Potential Effects of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement on the Namibian Labour System ()
1. Introduction
1.1. Background of the Study
There is a myriad of post-colonial challenges that the African continent faces. Africa rich natural resources continue to be plagiarised by non-continental owners/shareholders—creating jobs (through value addition) mostly in former colonial master countries. Through such pillaging and elicit repatriative investments, Africa has become the greatest aid donor of its colonial masters such as France, through the so-called colonial debt, and allowing buyers of what Africa produces to be the ones determining the prices in a corrupted international commodity trading system. These things need fixing and fixing now. By virtue of these practices, jobs have always been exported from the continent and in turn, poverty created by our own political state. As poverty surges, aid dependency deteriorates, state fragility and youth unemployment escalate to the highest in the world. With these apocalyptic threats, the continent political leadership gave a breadth of fresh air strategy called Agenda 2063 (The Africa We Want) during the African Union Golden Jubilee Celebrations in May 2013 at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Africa Union, 2014) .
Agenda 2063 pursues eight (8) Aspirations in order to bring about The Africa We Want. Among others, the second aspiration desires for:
An Integrated Continent, Politically United Based on the Ideals of Pan Africanism, and the Vision of Africa’s Renaissance.
Associated with this Aspiration are 8 targets which have also become part of the AU’s First 10 Years implementation plan 2014-2023 (Africa Union, 2015: p. 120) . According to this plan, the continent aimed to establish a continental free-trade area by 2017. The objectives of this free-trade area are (Africa Union, 2015: p. 120) :
To significantly accelerate growth of Intra-Africa trade, and use trade more effectively as an engine of growth and sustainable development, through doubling of intra-Africa trade by 2022, strengthen Africa’s common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations and establish the following financial institutions within agreed upon timeframes; African Investment Bank and Pan African Stock Exchange (2016); the African Monetary Fund (2018); and the African Central Bank (2028/34).
Having come this far, and still pursuant to the tenets of the Agenda and its fast track implementation plan, the AU leaders congregated in Kigali, Rwanda on Wednesday 21 March 2013, to officially launch the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) which ultimately came into force on May 30 2019 after 24 members deposited their instruments of ratification (Africa Continental Free Trade Area, 2023) . Namibia did as well. However, the question that follows is what good or bad will the ratification bring to the country as implementation happens. Although the number of trade agreements that include labour provisions has increased over recent past (ILO, 2015) , it is yet to be seen how the Africa continental Free Trade Agreement takes this into account, especially in the context of Namibia with limited experience of being I such a huge trade block.
1.2. Research Question
According to Witschge (2018) , “It’s a good idea to eventually integrate, but are we ready for it? Not every expert I have spoken with agrees with it”. As one of the threshold 24 countries that have ratified the agreement, is Namibia ready for the AfCFTA implementation? The objective of this paper is therefore to gauge the degree of readiness of Namibia for becoming a fully active member of the AfCFTA with particular focus on labour-related issues. First, it is necessary to unpack the intricacies of what AfCFTA really is all about.
2. About the AfCFTA
2.1. Proposed Advantages of the AfCFTA
The recent-years narrative of a rising Africa (Drummond, Thakoor, & Yu, 2014; United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2015; Kavei, 2015) is even becoming bouyant. Media has it that there will be a 5.9 surge of aviation activities on the African continent in the next 20 years (Africa Aerospace, 2018) , Kenya renewable energy rating takes position 5 on the Fobes Magazine rating out of the top 30 in the world (Shapshak, 2016) , and Rwanda has handed an olive branch US$39 million sponsorship to the UK’s Arsenal Football Club (Waterson, 2018) —something unheard of from an African country in the past. With this kind of growing commerce significance on the world stage, the continental free trade seeks to bolster Africa competitiveness in a number of ways.
In terms of the scope of coverage, the (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, 2018: p. 1) is of the view that AfCFTA will cover a market of 1.2 billion people with a gross domestic product (GDP) of US$2.5 trillion across all the 55 countries on the continent. As many trade barriers and tariffs are to be removed, import prices and eventual consumer prices are expected to drop as well (Knebel, Peters, & Saygili, 2018: p. 7) . Furthermore, the African Union, cited in (Knebel, Peters, & Saygili, 2018: p. 5) , is of the view that small-economy producers are likely to tap into the economy of scale of other member countries in the Free Trade zone.
If free trade comes with free movement of labour, some workers might benefit to excess demand in their sectors while other may suffer from unemployment and underemployment in their sectors as Knebel et al. (2018: p. 9) contest.
However, there may be some costs associated with such adjustments in employment dynamic of countries and sectors. Knebel et al. (2018: p. 9) affirms that such costs may be higher for SMEs as compared to large companies. If it is still true that SME contribute about 20% to employment creation (Ramsden, 2010: p. 29) in Namibia, then there is a possibility that above 135,377 (20% 9f 676,885 – NSA; 2017:15) workers will be exposed to such labour adjustment costs as a result of the free trade agreement. Such cost may be in the form of upgrading labour skills or training for new skills (Knebel et al., 2018: p. 10) .
In the end, Knebel et al. (2018: p. 13) are convinced that “the CFTA is estimated to increase GDP and employment by 0.97 per cent and 1.17 per cent respectively”. Going by this, a 1.17% employment (at the current rate of employment – 676,885 – NSA 2017) could mean putting an additional 7920 people into new jobs, in Namibia.
Goldberg and Pavcnik (2004) also find that labour mobility across sectors is limited in developing countries. Therefore, trade liberalization can have a negative impact on unskilled labour in the short- and medium term, especially if low-skill sectors were originally protected. This may create social tensions and problems unless compensatory measures are set in place by the governments (p, 9). However, this is less likely to be the case for Namibia as there is not a protectionist economy, but rather a free market.
With the exception of the mining sectors, Figure 1 below shows that AfCFTA will produce a positive gain in employment growth for Sub-Saharan Africa, by sector, especially in other manufactures (9.51%), Vehicles (5.02%) and Machinery (4.69%) and so forth.
