A majority of Africans support the free movement of people across borders, but many remain cautious about immigration into their own countries, Afrobarometer’s new African insights flagship report shows.
While citizens are quite open to having foreigners in their midst, they are evenly split on whether immigrants are good or bad for the national economy, and majorities would prefer to see fewer or no job seekers and refugees admitted into their country.
One unexpected finding stands out: In Africa, unlike elsewhere, it is the most educated, the most skilled, and the wealthiest who express the greatest resistance to immigrants.
The 2026 African insights report, the third in Afrobarometer’s annual flagship series, draws on 50,961 face-to-face interviews conducted in 38 countries in 2024/2025. It examines citizen views on five aspects of Africa’s relationship with the world: trade, migration, great-power competition, global voice, and climate change.
The findings reveal that the proportion of Africans who have considered emigrating has increased over the past decade, significantly surpassing levels of interest recorded in other global regions. The desire to emigrate is highest among the young and the educated, and is driven overwhelmingly by economic motivations.
The new report is accompanied by country scorecards that provide an at-a-glance snapshot of key indicators on international relations for each of the surveyed countries.
Key findings
- A majority (56%) of Africans say people in their region should be able to move freely across international borders, while 40% prefer that their governments limit cross-border movement to protect citizens’ access to jobs and opportunities (Figure 1).
- Just one in four citizens (23%) say it is “easy” or “very easy” to move across borders in order to work or trade, compared to 63% who describe it as difficult (Figure 2).
- Three-quarters (77%) of respondents say they would like or not mind having immigrants or foreign workers as neighbours (Figure 3).
- But citizens are divided on whether immigrants are good (45%) or bad (44%) for their country’s economy (Figure 4).
- Majorities would prefer to see fewer or no job seekers (64%) and refugees (70%) admitted into their country (Figure 5).
- Higher levels of education are associated with lower support for admitting job seekers in Africa. Similarly, higher-skilled workers are less likely to report favourable attitudes than their lower-skilled counterparts.
- Nearly half (45%) of Africans have considered emigrating, including 25% who say they have thought about it “a lot” (Figure 6).
- West Africans (34%) are more than twice as likely as East and North Africans (both 16%) to have given serious thought to finding new homes abroad.
- Across 31 countries where this question was also asked in Round 7 (2016/2018), there has been a 7-percentage-point increase in the proportion considering emigration “a lot,” from 18% to 25% (Figure 7).
- Serious thoughts of looking abroad are particularly common among youth (32% of those aged 18-35) and the most educated citizens (31%).
- Half (50%) of potential emigrants (those who have considered it at least “a little bit”) say they would go in search of work, and another 29% would leave to escape economic hardship.
- Among potential emigrants, about one in five say they would go somewhere within the subregion (17%) or elsewhere in Africa (5%). About one in three (32%) would opt for Europe, followed closely by North America (28%).
- Across 31 countries where the question was also asked in 2016/2018, the proportion preferring to move to another African country has dropped from 36% to 26%.
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, nonpartisan survey research network that provides reliable data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life. Ten survey rounds in up to 45 countries have been completed since 1999. Round 10 surveys (2024/2025) cover 38 countries.
Afrobarometer’s National Partners conduct face-to-face interviews with nationally representative samples of adults in the language of the respondent’s choice that yield country-level results with margins of error of +/-2 to +/-3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.