Migration Trajectories and Strategies in Global South: Approaches for Addressing Migration in Contemporary Ghana, Post-independence to 2000s

In this chapter, Isaac Kyere pointed out that migration is not a relatively new phenomenon in Africa. For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, the bulk of Ghanaian migrants went to neighboring countries like Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. Africans indeed have a long history of migration, both voluntary and involuntary, spanning several eras. Africans began to migrate north and to other African nations in quest of greater socioeconomic and political opportunities. More specifically, between 2000 and 2019 the number of Ghanaian legal migrant flows increased by more than twice (from 12,900 in 2000 to 2300 in 2008, and 27,400 in 2019). However, compared to other ECOWAS nations, Ghana's migratory flows have increased more slowly than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.