Notwithstanding these variable gains and costs Knebel et al. (2018: p. 14) advises that product exemptions need to be evaluated carefully to avoid stifling growth opportunities of the most vulnerable countries.
Furthermore, the benefits of the free trade area may not be shared equally if the financial and institutional capacity of countries is insufficient in dealing with adverse effects on labour force and small enterprises. In particular, a lack of labour mobility between sectors is a key challenge for many developing countries.
Support programmes, such as Aid for Trade and infrastructure investments, could be considered to help the most affected countries, in particular least-developed, landlocked and small economies (Knebel et al., 2018: p. 18) .
2.2. Perceived Challenges of the AfCFTA
The very first challenges of AfCFTA are its slow take off. On 21 March 2018 when the agreement was launched for the first time in Kigali, Rwanda, 44 out of 55 member states signed it. For it to come into full effect, 22 member states should ratify it. At the time of writing, a year after its launch, only 9 member states had ratified the agreement. It is unclear how long it will still take the remainder 12-member states to reach the threshold.
Of course, related to this, one reason why some of the member state did not ratify the agreement right away is that they had not consulted their country-level stakeholders. For example, Ali (2019) points out that there were claims from members of the organised Private Sector (PS) of not being consulted adequately during the negotiation process, and thus more time was needed for further negotiations. According to (Azikiwe, 2019) , the same was true for Namibia and South Africa, which only ratified the agreement early in 2019. There is a possibility of such consultations taking way too long. There is a possibility of such consultations turning out to reject the ratification all together.
As and when the agreement comes into effect, the inherent free movement of people becomes a thorny and contentious issue for many member states, “owing to high levels of domestic unemployment and the securitisation narrative associated with freer movement of persons”, (Parshotam, 2018: p. 10) .
Furthermore, literature has it that about 86% of all Africa trade is done with external markets, leaving a paltry 14% to intra continental trade. Of the remaining 14%, primary commodities make up to 56%, while manufacturing share of trade stands at 16% for the period 2000-2016, (TRALAC, 2018) . The implication here is that there is a small component of the overall African economy candidate to job creation through manufacturing and industrialisation as many countries appear to be focused on exporting raw primary material commodities without adding value.
In terms of institutional arrangement, (TRALAC, 2018) further points out that the AfCFTA is earmarked to be an autonomous secretariat with an independent legal persona, akin to an agency of the African Union. Ultimately, the AfCFTA will be responsible for strengthening the capacity of affected and vulnerable sectors (women, SME informal traders) and weak member states with trade-related capacity building. In the meantime, the African Union will support the nascent Secretariat of the AfCFTA until such time that it stands firm. This kind of institutional arrangement leaves so much to be admired.
If in the long run, the AfCFTA Secretariat need to be financially and logistically sustained; if trade financing and adjustment support to small and informal traders or agricultural traders is to be guaranteed, the AfCFTA will need substantial fiscal capacity to discharge all these responsibilities. Where will it get the money to do this? Will it be financed by member state through regular statutory contributions? Will the AU have enough fiscal muscles to uphold such costs? If at all, such logistical costs could turn out to be unsustainable. To overcome this and make free continental trade cost effective to administer, then some low-key tariffs should be left in place solely meant for bankrolling the operational activities of the AfCFTA Secretariat. Complete removal of tariffs would be naively self-compromising.
Finally, a phenomenal weakness and enemy of progress in Africa is embedded in the quintessence of policy formulation, but with rather dismal record of accomplishment. Phiri & Sipangule (2019) are of the view that, regional integration is easy to promise, but hard to achieve. They express the concern that the very same reasons that hold back the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the highly celebrated Tripatite Free Trade Agreement between SADC, EAC and COMESA are the very hurdles that will still hold back the AfCFTA from moving forward.
3. Current Status of Labour Movement at RECs Levels
Overall, as Figure 2 shows, the population of Africa as a whole is on the rise, and the same phenomena seem true for Sub-Regional blocks as in Figure 3 below (African Union Commission, 2021: p. 28) .
It is also evident from Figure 2 below that women population always edges that of males over the years and for the entire continent. This section focusses on three RECs that form part of the Tripartite Free Trade Areas of COMESA, EAC and SADC. These are some of the oldest RECs on the continent: EAC came into existence in 1967, SADC in 1980 and COMESA in 1994. Population of these RECs also vary. SADC stands at 328.1, COMESA at 440.9 and EAC at 113.5 million people (Africa Union Commission, 2017) . As if it is a determinant of performance for regional integration, the size of these RECs in terms of the number of member state could perhaps be of interest as well. EAC has the fewest (6) members states (Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania). COMESA has the largest pack of 19 member states (Burundi, Comoros, DR
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Figure 2. Population of Africa by Sex: 2010-2019.
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Figure 3. Average annual population growth rate in Africa across geographical sub-regions, 2010-2019 (percentage). Source: African Union Commission.
Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eretria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, eSwatini, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe), while SADC has 15 (Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, eSwatini, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe).
To understand the state of performance of any RECs in regional Integration, the Africa Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) model was applied. The model looks at regional integration as a process that goes through six (6) stages and ideally starting from Free Trade Agreement; followed by Customs Union; Common Market; Economic Union; Monitory Union; and ideally ending with a Political Union (ACBF, 2014: p. 6) . Figure 4 illustrates progress made by various RECs on the continent towards realising regional integration. The colours of dark green, light green, orange and light blue depict Fully achieved, good progress, In progress and Not yet started status on each of the stages of regional integration. As can be seen from this model, EAC appears to be leading the pack, followed by COMESA while SADC seems to be clearly the worst performer of the three RECs in review.
