1 Introduction
Climate change and variability is a defining feature of the Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa. Since the 1950s, this region has been through “the most dramatic example worldwide of climate variability that has been directly and quantitatively measured.”1 Very wet 1950s and 1960s were replaced by very dry 1970s and 1980s, while the 1990s and 2000s have witnessed major annual precipitation variability. While predictions of future climate in the region remain highly contested, inter-annual and inter-seasonal precipitation variability is likely to increase, and both prolonged droughts and extreme rainfall events will probably become more frequent in African drylands like the Sudano-Sahelian climate zone.2
In the Sudano-Sahelian region, climatic conditions are critical for rural households, for whom rain-fed subsistence agriculture represents the main livelihood.3 The impact of climate variability on human populations in the region has consequently attracted immense international political and scholarly interest. A large part of this research has focused on how the rural populations of the Sudano-Sahelian region have adapted to the climate crisis experienced since the early 1970s by diversifying their agricultural and non-agricultural livelihood strategies.4
Of these, arguably, the most common and well-described is circular labour migration. This concept describes a process by which rural dwellers migrate to areas with employment opportunities to engage in wage labour but stay only temporarily before returning to their villages of origin.5 In the West African Sudano-Sahelian region, close correlations between this strategy and historical as well as recent precipitation patterns have been identified since the early 1970s.6 For a large part, rural dwellers engage in this strategy to counter the negative impact of drought and precipitation variability on rain-fed agriculture. In Burkina Faso, circular labour migration has been widely practised since the early 1970s and is similarly associated with climate variability and declining agricultural production following the wet 1950s and 1960s.7 For the critical climatic period from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, it has been estimated that as many as sixty per cent of Burkinabe men and 15 per cent of women who left their villages after the age of 15 returned within ten years.8
Based upon ethnographic research conducted in the capital Ouagadougou in 2013, this chapter explores the contemporary practice of circular labour migration in Burkina Faso. By focusing on explanations given by rural migrants residing in Ouagadougou regarding the practice of circular labour migration, this chapter provides a qualitative insight for the period from the early 1950s until the present into the question of why rural in-migrants have increasingly chosen to stay in Ouagadougou rather than return to their villages of origin. A growing rural population, climate variability, and lack of land and economic opportunities are among the most important reasons given for leaving the village. These factors also play a role when a choice regarding return migration is made, but climate-related environmental impacts on agriculture and, in particular, more but not better rains are shown to have a crucial negative impact on decisions about return migration among migrants in Ouagadougou.
This finding has implications for our understanding of circular labour migration in this region. In recent literature, calls have been made for empirical research exploring the impact of climate change and variability on circular labour migration in sub-Saharan Africa (ssa).9 Much of this literature comes from research on urbanisation. Hitherto, it has been difficult to link rural-to-urban migration to urban growth in ssa because of the high rates of return migration.10 If, as is hypothesised,11 climate change and variability across the continent make return migration less attractive due to corresponding environmental damage, it is likely that rural-to-urban migration will become more permanent.12 Such a change will compound urban growth rates13 but also influence circular labour migration patterns.
This chapter begins with an introduction to the research setting, focusing first on climatic conditions in Burkina Faso since the 1950s, second on circular labour migration, and third on Ouagadougou. I will then discuss my methodology as well as the results of my study. The latter will show that contemporary circular migration in Burkina Faso is a complex process influenced by economic, social, political, and environmental events of recent occurrence. However, a major finding is that return migration is, according to the informants, increasingly disregarded as an option due to continued precipitation variability and its impact on agricultural production across Burkina Faso. In the subsequent discussion, the results are embedded in recent literature on climate change and variability and (circular) labour migration in sub-Saharan Africa.
