According to Afrobarometer’s new flagship report published in August 2026, Africans’ openness to free movement is at odds with their views on migration. The report also reveals an unexpected finding, presents key results, and highlights the thorny issue of employment and trends in emigration in West Africa.

“A majority of Africans support the free movement of people across borders, but many remain cautious about immigration into their own countries,” according to Afrobarometer’s new flagship report, African Insights: African Perspectives.

Whilst citizens are generally open to the presence of foreigners amongst them, they are equally divided on whether immigrants are good or bad for the national economy, with a majority preferring to see fewer – or even no – jobseekers and refugees admitted to their country.

An Unexpected Findings Emerges

According to the report, in Africa – unlike in other regions – it is the most educated, the most skilled and the wealthiest people who express the greatest resistance to immigrants.

The report’s findings show that the proportion of Africans who have considered emigrating has grown over the last decade, far exceeding the levels of interest observed in other regions of the world.

It is noted that the wish to emigrate is strongest amongst young people and the educated and is overwhelmingly influenced by economic reasons.

The ‘African Insights 2026’ report, the third in Afrobarometer’s flagship annual series, is based on 50,961 face-to-face interviews conducted in 38 countries in 2024/2025. It examines citizens’ views on five aspects of Africa’s relations with the world: trade, migration, competition between major powers, global voice and climate change.

A pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that produces reliable data on Africans’ experiences and perceptions regarding democracy, governance and quality of life, Afrobarometer and its national partners conduct face-to-face interviews in the respondent’s preferred language with nationally representative samples, producing national results with margins of error of +/-2 to +/-3 percentage points at a 95 per cent confidence level.

Key Findings

The majority (56 %) of Africans believe that people in their region should be able to move freely across international borders, whilst 40 % prefer their governments to restrict cross-border movement in order to protect citizens’ access to employment and opportunities.

Only one in four citizens (23 %) say it is ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’ to cross borders for work or trade, compared with 63 % who describe it as difficult.

Three-quarters (77 %) of respondents say they would like to have, or would not mind having, immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours.

However, citizens are divided on whether immigrants are good (45 per cent) or bad (44 %) for their country’s economy.

The Thorny Issue of Employment

According to the report, the majority of Africans would prefer to see fewer jobseekers (64 per cent) and refugees (70 per cent) admitted to their country.

Based on these findings, a higher level of education on the continent is associated with less support for accepting foreign workers. Similarly, highly skilled workers are less likely to hold positive attitudes than their less-skilled counterparts.

It is worth noting that nearly half (45％) of Africans have considered emigrating, with 25％ saying they have thought about it a great deal, according to the document consulted by Dialogue Migration.

The Trend in West Africa

West Africans (34 %) are more than twice as likely as East and North Africans (16 % each) to have seriously considered emigrating.

Across the 31 countries where this question was also asked during Round 7 (2016–2018), the proportion of people giving ‘a great deal’ of thought to emigration rose by 7 percentage points, from 18 per cent to 25 per cent.

This proportion is particularly high amongst young people (32% of 18–35-year-olds) and the most educated citizens (31%).

Half (50%) of potential emigrants (those who have thought about it at least ‘a little’) say they would leave in search of work, and 29% would leave to escape economic hardship.

Among potential emigrants, around one in five say they would like to settle in the sub-region (17 %) or elsewhere in Africa (5 %). Around a third (32 %) would choose Europe, closely followed by North America (28 %).

Across 31 countries where the question was also asked in 2016–2018, the proportion of people preferring to move to another African country has fallen from 36% to 26%.