According to (ACBF, 2014) , the free movement of people across the region is put in a second-level priority (75%), together with Infrastructure and Monitory Policy as opposed to Development of Financial Markets and Fiscal Policy placed at first-level priority position (88%). See Figure 5. Noteworthy is also the fact that the capacity of Regional Economic Communities or Sub-Saharan African countries to integrate is best at the policy level than at program execution and implementation levels (ACBF, 2014: p. 2) .
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Figure 5. Organisational capacity needs.
3.1. At the SADC Level
To cultivate the necessary condition for smooth movement of labour in the regional block, the SADC Protocol for the Facilitation of Movement of Persons, or Free Movement Protocol (2005: Articles 2 and 3) came into existence (Rubia, 2011: p. 4) . Accordingly, this gave way for visa-free movement of citizens of member states to enter and stay in any member country for a period of 90 days. However, according to UNCTAD (2009) , cited in Rubia (2011: p. 49) , none of these actions have been implemented as not enough member states have ratified the Protocol.
Subsequent to the 2005 Free Movement Protocol, SADC further introduced the Protocol on Trade in Services (2009), albeit less permissive to entry of natural persons looking for employment in any of the SADC labour markets (Rubia, 2011: p. 50) . In closing, Rubia (2011) makes the observation that countries remain high sensitive at the political level to allow for free movement of people, therefore hampering the intentions of free labour mobility in the region. Exacerbating this situation is the occasional scandalous xenophobic attacks on immigrants in the largest economy of the region—South Africa (Africa Union Commission, 2017: p. 42) .
Despite this, South Africa has the highest share of international migrant stock (1,223,570) in the SADC region, followed by Tanzania (699,605), Malawi & Lesotho (207,130) and Angola (90,589) See Figure 6. At the bottom, there is Seychelles (2069), Botswana (23,376) and Madagascar (35,507).
As these migrants move around mainly looking for employment opportunities, Mauritius is the number 1 destination with the highest employment rate of 80.3%. Following on are Tanzania (72.9%), Zambia (67.0%) and Angola (63.0%). Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa have the lowest employment rates of 37.8%, 37.8% and 39.7% respectively for migrant labour. See Figure 7.
3.2. At the COMESA Level
Like SADC, COMESA too has a Free Movement Protocol and Protocol on the
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Figure 6. Stock of international migrants in the various SADC countries 2014.
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Figure 7. Employment rate of migrants in countries of SADC 2014 (%). Source: Adapted from LMP Data, 2015.
Gradual Relaxation and Eventual Elimination of Visa Requirements for its citizens as Rubia (2011: p. 51) points out. However, on the ground, a related protocol – “Free Movement Protocol, Annex 1, Paragraph 2) does not apply to natural persons seeking access to the employment market” (Rubia, 2011: p. 51) . All these are indicatives of the phenomena of African governments doing well at policy level, yet perpetually lacking in execution of policy intentions.
3.3. At the EAC Level
Through its Common Market Protocol (Article 7 and 10), the EAC has taken leadership in terms of free movement of people. According to Rubia (2011: p. 52) , EAC nationals “have the right to residency and establishment, and self-employed persons can move along with their dependents”. Of course, this is clearly reflective on EAC efforts and progress it has made even in the subsequent stages of regional integration such as Common Market and Monitory Union. In terms of the rate of employment of migrant workers (see Figure 8 below), Tanzania comes first above 70%, followed by Uganda about (70%) and Rwanda, just shy of 60%. On average, EAC appears to be very favourable in terms of employment of migrant workers.
4. Some Drivers of Continental Migrations and Possible Policy Responses
Migrations phenomena are interdependent on trade issues. In that sense, factors driving people movement across the continent can equally determine migration of investments from one part of the continent to another. The Joint Labour Migration Programme (2015: p. 8) acknowledges that demographic pressures, joblessness, growing inequalities, fragility of states, climate change, globalized access to information and skills shortage as some of the drivers of labour migration on the continent. Certainly, these are not the only drivers. The International Labour Organisation, though its Statistical department ILOSTAT maintains a comprehensive database of labour dynamics covering areas such as population and labour force, employment, unemployment and labour underutilisation, work time, earnings and labour costs, social protection, health and safety at work, as well as industrial relations density; with several indicators (ILO, 2019) .
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Figure 8. Employment rate of migrants in countries of EAC 2014 (%). Source: JLMP Data, 2015.
Using the ILO data portal, the researchers adapted data country-by-country covering Industrial relations (trade Union Density), Social Protection, Earnings and Unemployment.
4.1. Industrial Relations
A key component of Industrial relations is the extent to which labour is unionized or organised. A measure of this on the ILO labour migration portal (ILOSTAT) is “Trade Union Density Rate” – the number of workers affiliated to a trade union in a group of workers. Generally, there was a lack of data for most countries on the continent pertaining to this. However, for a few where data was available, countries such as Egypt (43.2%), Sierra Leone (41%), Niger (35.6) can be regarded as having Higher labour unionization. As shown in Figure 9 below, countries such as Mauritius (28.1%), South Africa (28.1%), Zambia (26%), Tanzania (24.3%), Tunisia (20.4%), Ghana (20.6%) and Namibia (17.5) may be classified under Moderate Labour unionization. From the graph, the countries with Low Labour Unionisation are Seychelles (1.5%), Malawi (5.5%), Zimbabwe (7.5%) and Ethiopia (9.6%).
Within a free trade Africa, these realities mean a lot for Namibia. Namibian employers or business investor would need to be aware of trade union influence on labour and thus determine where to go. Arguably, investors are likely keen to venture into economies where labour is cheap and less unionised. Conversely, highly unionised labour ecologies would tend to be more costly and less peaceful for investment, although one could advance the argument that it is in those highly unionised labour ecologies where one might encounter rewarding and fertile economic dynamics.
4.2. Earnings
Another driver for influencing free movement of people in a free-traded Africa is the geography of wages and income. Figure 10 here indicates that Cape Verde is the most likely number one destination for those migrants interested in higher wages., with average monthly earnings of N$53921.13. Following on is Nigeria at
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Figure 10. Average monthly earnings in some African countries (N$ Equivalent). Source: Author’s work Based on ILOSTAT database.