2 Research Setting
Burkina Faso is a poor, landlocked country located in the Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa (Map 5.1). It is ranked 183 out of 187 nations on the latest Human Development Index, has an annual gdp per capita of usd 1,149, an under-five mortality rate of 176 per 1,000 live births, and an adult literacy rate of 28.7 per cent.14 Burkina Faso has approximately 14 million inhabitants, a number expected to reach 19 million by 2020.15 Subsistence agricultural production is the mainstay of most households in the country.16
Rainfall anomalies in the Sahel. The figure captures the wet 1950s and 1960s and the dry 1970s and 1980s and the increased variability in precipitation since the early 1990s
Source: lebel and ali (2009)
2.1 Climate Variability in Burkina Faso, 1950–2000s
The most recent period of recurring drought to hit the Sudano-Sahelian region, including Burkina Faso, commenced in the early 1970s (Figure 5.1).17 Following very wet years in the 1950s and 1960s, annual rainfall fell by twenty to thirty per cent in the following three decades, which included major drought periods in the early 1970s and in 1983–1984.18 Since the late 1990s, a recovery from dry conditions has been observed as annual rainfall totals have increased in comparison to the previous three decades.19 This is particularly the case for the eastern part of the West African Sudano-Sahelian zone, where Burkina Faso is located.20 However, there are indications that the West African climate might only be changing slowly and that the inter-annual and inter-seasonal precipitation variability recorded since the early 1990s remains high.21 During the 2000s, for example, both prolonged dry and wet periods during the rainy seasons were observed across all three climatic zones of Burkina Faso, as were large inter-annual fluctuations, as exemplified by the contrast in annual rainfall between 2003 and 2004 (Figure 5.1).22 These events illustrate that rainfall continues to fluctuate across the region and over time, “leaving some areas in some years well supplied, yet other regions and other years dry and parched.”23 What has characterised the climate in the region, including Burkina Faso, since the early 1990s is thus not a consistent annual rainfall total average, but a high degree of spatial and temporal variability in precipitation. It is to these dynamic climatic conditions that most environmental and social systems have to adapt.
The Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa, showing the location of Burkina Faso and Ouagadougou
2.2 Circular Labour Migration
A commonly used strategy to deal with fluctuating precipitation that causes either drought or flooding and results in insufficient agricultural production24 is circular labour migration. This is not a new phenomenon in Burkina Faso,25 but the drought at the beginning of the 1970s and its prolonged aftermath—including, since the early 1990s, increased annual and seasonal precipitation variability—have played a significant role in its development across the Sudano-Sahelian region in the last thirty to forty years, including in Burkina Faso.26
Burkinabe migration in the 1950s and 1960s was mainly orientated towards Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. In the 1950s and earlier, labour migration had been closely linked to French colonial structures of production. Burkina Faso, especially the more densely inhabited central and southern regions of the country, was largely used by the French colonial administration as a labour pool for plantation work in Côte d’Ivoire.27 In the post-colonial 1960s, this system was abolished, and restrictions on movement were lifted. As a result, voluntary labour migration, particularly to Ghana, began to be practised, mainly by younger men looking for cash—often for the purpose of marriage.28 During the 1970s, Côte d’Ivoire substituted Ghana as the major migration destination, and circular labour migration became much more common, mainly due to the climatic crisis experienced throughout the country.29 Starting from that time, money for food—no longer available from the predominately rainfed agricultural sector—needed to be made elsewhere. Civil unrest in Côte d’Ivoire during the late 1990s and 2000s, however, has resulted in more migrants going to Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso.30 Typically, migrants leave at the end of the crop harvest (November–December) to earn money, primarily for food.31 They commonly stay between six months and ten years, after which they return home to live and participate in agricultural activities.32 A large section of the migrants continue with circular migration, going back and forth over a number of years until they become too old to endure the often very demanding journeys and physical labour.33
2.3 Ouagadougou
Ouagadougou is a rapidly growing city: in 1950, there were 35,000 inhabitants, in 1970 126,000, in 1990 562,000, and in 2000 900,000; currently, approximately 1.4 million inhabitants live in the city, while by 2020 the population is expected to reach 1.8 million.34 Ouagadougou’s urban area has expanded accordingly from around 25 square kilometres in 1956 to approximately 372 square kilometres in 2012 (see Map 5.2).
