The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines net migration rate as the difference between the immigration and emigration rates in a country during a given timeframe, usually a year.
Also, the World Bank defines it as “the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants, including citizens and noncitizens”.
Typically, a country’s net migration rate is negative if the number of emigrants exceeds the number of immigrants. In other words, the net migration is negative when more people relocate from a country compared to those moving to the country.
On the flip side, net migration is positive when more people are immigrating to a country than those emigrating from it. For better clarity, consider the quote below from Statista.
“The positive net immigration rate also indicated that the number of international migrants coming to South Sudan was higher than that of South Sudanese people leaving the nation. On the other hand, Eritrea had a net migration of minus 10.1 per 1,000 inhabitants. The negative rate indicated a number of emigrants higher than that of immigrants.”
As you can see from the foregoing, the keywords are emigration and immigration. The former has to do with people leaving their own country while the latter is about coming to live in a country different from yours.
The net migration rate for the entire African continent in 2022 is -0.369 per 1000 inhabitants.
Below are 20 countries with the highest migration rates in 2022, according to Statista. Countries with positive migration rates are listed first, followed by those with negative migration rates.
10 African countries with the highest positive net migration rates
- South Sudan: 20.97 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Equatorial Guinea: 13.96 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Burundi: 7.09 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Djibouti: 4.59 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Gabon: 3.67 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Botswana: 2.81 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Sierra Leone: 2.03 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Ivory Coast: 1.18 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Seychelles: 0.86 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Benin: 0.24 per 1,000 inhabitants
10 African countries with the highest negative net migration rates
- Eritrea: -10.11 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Sao Tome and Principe: -7.19 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Eswatini: -6.16 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Zimbabwe: -4.83 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Lesotho: -4.55 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Guinea Bissau: -3.63 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Uganda: -3.26 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Central African Republic: -3.22 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Rwanda: -3.21 per 1,000 inhabitants
- Mali: -3.08 per 1,000 inhabitants
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