N$16864.26, South Africa at N$9235.00 and Seychelles at N$8896.4. Namibia is in the top 20 destinations for higher wages on the continent at position number 6, with average monthly earnings of N$6926.00 per employee per month. This makes the country a relatively attractive destination for free movement of people in a free trade scenario. Other countries on the bottom of the list are Zimbabwe at N$231.00, Malawi at N$282.80, Liberia at N$654.08, Ethiopia at N$661.01 and a few others. This latter group is highly unlikely to be attractive to migrant workers on the continent unless considering other factors than wages.
4.3. Social Protection
As a driver for labour migration, social protection is composed of four aspects covered in this study. They are 1) Active contributors to an old age contributory scheme as a percentage of the working age population (%); 2) Public Social Protection (excluding health care) as a percentage of GDP; 3) Public Social Protection Expenditure (all functions) as a percentage of GDP (%); and 4) Percentage of health care expenditure not financed by private household’s out of pocket payments.
Reviewing and customising statistic from the ILOSTAT database, Figure 11 was generated. As it illustrates, countries with a combined higher social protection are Tunisia, Botswana, Gabon, Eswatini, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Mozambique, and Algeria. This makes them highly attractive destinations for those migrant workers interested in taking a comfortable retirement, or rather favourable working conditions.
Conversely, countries not on the radar or rather extremely unattractive are Angola, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leonne, Chad, Guinea, and Sudan—Figure 11. One may argue that these are migrant-sending countries if one considers the aspects of social protection. If one looks at these from a Regional Economic Grouping point of view, you find that SADC countries have the highest concentration of countries with favourable social protection conditions.
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Figure 11. State of social protection in select African countries. Source: Author’s work – Based on ILOSTAT database.
4.4. Unemployment
As per Figure 12, young professionals interested in searching for green prospects of employment are likely to migrate to countries such as Mali, Madagascar, Ghana, Ethiopia, Benin, Tanzania, Liberia, Mozambique, Uganda, and Seychelles with 0.5%, 1.4%, and 1.8%, 2.2%, 2.3%, 2.3%, 2.7%, 2.9%, 3.1%, 3.4%, 3.6% and 3.7% measure of unemployment, respectively. Arguably one can state
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Figure 12. Unemployment in select African countries. Source: Author’s work—Based on ILOSTAT database.
that since unemployment is relatively lower in these countries, chances of being employed could be higher than in countries with higher Unemployment rates. These are countries like South Africa (26.9%), Lesotho (24.4%), Namibia (23. 4%), Eswatini (22.7%), Gabon (20.4), Libya (19%), Botswana (17.9%), Rwanda (17.4%), Sudan (17.4%), and Tunisia (15.9%)—Figure 12.
4.5. Skilled Labour Concentrations
It is hard to locate data anywhere that specifically points to the distribution and movement of skilled labour on the African continent, despite the many searches carried out in this study. The closest we could come to is the International Organisation for Migration (IOM, 2019) data on current stocks of migrations on the continent as recalculated and shown in Figure 13 below. The highest concentration of migrant stocks is in South Africa (Figure 13) with a population of 4 million, which is 16.2% of all the 24.7 million migrant stocks of the continent (IOM, 2019) . Following this, other significant concentration of migrant stocks
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Figure 13. Africa migration stocks, 2017 in ‘000’ s. Source: Author’s work—Based on ILOSAT database.
appears in East and West Africa where Uganda has 1.7 million, Ethiopia 1.2 and Nigeria had 1.2 million each, Kenya with 1.1 million and the DRC with 879.2. Namibia had a paltry 95.1 thousand migrants only. Relatively, this does not make it a hot bed for immigration probably because of its slow economic growth rate.
In terms of Regional Economic Communities (RECS), COMESA, SADC and EAC each have 8.244100, 7.447500 and 4.580900 million migrants respectively, all of which make 82.07% share of the continental migrant stock. Within these three regional groups, East Africa would appear to be the most appealing and attractive block.
With the aim to facilitate academic mobility for employment and education on the continent, the African Union Commission initiated an Academic Mobility Scheme in 2017 (African Union, 2018) . Accordingly, “the intra-Africa academic mobility scheme complements the AU’s integration process, as Africans…employed by African-based academic institutions will have the possibility of working everywhere on the continent”, (African Union, 2018: p. 3) .
Progress has been made in this respect with 1255 Doctoral, Masters and Staff members of participating continental Universities benefiting from the exchange program. However, some challenges were equally observed. Salient among them are limited credit transfers and recognition of partial studies…due to variations in education systems across Africa; cumbersome and prohibitive study and work visa requirements; as well as lack of suitable funding from member states for academic mobility schemes (African Union, 2018: p. 5) . Although not insurmountable, these challenges do not certainly auger well for a free-traded continent and thus countries like Namibia with only 11 participants on the scheme should perhaps adopt strategies to fast-track labour and skills mobility in order to optimise on the promise of free trade and the Agenda 2063’s Africa we want mantra.
5. Some Imperative Adjustments
As the free trade tenets of the agreement take hold on the ground; state-by-state, region-by-region, one can expect a number of changes in the areas of policy, institutional arrangement, practices in and around labour ecology to follow suit. We look at a couple of the most salient imperative adjustments with regard to free movement of labour.
5.1. Minimum Job Entry Requirements
When recruiting, countries give first preference to their national. It therefore common to find job recruitments with statements like—“being a Namibian citizen would be an added advantage.” Certainly, this occurs at every other country level with the aim to preserve jobs for locals. In patriotic conspiracy with this position, home affairs or immigration departments usually go an extra mile in denying issuance of work permit to none-citizens in view of protecting citizen first, unless there are clearly exhaustive indications that there are no locals suitable for the job at stake.