Ouagadougou is a hot, bustling place. Located on a flat plain and built with largely similar buildings, it has a fairly homogeneous appearance. Only in a few of the districts, particularly in the central business district, are concrete buildings—usually around four storeys high—and paved streets to be found. By contrast, most of the surrounding residential areas consist of a mix of modern constructions and more traditional clay huts, and almost all secondary streets are unpaved. The constructions found in a particular district depend to a great extent on whether the district is lotis or non lotis (see Map 5.2). The former is a district in which an official subdivision has taken place, implying that houses and plots are formally registered to individual owners. In these districts, houses are often constructed with concrete and organised in a grid structure along large, wide roads. Public amenities, such as sanitation facilities, access to running water, and electricity, are accessible (see Figure 5.3). In the latter, non lotis districts, usually found on the city margins, development occurs without any central planning. Houses are small and constructed with clay, with little space in between each other. Electricity is not available, roads and sanitation are non-existent, and water has to be bought from a common source, often a pump (see Figure 5.2).
The inhabitants of the non lotis districts are often engaged in the informal sector.35 Working on construction sites or as maids, guards, waiters, and mechanics, selling food, beer, coal, or other products, often along the major roads, and making bricks are some of the most common occupations. Both the lotis and non lotis districts are ethnically very diverse, but the majority of residents are Mossi, the traditional inhabitants of the central plateau of Burkina Faso on which Ouagadougou is located. The spoken language in the city is accordingly their language, Mòoré.
Satellite images taken in 2012 showing the difference between lotis and non lotis as seen from above
Source: thorsen, d., “weaving in and out of employment and self-employment”
Typical houses found in non lotis areas of Ouagadougou
Source: google earth
Houses in lotis areas of Ouagadougou. Single-family homes consist of one or two rooms and are always mud-brick constructions
© jonas ø. nielsen
3 Methodology
This study is based on qualitative ethnographic research conducted in September and October 2013 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. It explores the period from the early 1950s to 2013. As such, it covers (1) the dramatic changes in climatic conditions experienced in the Sudano-Sahelian region; (2) the ascendance of circular labour migration in Burkina Faso; and (3) living memory. It incorporates two of the main sources of data collection and data recognised in qualitative research: participant observation and interviews.36 These methods were supplemented by transect walks, informal interviews, and gps measurements. During my research, I lived at a private home in Tampouy, a district in northern Ouagadougou.
Participant observation was chosen for the research because it places the researcher at the heart of the action and allows for the collection of stories, figures and observations about daily life and its routines. To be of value, participant observation must lead to insights, “the noticing of apparently insignificant points, the making of connections.”37 Often this happens because details, however small they might at first appear, add up over time, pointing the way to other aspects and details that might otherwise go unobserved. Among such details, the disregard of return migration was significant for this research.
The basic insights gained via participant observation were explored further in 38 semi-structured interviews with rural in-migrants that lasted between one and two hours. Age, gender, and period of residence in Ouagadougou were important interviewee selection criteria (Table 5.1). Moreover, nearly all peripheral districts of the city were covered, as it is generally there where migrants settle and continue to reside.38 The interviewees were further selected according to socio-economic status, place of origin, and ethnicity, thus covering many of the major differentiations within Ouagadougou and Burkina Faso as well as a variety of migration histories. Each semi-structured interview site was registered on a hand-held gps (see Map 5.2 and Map 5.3).
