Lamola Proposes Continent-Wide Framework on Migration

Minister of International Relations Ronald Lamola has called for a continent-wide dialogue among African states to manage irregular migration, telling the Africa and African Diaspora Conference that South Africa cannot absorb the pressures of irregular migration on its own.

His proposed mechanism is concrete rather than rhetorical: a structured, continent-level process aimed at addressing the root causes of anti-migrant sentiments and developing pan-African responses to violence, discrimination and xenophobia. In his framing, that dialogue is the operating structure needed to convert a shared problem into a shared process with deliverable outcomes.

“South Africa continues to call for a continent-wide dialogue to address the root causes of anti-migrant sentiments and develop pan-African responses to violence, discrimination and xenophobia,” Lamola said.

Underpinning the call is evidence. Lamola cited recent Afrobarometer research showing that growing hostility towards migrants is a concerning reality across the continent. The pattern, in his view, is not confined to any single country and therefore cannot be resolved by any single country. It is continental in scale, and that is precisely the basis of his argument that South Africa should not be left to shoulder the pressures of irregular migration alone.

The minister was equally firm on conduct within South Africa’s own borders. Attacks against migrants are unacceptable, he stressed, and deserve the strongest condemnation. That position sits alongside, not in tension with, his call for dialogue. On his account, a workable migration response depends both on cooperation between states and on respect for the rights and dignity of all people.

Meanwhile, the conference remarks land amid strained continental conversations on migration. DIRCO has previously called for a continent-wide immigration summit, and Lamola has separately called for restraint when African countries discuss illegal immigration tensions. The Presidency has also noted a continental campaign to isolate South Africa following anti-illegal immigration protests. Taken together, these threads show a government working on two fronts at once: pressing for structured, continent-level processes while managing immediate tensions on the ground.

For Lamola, the through-line is execution. Dialogue is not presented as an abstraction but as the delivery vehicle for concrete outcomes: addressing root causes, responding to violence, discrimination and xenophobia, and relieving the disproportionate pressure currently falling on South Africa. The measure of success, in this framing, is whether African states actually convene, coordinate and produce those pan-African responses, rather than leaving individual countries to absorb the strain in isolation.

The Afrobarometer findings give that work a deadline of sorts. If hostility towards migrants is growing across the continent, the window in which dialogue can shape outcomes before sentiment hardens further is narrowing. Lamola’s argument is that the continent’s governments already hold the tools: collective response, mutual respect for rights and dignity, and a shared platform for addressing the drivers of irregular migration. What remains is for African states to commit to using those tools together, and for South Africa’s role to be defined as a participant in that collective effort rather than a lone bearer of its burdens.

His message to the conference, in essence, was that irregular migration is a shared African challenge that no single state can implement its way out of, and that the continent’s response must be built through dialogue, anchored in the rights and dignity of all people, and delivered collectively. Whether that continent-wide dialogue is actually convened, and how soon, will determine whether the pan-African responses he describes move from call to delivery.