Unfortunately, with the advent of free-trade agreement, accompanied by inevitable free movement of labour on the continent, these old entrenched prohibitive nationalistic and moribund practices will now come to nothing, but pass. Cosmetic singing of the AU National Anthem in pretence of promoting pan Africanism will now need to be given a true meaning. Where a job advertisement used to give clear preference to locals, such clauses will now need to be replaced with the phrases such as “AU citizens are encouraged to apply.” In the same breadth, home affairs or immigration department policies on this subject need to be repealed at national and even sub-regional levels. In the case of Namibia, for example, the national parliament that ratified the free trade agreement must get down to the nitty greetings of amending the Immigration Control Act, Act No 7 of 1993 pertaining to Employment Permit, Employment Visa, Study Visa, and Study Permits. In complementing this effort, it would be equally advisable for amendment of the Employment Service Act (Act No 8 of 2011), extending specific preferential treatment of African citizen to the same level of benefit and privileges enjoyed by Namibians. Arguably this will surface debates, and possibly similar reviews on other incidental pieces of legislature such as the Affirmative Action (Employment) Act, Act No 29 of 1998), and the Social Security Act (Act No 34 of 1994).
Of-course this issue is not the only one with respect to job entry requirement. There is a chorus literature call (ACBF, 2014; Drummond, Thakoor, & Yu, 2014; Africa Union, 2015; Joint Labour Migration Programme, 2015; Africa Union Commission, 2017; African Union, 2018; Knebel, Peters, & Saygili, 2018; TRALAC, 2018; Witschge, 2018) for unconditional harmonisation of minimum job entry qualifications at the continental level to aid regional integration, free trade and facilitate seamless labour migration.
5.2. Industrial and Union Relations
Although with varying degree of penetration as illustrated in Section 4.1 above and subsequent successes and shortcomings, trade unions on the African continent appear to be a constant in the shaping of democratic governance as well as mobilising popular protest for the protection of civil rights and enhancement of social capital (African Capacity Building Foundation, 2019) . With their power of popular movement, it can be argued that African trade Unions have the potential to take a lead in pursuit of free movement of labour on the continent. With this in mind, the SADC protocol on Employment and Labour recognised the importance of labour, among others, in the protection of migrant worker’s rights (SADC, 2013) .
According to the AU’s First Ten Year Implementation of the Agenda 2063 Aspiration 1 (A prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development), the proportion of labour force not receiving liveable wages would have declined by at least 25% in 2023 (AU, 2015: p. 44) . Despite all these intentions of improving labour markets at both REC and AU level, the voice of organised labour itself in the form of trade unions seems to be relatively silent. Search for trade union as a keyword for organised labour yielded almost nothing from the mainstream official documentation of the AU. This gives the impression that generally; the influence of trade unions at the continental level has not taken root enough to serve as a force in bargaining for conditions of employment, wages, and protection of the rights of migrant labour at the continental level. Perhaps more capacity building is needed.
5.3. Minimum Wage Formatting
In the areas of Construction, Domestic Workers, Farm Workers, and Security and Protection Services, Namibia has already established a minimum wage structure (Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, 2015a; Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, 2018) .
Other countries on the continent might be at different wavelengths of establishment of minimum wage regulations. There would therefore be an imperative need for a pan-African wage structure including a possible spell-out of minimum wages for sectors that need statutory intervention.
Emotionally and politically, it is an easy thing to talk of such a pan-African wage consensus. Technically and administratively, it could be a nightmare. First, in this study, it was not easy to find a common framework of wages on the continent. The closest and relevant to this is the online database of Mywage.com with 16 African countries. This framework had challenges. Minimum wages were given in national currencies of the different countries. Some countries like Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have detailed and numerous indicators on minimum wage structures. This was not the case with other countries such as Namibia, Uganda, eSwatini, Malawi, Rwanda, Liberia, Ghana, and the Gambia mostly with a monolithic national minimum wage, or rather not more than two categories. Nomenclature of occupations varies from country to country, even if some might be referring to the same occupation. For example, a domestic worker could be referred to as a Custodian in Kenya.
Notwithstanding all these, the framework was still useful, and a few adjustments were necessary. For example, national wage currencies were standardised by converting to Namibian Dollar. Nomenclature of occupations were standardised around the higher-modal labels or names, and outliers eliminated on purpose. In this way, country and continental minimum wage averages of standardised occupations could be computed as illustrated in the figure below. This may not be accurate for every case, nor are the proposed averages prescriptive to any country. However, the values can go far in giving a mere sense of what is most likely for each occupation or for some countries and may thus form a baseline or premise for a negotiated consensus for a pan-African minimum wage framework. By synthetically comparing and contrasting the various 109 elements of occupations for minimum wages in the 16 different countries, a simplified and consensual framework of 12 occupational categories was produced eventually. See Figure 14. The values of each of these occupations indicate the number of sub-occupations that falls under each of the occupational category as extracted from the data.
After standardising all the currencies to the Namibian Dollar, an average value of minimum wages for each occupation was produced. Figure 14 below presents a possible minimum wage structure for all the twelve occupational categories.
Eventually, a minimum wage framework—Annexure I below, was developed. While not prescriptive to any country or AU itself, the framework can set a basis for minimum wage comparisons appraisal for implementation of the AfCFTA along the freely moving labour. The frameworks suggest indicative hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly minimum wage thresholds for the proposed 12 occupations, per country and an ideal continental minimum standard.
5.4. Basic Performance Standards
As free trading across the continent matures, there should be more levelling of the plain field in unifying education standards, policy frameworks, wages, and other aspects. As this takes hold, it will equally become inevitably imperative to harmonize the continental labour performance standards.