Semi-structured interview distribution (N = 38)
| Social distinction | Number of interviewees | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender Women Men |
||
| 20 | ||
| 18 | ||
| Age 20–30 30–45 45< |
||
| 14 | ||
| 14 | ||
| 10 | ||
| Length of residence in Ouagadougou in years 0–5 5–10 10–20 20< |
||
| 14 | ||
| 12 | ||
| 6 6 | ||
Interview sites and the spatial expansion of Ouagadougou in the period 1956–2012
Source: igb, institut géographie du burkina and google earth. own adaptation
The interviews were directed towards understanding the informants’ perspectives and were thus relatively non-standardised and open-ended.39 Nonetheless, all respondents were asked about: (1) their life history (e.g. where they were born; how long they had been in Ouagadougou); (2) their current situation (e.g. household and neighbourhood composition; main income sources, expenditures, concerns, and wishes); (3) housing (e.g. how long they had lived on a particular plot; how they attained the plot; from where they had moved to the plot); (4) Ouagadougou (e.g. how well they knew the city; changes to the city and neighbourhood since they had moved there and what the reasons behind these might be); (5) rural-urban relations (e.g. relations with their village of origin; the presence of family or village members in Ouagadougou and why they had come to Ouagadougou); and (6) return migration (whether they had thought of returning to their village; reasons for wanting or not wanting to return; whether they thought other people were currently returning and why/why not). The two latter categories of questions in particular were followed up with questions concerning changes in these parameters over the lifetime of the interviewee.
All semi-structured interviews were conducted in Mòoré, with the help of an interpreter, or in French, if the interviewee/s was/were sufficiently fluent. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, coded, and analysed along with any fieldnotes using Nvivo10 software.
In most of the districts (7) in which interviews were conducted, I also arranged a transect walk with a local resident whom I had identified during the interviews. In all but one case, the selected residents were male. The walks consisted of a tour through the district, during which different developments, events, and challenges as well as changes over time were described. During these transect walks, informal conversations around issues of pertinence to the district were also held with people who joined the walk. Many of these conversations revolved around rural-urban relations and migration in contemporary Burkina Faso.
4 Results
Circular labour migration is a complex process in present-day Burkina Faso, influenced by economic, cultural, political, and environmental factors alike. Of these, climate variability was the second-most important push factor and the most important reason for informants not wanting to return to their village of origin (see Table 5.2 and Table 5.3).
4.1 Leaving the Village: Unemployment, Land, and Climate Variability
Securing a living is extremely hard in many villages across Burkina Faso.40 A lack of salaried work, a growing rural population, and little or no available land, machines, seeds, and fertiliser for agricultural production as well as continued problems with climate variability, especially in relation to rainfall, were among the most prevalent reasons for this situation given by informants (Table 5.2).
Reasons mentioned by interviewees (N = 38) for moving to Ouagadougou since the year 2000
| Reason for migration | Number of interviewees mentioning this | Percentages of interviewees mentioning this | Number of interviewees mentioning this as most important reason | Percentages of interviewees mentioning this as most important reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growing population | 32 | 84% | 23 | 61% |
| No land | 28 | 73% | 16 | 42% |
| Divorce/marriage | 20 | 61% | 18 | 47% |
| Climate variability | 34 | 89% | 25 | 66% |
| Lack of work | 36 | 95% | 27 | 71% |
| Other | 6 | 16% | 1 | 2% |
Regarding wage labour, all informants found it impossible to engage in the nonfarm economy in and around their home village. It is generally argued that participation levels in nonfarm economic activities in ssa are influenced by the economic opportunities and development characteristics of villages. Villages with markets, good road access and quality, and access to telecommunications and electricity are expected to be able to offer better opportunities for engagement in nonfarm activities than those without.41 While mentioned as factors influencing the number of salaried jobs in their villages, the presence of these features was of little help according to the interviewees. A major reason behind this was, in the words of a 45-year-old man from the south of the country, “that more and more people are looking for the few jobs available.”
