South Africa Pushes Forward on Migration Summit Amid AU Delays; Millions of Africans at St

Millions of ordinary Africans, migrants and host-community residents alike, stand at the center of a diplomatic push that South Africa is refusing to let stall.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation issued a statement Thursday reaffirming South Africa’s backing for a long-standing African Union decision to convene a comprehensive migration conference, even after the AU’s executive leadership opted to sideline the issue from an upcoming mid-term review meeting. The stakes for everyday people are stark. Research indicates that almost six in ten Africans aged between 18 and 25 have considered emigrating, primarily in search of better opportunities, and those who do migrate face growing hostility and discrimination across the region and globally.

The 2015 African Union Assembly in Johannesburg originally called for such a conference to address the continent’s migration dynamics in full, examining how population movement relates to peace, stability, economic development and regional integration. It would also create space for member states to confront the root causes of anti-migrant sentiment and xenophobia. A decade later, that forum has yet to happen.

South Africa’s position reflects an urgent recognition that migration crosses borders and affects entire regions, not isolated countries. The department emphasized that most African international migrants move within the continent itself, making intracontinental movement a distinctly African challenge requiring African solutions. Yet despite participating in global migration discussions with other regions, the continent has never held a comprehensive forum of its own where member states could collectively assess their shared realities and develop coordinated responses.

The human cost of that gap is visible in the violence migrants face. Minister Ronald Lamola connected the push for dialogue directly to that violence. “Attacks on migrants of African descent, and on migrants generally, are an affront to our democracy and a betrayal of our Constitution’s promise to build a society founded on human dignity, social justice and fundamental human rights,” he said. Lamola noted that the South African government is actively coordinating law enforcement efforts to prosecute those responsible for assaults, intimidation, looting, robbery and other crimes against migrants.

By contrast, piecemeal national responses have not resolved the pressures. The government’s statement stressed that lasting solutions require honest conversation about the factors pushing people to leave their home countries and pulling them toward destinations, as well as the obligations all states bear in managing these flows responsibly. A continent-wide conference would allow African nations to exchange experiences, examine what has worked elsewhere and develop cooperative frameworks suited to Africa’s particular circumstances.

South Africa framed its advocacy as consistent with its broader commitment to Pan-Africanism and continental solidarity, principles the department said guide its foreign policy across multiple domains, including efforts to advance peace and stability, deepen economic integration, strengthen pandemic preparedness and address Africa’s debt burden.

The timing of Thursday’s reaffirmation underscores the growing urgency. Research cited by the department points to rising negative attitudes toward migrants, driven partly by economic hardship affecting both host communities and migrants themselves. Without a dedicated continental platform to address these tensions and their underlying causes, individual countries will continue responding in isolation while the broader dynamics driving migration remain unexamined. Whether the African Union’s executive leadership will ultimately restore the conference to its agenda is the question on which the safety and dignity of millions of people now partly depends.