Such harmonization may be required and will thus manifest at various industrial sectors as well as different spaces—local, central, sub-regional and continental. It is not possible to have a common performance standard though, but indeed possible to compare countries with the aim to help those below average to seek for improvement. Jointly, the World Economic Forum, African Union, World Bank and OECD runs the Global Competitiveness Index against which African Countries can peer review themselves. A widely accepted measure of performance is productivity. In terms of labour, this may be defined as the “total
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Figure 14. Pan African occupations for hourly minimum wage regime (N$). Source: Authors work—Based on rework or data from Mywage.com database.
amount of real GDP per year, divided by the number of employed persons that year” (Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, 2015b: pp. 15-17) . As the Namibian government acknowledges (Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, 2015b) , there is a need to not only take account of national productivities, but rather go sub-regional (at RECs Levels) as well as continental. This is important, especially as we look at sectors in which the African Continental Free Trade Agreement is likely to have a higher employment growth rate, for example, on Other Manufacturing, Machinery, Mineral Products, Textile Clothing and so on, as discussed earlier (Section 2.1).
To this end, African governments would be best advised to engender and embrace an optimum labour productivity standard, but also do that in line with the tenets of the fourth Industrial revolution in which artificial intelligence and the internet can be positioned to enhance continental labour productivity and competitiveness. A farmer in Namibia could make use of the internet to compare livestock prices and thereby decide where to sell best for higher returns of their products. In this way, the World Bank (2016: p. 41) , holds the view that “for the economy, the most profound impact of the internet on individuals is that it makes workers more productive. However, maximum care should be exercised as jumping into the digital revolution blindly could have detrimental effects at various levels. For example, if routine jobs are to be allocated and taken up by computers, unemployment and eroding tax revenue base could ensue—with dire consequences to the state and individual households. There are also indicators (World Bank, 2016) , although digital revolution has great potential in enhancing labour productivity, it accelerates the income disparity gap between higher and lower income groups. Namibia being the country with the second highest genie-coefficient after South Africa in the world, policy makers will need to be extremely careful with the extent to which the fourth industrial revolution can be put to use, especially in the context of labour productivity. By extension, this caution might suffice for other African countries.
That said, it would appear that majority of African economies have adopted the planned economic systems (Stigliz & Driffill, 2000) with five yearly development plans, accompanied by some form of performance management systems to gauge outcome. Namibia is a case at hand. Since Independence, the Namibian planned economy has been rolled out based on national development plan (NDP) every five years. The latest NDP5 has much clearer measures, desired indicators, and targets (both quantitative and qualitative) (National Planning Commission, 2017) . According to the plan, (National Planning Commission, 2017: p. 33) government seeks to increase manufacturing sector growth to N$20.6 billion by 2022 through aligning skills, knowledge, and attitude to the job demand in the labour market, as a way of improving productivity. What is more of interest is the newly adopted practice of incorporating both the UNDP Sustainable Development Goals and the first 10-Year Implementation Plan of the AU’s Agenda 2063, into the NDP. If this approach was to be generalised by countries on the continent, it can form a baseline from which most of the labour performance on the continent could be standardised. This is not prescriptive, but other countries on the continent can equally bring to the table, their various performance management experiences. Doubt, however, remain on the private sector where approaches may be even further divergent from country to country.
5.5. Job Grading Systems
Job grading is a function of labour practices. It is also a microcosm to compensation management (Kavei, 2010) . We do not anticipate job grading to pose any significant challenge for labour mobility in a free traded Africa, especially in the early formative days. However, as continental integration moves on to its maturation stage of Common Monitory and Political unification, there will be an increasing need for integration and harmonization of job grading system.
On the other hand, it may be argued that as soon as qualification systems and subsequently, performance standards are harmonized across the continent, a common job grading becomes hard to ignore. This is so because, inherently, compensation traditions and practices anywhere in the world are based on fair treatment philosophy, and such grading is aligned to identified occupational categories in a given market or industry (Kavei, 2015; Burke, 2008) .
As and when the burning need to carry out a continental Job Grading, with the view to standardize wages and pay, proper care needs to be exercised. First, doing a Job Grading is a technical area where specialised books and publications exist. As such, technical input will need to be sourced for such an undertaking as and when the time arises. Secondly, it is a known phenomenon of a developing economy that the public sector would usually be the single largest employer—Namibia and SADC without exception. It would perhaps make sense, therefore, to start continental Job Grading and wage structure of the public sector institutions—an exercise that would ultimately set a premise from which another sector would initiate theirs. This is the case even in federal systems such as the USA (Crosby, 2004) , possibly in the EU.
As a pre-emptive or rather precursory guidance, there are specific element one need to consider in engendering a job grading for an integrated or free-trading region where labour mobility becomes a norm. These are, but not limited to:
● Definition and Determination of Levels of Occupational Hierarchies
● Benchmarking of Job Grading on the Continent through a survey
● Determination of a Pay Policy
● Scaling and Coding of Levels of Educational Knowledge
● Scaling and Coding of Years of Experiences
● Scaling and Coding Levels of Acquired Skills
● Creating a Standardised and Politically Acceptable Pay Structure
Overall, the job grading and, eventually the ensuing salary structure should not be oblivious to other social denominations such as a marital status, number of children one has, their ages, and whether one hails from a marginalised part of society or not.
5.6. Affirmative Action
Manifestation of Affirmative Action varies from country to country. According to (Jenkins & Moses, 2016) , Affirmative Action exists all over the world and is given different names such as Positive Discrimination, Reservations, Quotas, Alternative Access, Employment Equity, and many others. Practiced in many different sectors, Affirmative Action has the primary purpose of promoting the interests of underrepresented social groups on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, class, geography, physical ability, age and others (Moses & Jenkins, 2014) . To-date, it appears that the African Union has overtly pronounced itself on gender-related Affirmative Action. This is illustrated by its Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (African Union Commission, 2003) . Among others, the protocol seeks to affirm African women on their rights to dignity, security, justice, peace, education, social welfare, health, food, housing, sustainable development, and inheritance.