The interviewees linked the population growth experienced in villages across Burkina Faso to higher birth rates, but also to the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. This broke out in the late 1990s and resulted in, among other developments, a targeting of Burkinabe living and working there.42 All Burkinabe whom I interviewed or spoke with during fieldwork who had returned from Côte d’Ivoire mentioned that they had left the country because of attacks, rumours of imminent attacks, social tensions, deteriorating living conditions, and/or a desire to “live peacefully,” as it was often put. Researchers have estimated that about 500,000 to one million people were forced to return to Burkina Faso from Côte d’Ivoire during the period from 2002 to 2006 alone.43 A large proportion of these returnees have settled in Ouagadougou, but many also went back to their village of origin or to other urban areas in Burkina Faso.44 “[T]his,” as a young man from the central plateau explained in an interview, “caused increased competition for the few jobs available in my village.”
Another effect of a growing rural population has been increased competition for land. According to my interviewees and other people with whom I spoken during fieldwork, the lack of access to agricultural and residential land in their villages was a major reason for leaving. A fifty-year-old man from the west of the country explained in an interview how he—upon his return from Côte d’Ivoire after ten years there—was “offered a very small piece of land so far from the village that it was not worth my effort [to farm].” According to several interviewees, many migrants returning from Côte d’Ivoire were offered no land on which to live and farm. Only interviewees from the very north of the country did not mention land as a reason to migrate.45 Interviewees also often stated that the arrival of more people had resulted in parcels of land having to be shared among increasing numbers of relatives. A lack of access to machinery such as tractors and a steep increase in price for seeds and fertilisers further dampened agricultural prospects. Leaving for Ouagadougou or other cities and towns thus represented “the only real alternative,” as was often stated.
Interviewees strongly associated the dismal state of agricultural production with precipitation variability. After the lack of work, this was mentioned as the second-most important reason for migrating to Ouagadougou (Table 5.2). As agricultural production is largely rain-fed in Burkina Faso, precipitation is critical. Considering the precipitation variability experienced in Burkina Faso since the early 1970s,46 it is not surprising that informants considered this to be a major problem. Interviewees from all three major rainfall regions in the country explained how agricultural production remained difficult due to poor and unpredictable rains. Too little rain, rain falling at the wrong time, prolonged drought periods during the rainy season, heavy rain, flooding, run-off and erosion, and so-called false starts to the rainy season were commonly cited problems in relation to rainfall.47 For the people interviewed on this matter, however, the major challenge was that rain had not improved since the early 1970s. Older interviewees (35<) explained how in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s farmers in their villages had still hoped for a return to the rainfall regime of the 1950s and 1960s. Now, however, this hope was gone; “therefore we leave and stay away,” a middle-aged woman explained.
4.2 Staying in Ouagadougou: Work, Aspirations, and Climate Variability
Among the migrants interviewed, remaining in Ouagadougou was a major issue. Only in four out of the 38 interviews conducted with rural in-migrants did the interviewee express a wish or plan to return to their respective village of origin (Table 5.3). Moreover, all but the four thinking about returning had left for Ouagadougou with the aim of settling there permanently, a trend that was mirrored in informal conversations conducted during fieldwork. The major reasons for this were increasing job opportunities in Ouagadougou, hopes and aspirations for a better life, and climate variability (see Table 5.3).
African migration is often explained in terms of finding employment, and most literature on migration posits that “[e]mployment is central to all rural-to-urban migration theories because the search for a job is seen as the primary, if not the only, motivation for migration.”48 As seen in Section 4.1 above, economic issues clearly have been a significant push factor, but increasing work opportunities in Ouagadougou coupled with a general economic upturn in Burkina Faso since the early 2000s was also cited during fieldwork as a reason for staying. Stories about the opening of new clothes shops, supermarkets, pharmacies, markets selling imported second-hand goods from Europe, banks, and housing developments were frequent. According to the informants, most people in Ouagadougou now also own a motorbike, and an increasing number own a car.
