E/CN.4/1503
Annex III page 2
4.
The cause for such a mass migration from state to state is not hard to find: Upper Volta's GNP of only $ 180, which makes it one of the poorest countries in the world, is only one sixth of that of the Ivory Coast ($
($ 1 040), a country where the poorest paid is still better off than most of the highest-paid in its poorer neighbour. The lack of work in urban areas and the fact that rural people, who make up 80 per cent of the population, face problems of poor, heavily-eroded soil and are without any work for eight months of the year,
months of the year, combine with problems of overpopulation to account for the massive outflow of 350 000 people in the first five years of the decade alone (though a return
return of about half that number mitigated the net loss to the country).
5. Though Upper Volta would like to have some of its expatri- ates home, it would first have to create the jobs to attract them back. It is reported that the Ivory Coast would like to mi- put more of its nationals into some of the jobs held by grants but the population is not anxious to accept work in plantations which the majority of the expatriates have come to
do.
6. Meanwhile, remittances made by the 1.3 million expatriate workers mentioned averaged $ 177 million in the early years of the decade, or 7.4 per cent of their countries' average annual export earnings.
7. A considerable amount of movement within countries of West Africa has been noted also, from the interior towards the coast and from rural to urban areas, affecting regional and national
individual countries development within
and contributing
problems of urban growth.
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8. Finally, as a result of changes in the immigration regu- lations of Canada and the United States, there has been in the 1970s an annual exodus of some 6 000 to Canada and 5 000 10 000 to the United States, mostly of non-manual workers whose departure constitutes brain
a
drain of growing proportions, with consequent socio-economic effects in the home countries.
AMERICAS
9.
The considerable amount of migration within and from Spanish-speaking countries of the American continent accounted for the movement of millions of people in the last decade, especially taking into account that from Mexico to the United States and Canada.
In addition, there has been ongoing out-migration from the
the Caribbean basin (though the mass movement to the United Kingdom had ceased), and upon acquiring independence from the Netherlands in 1975, the population of Suriname of some 400 000 was depleted by
400 000 was depleted by the exodus of more than a tenth (especially professional and skilled people) to the Dutch metropolis.
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