Furthermore, the AU’s Agenda 2063 commits “…to develop and implement affirmative policies and advocacy to ensure women’s increased access to land inputs and ensure that at least 30% of agricultural financing are accessed by women” (Africa Union, 2014: p. 15) . While this is commendable, literature search in this study yielded very little to nothing with regard to affirmative action in the area of labour practices on the continent. This would mean more work needs to be done in this regard. Employment inequity, as we know it from the apartheid experiences of South Africa and Namibia has the potential to trigger mass protests, civil unrests and indeed revolutions. It is no surprise therefore, both Namibia and South Africa – reminiscent of Apartheid, have developed and promulgated labour-related Affirmative Action policies (Affirmative Action (Employment) Act, Act No 29 of 1998) (Government of Namibia, 1998) , and the Employment Equity Act, No 55 of 1998, respectively. These policies were enacted with the sole purpose of mending racial disparities left by apartheid in the workplace. However, critiques hold the view that these policies have lost focus of redeeming those that were underrepresented in the past (blacks), it has no expiry date and now used to enrich the politically well-connected elites - leaving the deserving designated masses still in abject poverty (Zondi, 2009: p. 82) .
Because of such inherent limitations with Affirmative Action in regard to Labour, one hastens to caution its pan-African adaptation without careful appraisal of underlying demographic, historical, political and economic realities of each member state. At the surface, it is a policy dimension worth considering in a free trade continent but requires much more deep debates and consultation for the continent to come up with a more inclusive and rationed framework as labour becomes ubiquitous.
5.7. Labour Hire Practices
It appears, different countries view the term Labour Hire from different perspectives, though mainly influenced by international statutes. One such statute is the ILO Convention on Forced Labour, Convention No. 29 (ILO, 1930) . The thrust of the convention is to entice all ILO members states who ratifies it to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms, including child labour, forced military conscriptions. Also, as illustrated in section 4.5 earlier, South Africa has the single highest concentration of migrant workers on the continent. Historically this is due to the labour demand created by the once booming mining industry from the 1960s to the present perhaps. Until recently this has always been the largest economy on the continent (Kavei, Msiska, & Mutorwa, 2014) and thus commands a significant pull-effect for migrant inflow. In the same historical sense, there were a lot of labour hire companies that galvanised for cheap labour in neighbouring countries to South Africa, most of which were known for inhuman labour practices.
To this end, countries mostly victim to some form of forced labour and coercive labour practices of such recruitment agencies during their colonial time would be quick to outlaw any forms of it, including banning companies associated with forced labour systems.
Namibia is one such classic example. In 2007, the Labour Act of 2007 outlawed labour hire practices. However, this was overturned through a court of appeal lodged by a labour hire company—Africa Personnel Services, in 2009, viewing the ban as unconstitutional, unreasonable infringement of the Constitution’s protection of the right to practise any profession, or carry on any occupation, trade or business (Menges, 2009) . In the judgement, the court was reported to have “acknowledged from the outset that the issue before it was an emotive and politically charged one, considering the role that contract labour had played in Namibia during the country’s apartheid past”.
From this lesson, other countries that did not go through the bitter experiences of apartheid may not have similar emotive reprisals against labour hire practices and thus may not be so much of an issue to compromise the agenda of continental free trade in any way possible. Nonetheless, there are clear indications that forced labour practices are banned in several countries on the continent in tandem with the ILO Conventions. These include countries like Botswana (Employment Act, 1982, As Amended), Uganda (Employment Act of 2006), Tanzania (30 January 1962), Liberia, The Gambia (4 September 2000), Lesotho (Labour Code Order, Order No. 24 of 1992), Rwanda (Law No. 51/2001 of 30/21/2001 Establishing the Labour Code) and Malawi (Employment Act, Act No. 6 of 2000) - to mention, but a few.
Although forced labour may arguably be not so much of an issue anymore, it remains a significant part of an increasingly raging and ugly human trafficking threat in (women and girls) the form of, and by labour hire agencies (UNODC, 2009) . In 2015, the Tanzanian government is reported to have…“suspended more than 70 recruitment agents for domestic workers, following claims that they had been recruiting housemaids for Oman where they have been subjected to gross violation of human rights” (Daily News Reporter, 2018) . This does not appear to be an isolated incident to Tanzania alone. (UNODC, 2009) contends that East, West and a bit of Central Africa, are hot continental spots of trafficking in persons. With the advent of free trade, labour migration will be unlikely to divorce from human trafficking, and countries will therefore need to put more control measures in place to cub it, while keeping a watchful eye on labour hire agencies—learning from peers like Tanzania and others.
6. Summary and Recommendations
The continent is rising. On this buoyance comes the reckoning of augmenting intra continental trade. Despite challenges of slow take-off in the ratification process, uneven pre-consultative approach and perceived higher levels of unemployment, the agreement benefits outweigh such shortcomings. Benefits include:
● Once trade barriers are removed, consumer prices are expected to drop.
● If free trade comes with free movement of labour, workforce will benefit from unlocking of potential demand in their occupational areas.
● GDP and employment will increase by 0.97 and 1.17 percent with a possible creation of 7920 new jobs for Namibia, tough limited gains on the mining sector.
● Caution needs to be exercised in exempting products from trade tariffs in order to avoid a complete erosion of minimum revenue that might be needed to sustain the operations of the AfCFTA Secretariat.
● AfCFTA will require substantive capitalization for its initial operational logistics.
● Very same reasons that hold back the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the highly celebrated Tripatite Free Trade Agreement between SADC, EAC and COMESA are the very hurdles that will still hold back the AfCFTA from moving forward.
Current Status of Labour Movement
● Arguably, for a number of reasons such as age, populations size and possibly language hegemony, EAC appears to be leading the pack, followed by COMESA while SADC seems to be clearly the worst performer of the three RECs for achievement in the six stages of regional integration—Free trade, Customs Union, Common Market, Economic Union, Monetary Union and Political Union.
● Free movement of people in the region is placed at a second-level priority and perhaps not much comprehensive commitment should be expected from the regional leadership.