A better educated population, the return of better-off migrants from Côte d’Ivoire investing in Burkina Faso, a growing population generating more competition and activity, and, in particular, the growth of gold mining were given as explanations. One middle-aged man explained how people working in the mines “invest the money they make here in Ouagadougou.” This, in turn, created jobs for people in the city. Women worked as maids, but also in small-scale commerce, as hairdressers, as shop assistants, or as waitresses, while men found work in the construction sector or as mechanics, vendors, and guards.49
Plans to stay permanently in Ouagadougou also reflect that for many migrants the city represents a chance to live a different kind of life than that on offer in the village. Many of the women moving to Ouagadougou do so, for example, to get away from arranged marriages, hostile in-laws, threatening or violent husbands and ex-husbands, and a village environment in which there is little security in terms of policing (Table 5.2). According to older women with whom I spoke during fieldwork, another reason for female migration and permanent settlement in Ouagadougou is that young women today have much more freedom than their older relatives. They do not “make do,” as it was often expressed, and instead choose to come to Ouagadougou in order to obtain the personal and financial freedom that is not available to them in their villages. For women, the appeal of Ouagadougou is also related to the fact that the city offers recently divorced women a chance to start anew. This idea is very closely linked to the aim of finding a new husband in Ouagadougou, something that all of the divorced women whom I interviewed spoke of with desire. “So why,” asked a young, recently divorced woman of about thirty years of age rhetorically, “would I go back to a village with hostile former in-laws, no jobs, and the prospect of working all day in fields producing no food because of bad rain?”
Climate variability is a major deterrent to return migration. According to the interviewees, many of the people who move to Ouagadougou do not plan to return—and in fact do not return—to their village because of climate variability (Table 5.3). This included most of the interviewees, as 34 out of the 38 people interviewed had left their village without a plan to return. Especially in the period from the early 1970s until the early 2000s, as many informants explained, in-migrants almost always returned to their villages when the rainy season started in June to do agricultural work.50 As such, the Burkinabe seasonally driven circular migration pattern very closely mirrored the general understanding of circular migration in the Sudano-Sahelian region. Many of the informants highlighted this, stating that such migration became widely practised in Burkina Faso in the early 1970s because of the widespread droughts of the time. Without the levels of agricultural production recorded during the wet 1950s and 1960s, people from all over the country went in search of money for food during the agricultural off season. Since the early 2000s, however, a change has taken place, according to the interviewees, since now “people stay on in Ouagadougou.” Almost all informants and interviewees linked this shift to precipitation variability rather than to other factors such as the improved economic situation in Ouagadougou. Many informants highlighted the continued impact of climate variability on the practice of agriculture, which had represented the primary reason for returning to the village in the first place. A young man explained it as such: “Agriculture is not attractive, you work all day and get nothing because of poor rain. It has been like that now for a long time and so people in my village have lost hope for better rain and millet production. So why go back?”
Many informants, like the young man just quoted, referred to the rain when they spoke of climate variability in conversations and interviews. Their complaints about the rain pivoted around the decrease in rainfall since the 1960s and the increased inter- and intra-seasonal variability, but noted in particular the significant length of time for which precipitation variability (including drought, one of its major consequences) has been experienced in the villages (see Section 4.1). Many informants, regardless of their origin, also explained how for approximately the past ten years there had been more rain, but that “more is not necessarily better,” as was commonly articulated. They found discouraging the fact that more rain was falling but not in the way that they desired. Rain falling “too heavily,” causing crop damage, run-off, and erosion, was a major problem that had been experienced since the early 2000s. Consequently, the hope of improving levels of agricultural production was slim among the informants. “We had always hoped,” two older women who had experienced the “better” rains of the 1960s said, “that if only we got more rain it [agriculture] would be better. But the rain is not right. It does not fall right.” Return migration was thus almost pointless, because “even with more rain the fields do not produce enough food.” Moreover, returning home to retain usufruct rights in the hope that better times were on their way was now regarded by many as “a waste of time,” especially considering that the last forty years had been one long “disappointment” due to the fact that the rainfall conditions of the 1960s had not returned, as described by one man in his late sixties. This sentiment was echoed in interviews with younger in-migrants, such as a 39-year-old man from a village just outside Ouagadougou, who reflected upon conditions in the 1960s compared to those of the present, “when it is also raining a lot.”
