from poorer countries leaves [these countries] without the human intellectual capital to become competitors in the global economy," Ramphele stated.
She called for nations around the globe to come together to discuss the issue of international migration -- and to establish coherent policies on it -- in the same way they meet to formulate agreements on trade and other concerns. She also said that international organizations such as the International Organization for Migration, The World Bank, the U.N. Development Programme and others should pool their expertise to meet some of the challenges posed by the movement of people.
England and India, for example, partnered to train nurses, resulting in a "pool of skills for common usage by a labor-rich country and a labor-poor one," she noted.
However, throughout the globe, migrants are often marginalized, said Ramphele.
"Segregating migrants in ghettos is not smart," she stated, adding that the Global Commission on International Migration explored cases of violence committed by second-generation migrants, which, Ramphele said, "demonstrates the risk of failed integration."
She cited Canada and Australia as two countries that have benefited from migration and "done well to embrace the integration of migrants" by "welcoming and supporting them, and helping them become citizens quickly." These countries invested in language training and job placement programs for migrants, as well as other services that are "key ingredients of success," Ramphele said.
"Vibrant societies thrive on diversity," she asserted.
Violations of human rights in some countries and national security concerns in others have resulted in challenges for migrants that should be addressed internationally to develop "coherent, coordinated" solutions, she said.
"Governments need to get their houses in order and make migration a key policy issue in national development plans -- in all countries, rich and poor," Ramphele contended.
Issues associated with migration, she added, must be addressed immediately. "The time is now," she said. "The question is whether we have the political will to do so."
Ramphele last visited Yale during the 2005 Commencement to receive an honorary degree from the University in recognition of her human rights and humanitarian work. A South African native who began her activism as a student fighting apartheid, Ramphele is a trained doctor who also worked as a community development worker and academic researcher. From 1977 to 1984 she was banished by the South African government to a remote township, where she established a community health program for the rural poor. In 1996, she became the vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town -- the first black woman to hold this position at a South African university. She became the managing director of The World Bank -- the first African and only the second woman to hold this position -- in 2000. Just this year, Ramphele launched Circle Capital, a black-owned capital investment company that helps organizations with such needs as strategic leadership, operational management and access to investment.
-- By Susan Gonzalez
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