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IOM estimated that 30,000 African professionals a year leave the continent for industrial countries. The 2008-09 recession encouraged some Africans to return, especially those who had been employed in IT and finance. However, few health care professionals were reportedly returning.

African economies expanded at an average annual rate of six percent between 2004 and 2008; growth is expected to slow to three percent in 2009. Africa attracted a record $72 billion in foreign direct investment in 2008, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, but FDI is expected to fall in 2009.

The UN's Economic Development in Africa Report 2009 recommended that African nations accelerate the implementation of freedom of movement provisions in regional free-trade agreements. Migrant-receiving countries often worry about wage depression and the displacement of local workers due to migrants, as highlighted by riots in South Africa in May-June 2008 that led to over 60 deaths. Migrant-sending countries often decry the brain drain and worry about the abuse of their citizens abroad.

About 17 million of the world's 191 million migrants in 2005 were in Africa. These migrants were concentrated in Ivory Coast, 2.4 million; Ghana, 1.7 million; South Africa, 1.1 million; Nigeria, one million; and Tanzania, 800,000. Africa received about $23 billion in remittances in 2007, and most went to North African countries such as Morocco and Algeria.

The Abuja Treaty of 1991 established five African economic regions and called on the countries in each to allow the free movement of people and workers to promote regional economic cooperation and growth. However, establishing freedom of movement within these regions has been difficult. For example, the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has several times delayed the implementation of freedom-of-movement, and ECOWAS member states have deported ECOWAS nationals during recessions.

Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda formed the East African Community (EAC) in 1967. It collapsed in 1977, but was revived in 1999 and added Burundi and Rwanda in 2007. The goal is to create a single currency by 2015.

South Africa. South Africa is the largest economy in Africa and a magnet for migrant workers. The South African Development Community envisions freedom of movement, but the SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of the Free Movement of Persons has not been implemented because member countries have not yet established comprehensive population registers and secure documents.

South Africa had a 24 percent unemployment rate in summer 2009; 700,000 jobs were lost between summer 2008 and 2009. To cushion the impacts on the unemployed, the South African government has the developing world's most extensive welfare program. It provides, for instance, the elderly grants of $120 a month.

Until apartheid ended in 1994, most Blacks lived in segregated townships and rural areas. Since then, industries such as agriculture and mining have mechanized, eliminating rather than creating jobs. The new jobs available require skilled workers, but many jobless Blacks in townships and rural areas did not complete school. These workers face the choice of doing farm work for $5 a day, seeking higher-wage construction work? but paying up to $2 a day for rides to construction sites, or not working.

Many of South Africa's jobless have never held a formal-sector job, and the question is how to bring such workers into employment. South Africa's formal-sector labor laws raise wages and make it hard to fire workers, which makes employers reluctant to hire unskilled workers. Unions resist liberalization of labor laws.

Many Zimbabweans migrate to South Africa to work or engage in petty trade. In September 2009, a recruitment center was opened at the Beitbridge crossing at the Limpopo river to allow South African farmers to recruit Zimbabwean workers.

South Africa will host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, an event expected to draw up to 500,000 visitors to South Africa. Most nationals of neighboring countries can easily obtain a 90-day visitor visa; some visitors are expected to remain and work.

US-Africa. President Obama visited Ghana in July 2009 to highlight the peaceful transition of power after close elections in December 2008. Obama acknowledged the legacy of colonialism, but said it not an excuse for African nations failing to build prosperous, democratic societies. Obama delivered a similar message to US Blacks at the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, saying that they held their futures in their hands.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (www.agoa.gov) was enacted in 2000 to help African nations grow via exports by waiving US tariffs on goods from 39 qualifying sub-Saharan African countries. In Kenya, AGOA led to the creation of thousands of garment-sewing jobs. However, over 90 percent of AGOA's $66 billion in exports in 2008 were petroleum products, followed by minerals; these are often produced with the help of expatriates.

After the end of the Multifiber Agreement in 2005, cheaper garments from China and Asia displaced African-sewn garments. Kenya had a peak 36,000 garment jobs in 2005 and 26,000 in 2009. Garment factories pay higher than average wages because buyers require them to adhere to local labor laws, but only one of the 18 remaining garment factories in Kenya is Kenyan-owned. At the Alltex factory, Kenyan workers earn $110 a month, about four times the wage in Bangladesh.

USAID had a staff of 2,200 and a budget of $13.2 billion in 2008, disbursing most of its money to contractors to carry out projects around the world. As USAID expands, there are questions about whether it should be more tightly integrated with the Department of State or independent of DOS.