There is nothing in the village for me, one year it rains, the next it doesn’t, and even with more rain it is not right. I also have no land really. Here in Ouaga I can at least make some money, so staying rather than returning means that I, but also my relatives and my village, have a chance to improve life. So I’m staying!
5 Discussion
Work, the chance to live a different life, and continued challenges to agricultural production due to precipitation variability were, as just described, major reasons cited for staying in Ouagadougou. It is obviously difficult to argue from qualitative research alone that such reasons constitute a major demographic trend, since it is impossible to know how many people are represented by each of these reasons. Reliable and good census data is needed to confirm or challenge these findings. Yet, the results do indicate that good reasons for renewed scholarly interest in circular labour migration patterns in Burkina Faso and perhaps elsewhere in ssa can be found. This is particularly the case because one of the major reasons given by the informants for discontinuing their participation in circular migration was climate variability.
Linking human decision-making to climatic factors and the impacts thereof is not straightforward, even in an area like the Sudano-Sahelian region where massive climate variability has been experienced over the past fifty years.52 On a very general level, this is due to the fact that the climate is often, if not always, only one of many factors that influence human decision-making.53 The results presented in this chapter illustrate this. Stories about social problems in the villages and a desire for a different and better life, particularly for women,54 intermingle with gold prices, the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, mobile phone technology, a growing rural population, and precipitation variability. Singling out one of these factors as being more important than the others for a change in migration patterns is thus not easy. Nevertheless, it has consistently been argued that rural out-migration hinges to a very large extent upon whether or not there is employment and food available in the village of origin.55 In the Sudano-Sahelian region, both of these aspects are closely related to precipitation patterns. For rural populations, rain-fed subsistence agriculture constitutes both the main source of food and work;56 consequently, most, if not all, literature on circular migration in the Sudano-Sahelian region highlights the link between rainfall variation and labour migration for the period since the early 1970s.57
This is also the case for Burkina Faso.58 In one of the most comprehensive studies of this link in Burkina Faso, Henry and colleagues show how rainfall variation and circular migration are closely connected, but also note that “it could be fruitful to examine the effect of environmental conditions of the village of origin on the risk of returning to that village.”59
On the continental scale, research has increasingly argued that climate change, including precipitation variability, makes returning less and less desirable for many rural out-migrants.60 McGranahan et al. note in a large review on this topic how it is “likely that as a consequence of climate change this movement [rural out-migration] will increase and intensify, and possibly become more permanent.”61 If climate variability makes returning less attractive, as most of the returnees would go back to participate in rain-fed agricultural activities,62 then the number of returnees could be significantly affected.
The results presented in this chapter have shown that this might be the case. Almost all interviewees emphasised that the continuing problems to do with the rain, the lack of hope for the return of improved climatic conditions similar to those experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, and the fact that agricultural work is no longer a viable option have resulted in far fewer migrants going back to their villages. My informants also linked this state of affairs to what literature on climatic conditions and trends in the Sudano-Sahelian region has called a recovery of rainfall since the early 2000s.63 According to both the informants and the scientific data, rainfall has become more abundant since the late 1990s, but because the rain falls too heavily, at the wrong times of the growing season, and with a large intra-seasonal and intra-annual variability, more rain has not resulted in better conditions for agricultural production. There was thus little or no hope among the informants of an improvement or a return to 1960s rainfall patterns, and consequently many saw no point in returning to their villages to farm now or in order to retain the rights to do so in the future. Instead, staying on in Ouagadougou was what mattered, for which a diversity of reasons was given. Improved financial circumstances due largely to high gold prices and the jobs created by migrants from Côte d’Ivoire was one very important explanation.