● At policy level, SADC makes provision for 90-days free movement of its citizens mainly for social than employment purpose, although limited by occasional xenophobic attacks in South Africa and none-ratification of the Free Movement Protocol of 2005 by some member states. Regional employment of migrants varies by country and Mauritius takes the lion’s share of 80% while Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa have the lowest share.
● The reluctance of political will to allow movement of people looking for jobs is true for COMESA as well. A free movement protocol exists but stifled by lack of executional power.
● Exceptionally, EAC nationals are the only ones of the three RECs whose movement can be for purpose of employment and establishment of businesses. In terms of the rate of employment of migrant workers, Tanzania comes first above 70%, followed by Uganda about (70%) and Rwanda, just shy of 60%. On average, EAC appears to be very favourable in terms of employment of migrant workers, and maybe it will be the Capital of experimentation of Africa’s Free Trade project.
Some Drivers of Continental Migrations
● There are parts of the continent with a higher trade Union density and some with a lower density. For Namibian investors bent on taking advantage of free trade, areas with low trade union density would arguably imply better industrial peace than areas where trade union density is higher.
Drivers of Migration
According to ILO and the Joint Labour Migration Programme Labour movement is driven by several factors. Among those identified and discussed in the study are Industrial relation, earnings, social protection, unemployment and whether one is skilled or not. The cumulative effect of all these factors is that migrant labour distribution across the continent varies.
● Trade unionization is high in Egypt (43.2%), Sierra Leone (41%), Niger (35.6), moderate in Mauritius (28.1%), South Africa (28.1%), Zambia (26%), Tanzania (24.3%), Tunisia (20.4%), Ghana (20.6%) and Namibia (17.5), and low in Seychelles (1.5%), Malawi (5.5%), Zimbabwe (7.5%) and Ethiopia (9.6%).
● If compensation scales or earnings are to attract any migrant workers, then the top ten countries of choice are Cape Verde, Nigeria, South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Namibia, Sudan, Botswana, Niger, Eswatini and Zambia.
● If migrant workers were to value social protection aspects such as old age pension, social security, and health care, the number one group of countries to consider would be Tunisia, Botswana, Gabon, Eswatini, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Mozambique, and Algeria, in order of strength.
● Considering employability and job security indicated by the levels of unemployment, young professional migrants are likely to migrate to countries such as Mali, Madagascar, Ghana, Ethiopia, Benin, Tanzania, Liberia, Mozambique, Uganda, and Seychelles with 0.5%, 1.4%, and 1.8 %, 2.2%, 2.3%, 2.3%, 2.7%, 2.9%, 3.1%, 3.4%, 3.6% and 3.7% measure of unemployment respectively.
● Due to lack of data specifically on skilled labour across the continent, it was not easy to demonstrate the geographical dispersion of skills. Arguably, though, there should be a positive correlation between skills concentration and migrant labour distribution across the continent – subject for further research. Going by this assumption, the highest concentration of migrant stocks (as for skills) is in South Africa with a population of 4 million, which is 16.2% of all the 24.7 million migrant stocks of the continent (IOM, 2019) . Following this, other significant concentration of migrant stocks appears in East and West Africa where Uganda has 1.7 million, Ethiopia 1.2 and Nigeria had 1.2 million each, Kenya with 1.1 million and the DRC with 879.2. Namibia had a paltry 95.1 thousand migrants only. Relatively, this does not make her a hot bed for immigration probably because of slow economic growth outlook.
Some Imperative Adjustments
● At the moment the regime of job entry requirements put emphasis on recruitment and retention of country citizens while being prohibitive of non-citizen to the same employment opportunities. With the advent of AfCFTA, this must change. As we sign the AU national anthem, so be it for jobs for Africans, wherever they are on the continent. AU citizens should be accorded an equal opportunity of employment in all countries that ratify the trade agreement. This would mean, Namibia should amend, and/or repeal legislation such as Immigration Control Act, Act No 7 of 1993 pertaining to Employment Permit, Employment Visa, Study Visa and Study Permits, Employment Service Act (Act No 8 of 2011), extending specific preferential treatment of African citizen to the same level of benefit and privileges enjoyed by Namibians.
● Trade unions come a long way in the history of protecting and advancing the interest of workers. As such, although their visibility in the pre-AfCFTA negotiations fared poorly, they can still play a significant role in protecting rights and interests of migrant workers, provided they are so empowered and the right enabling environment is created.
● As fair treatment towards bargain-level labour, it would be imperative for the AfCFTA to work towards a uniform minimum wage system on the continent to make the agreement a high-impact and inclusive blueprint. In its review of 16 countries’ minimum wages, this study developed a versatile and indicative framework for hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly minimum wages by continent, country, and by sector.
● In correspondence to a standardized minimum wage possibility, there may be a need for a standardized performance management approach. This becomes necessary as mutually traded economies work towards a common and competitive labour productivity, aided by the tools of the fourth industrial revolution.
● As performance needs rewarding and recognition, there may also be a greater need for linking and aligning compensation systems between countries. Of course, this can be a technical area that may require starting with integrating job-grading systems, at the public sector – not forgetting other social denominations such as marital status, number of children one has, age, and whether one hails from a marginalized background.
● As part of the Agenda 2063 goal of lifting African out of poverty, AfCFTA may not afford to lose focus of affirming the previously disadvantaged like women, minorities, and others. In so doing, though, labour-related affirmative hiring, development and promotions should not fall victim to redemption of the politically well-connected elites - leaving the deserving designated masses still in abject poverty.
● Under the influence of ILO Conventions and to the extent that labour hire practices imply condonation and shielding of forced labour, many countries have outlawed it. With the advent of free trade, labour migration will be unlikely to divorce from human trafficking, and countries will therefore need to put more control measures in place to cub it, while keeping a watchful eye on labour hire agencies as done in Tanzania.
Annexure 1. A Minimum Wage Framework for Select African Countries