"The policies of repression will not stop illegal African immigrants: for them, the expectation of earning a lot of money in Europe weighs more. So said Jean Louis Arcand at the University of Navarra, director of the Finance Center and development of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (Switzerland). (Switzerland). The expert delivered the opening session of the III Development Week, an international congress on poverty and development organized by the Navarra Center for International Development of Institute for Culture and Society (ICS).

Arcand said that potential migrants think that "in Europe they will earn 6,000 a month," a perception fueled by those who have returned to Africa, "who do not want to admit that their journey has been a failure and that they were living with eight people in a twelve-square-meter room."  

The professor presented at the University of Navarra his latest research, which deals with the relationship between the colonizers and the indigenous populations and how this interaction has marked the course of the economic development of the regions conquered by the Europeans. Based on data from 64 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, the programs of study are based on two variables: the level of development of the indigenous population at the time of the first contact with the colonizers and the deaths of the indigenous people by the colonizers.

The way of colonization, the cause of underdevelopment

His research offers a novel vision with respect to the classic literature on the economic development of the colonies: "The cause of underdevelopment is not colonization, but the way of colonizing".

"An important factor in explaining the differences in institutions is protection against the risk of expropriation. This financial aid to see how in some countries economic activity has been allowed to develop and in others it has not," he said. For him, one of the clearest examples is the difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which have identical geographies but "their history of colonization differs and, therefore, they also have different subsequent developments".

He also pointed out that with the arrival of the colonizers "divisions were created - with a strategic vision - in the indigenous populations that had lived in peace for a thousand or five hundred years. This is what happened in Rwanda with the Hutu and the Tutsi".

 In other countries such as Nigeria or the Central African Republic, he said that sometimes hatred among the population is fueled by local politicians, who try to "manipulate the citizens", often alluding to the religious issue. agreement On the contrary, he pointed out that, according to his experience in countries such as Burkina Faso, Senegal and Mali, "in West Africa Islam is totally tolerant".