In recent literature on migration and climate change, it has been argued that research needs to focus less on “whether environmental drivers are the sole causal factors causing mobility,” but should rather look at how migration is used as a strategy to manage the risks associated with changing environmental conditions.64 Arguably, the literature on circular labour migration in the Sudano-Sahelian region has by and large done precisely this;65 however, the continued focus in the literature on circular labour migration as a means of securing a viable livelihood in ssa66 and in the Sudano-Sahelian region67 means that the ways in which this system is changing are not given much attention. This is problematic because, as the results presented in this chapter indicate, remaining in Ouagadougou rather than returning to the village of origin potentially represents a new migration strategy aimed at managing the risks facing villages in relation to environmental change. For the migrants, their decision to remain in Ouagadougou was closely related to the lack of agricultural production caused by climate variability as well as to the newfound ease of sending money home. Theories of labour migration note that migration is often enacted as a strategy for managing risk at the level of the household rather than for the individual alone.68 This was a pronounced rationale among my informants; instead of going back to their villages to assist with agricultural activities, making money and sending it home was seen by many as a better means of helping their village-based family members deal with the impacts of climate variability. From this perspective, permanent migration resembles circular labour migration as a strategy intended to cope with environmental change, but this chapter’s results indicate that even well-established human adaptation strategies to climate variability and climate change potentially lose their relevance or are altered fundamentally once such changes become more temporally embedded or increasingly dramatic.
6 Conclusion
The relationship between climate change and variability, on the one hand, and circular labour migration in sub-Saharan Africa, on the other, is well-documented. In the Sudano-Sahelian region, the droughts experienced in the early 1970s and 1980s and the continued challenges arising from rainfall variability in the 1990s and 2000s have consistently been posited as explanations for circular labour migration. Poor subsistence farmers needing money for food that was no longer available from agriculture due to precipitation problems flocked to destinations where employment could be found only to return at the beginning of the next agricultural season. In recent years, the persistence of this practice has been questioned in the literature. Again, the focus is on climate change and variability; now, however, these phenomena are invoked as reasons for the discontinuation of circular labour migration.
Migrants whom I interviewed and with whom I spoke during my fieldwork in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2013 persistently underlined that they wanted to stay in the capital rather than return to their villages of origin. A major reason for this was continued problems with precipitation patterns and in particularly the fact that since the early 2000s more rain had fallen but without leading to an increase in levels of agricultural production. Disillusioned by these persistent precipitation problems and the more abundant but wrong type of rain my informants saw no point in maintaining ties with agricultural production. Moreover, taking into account the better economic opportunities in Ouagadougou, they also argued that staying there rather than returning to their villages represented a better strategy for dealing with the impacts of precipitation variability on agriculture.
As such, the data presented in this chapter shows that the predominance of circular migration as a coping strategy in the face of environmental change is being challenged in Burkina Faso. Very little empirical work has been done on this issue in ssa, while no relevant post-2000 statistical census data on this issue exists. Arguing that the results presented here mirror a general trend in ssa, or indeed in Burkina Faso itself, is therefore difficult. Yet, current and predicted climatic trends for this region indicate that rural populations who are dependent upon subsistence agriculture will continue to face challenging times and that new coping strategies may thus be required. More permanent migration to cities and other areas of economic opportunity might be one such strategy.
Reasons mentioned by interviewees (N = 38) for not returning to origin village
| Reason for not returning to origin village | Number of interviewees mentioning this | Percentages of interviewees mentioning this | Number of interviewees mentioning this as most important reason | Percentages of interviewees mentioning this as most important reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Better life in Ouaga | 21 | 55% | 4 | 10% |
| Climate variability | 34 | 89% | 31 | 81% |
| No land in village | 14 | 37% | 11 | 29% |
| Work opportunities in Ouaga | 33 | 87% | 30 | 79% |
| Other | 3 | 8% | 1 | 3% |
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D’haen et al., “Beyond Local Climate;” Author’s adaptation of data from: Direction de la Meteorologie, Burkina Faso.
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Nielsen, and Reenberg, “Temporality and the Problem with Singling Out Climate.”
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