LETTER: Migrant source regions need funding

Prof Ivan Turok takes issue with Neva Makgetla’s suggestion that the state should do more to support non-metros (“Metros need all the cash they can get”, September 22, and “History counts when measuring performance in municipalities”, September 20). He lists three points of argument, the third referring to the major metro problem of ever-burgeoning informal settlements, which raises an interesting issue.

Without doubt, migration is one of the dominant problems in today’s world, both intercountry (Mexicans into the US) and intra-country (rural populations flooding metros). My reading tells me that the biggest driver of migration is necessity: most people will happily stay where they are if they can.

Jonny Steinberg made the case in a recent column for a universal and liveable basic income grant, pointing out that such funds would circulate locally and allow people to get on with their lives (“Not simply a cash handout, but a transfer of possibilities”, August 26).

Nobody can propose a long-term solution to the migration problem other than allowing people to stay where they are. That implies one or a mixture of two things: a liveable basic income grant or urgent assistance to help the migrant source regions develop and become reasonably peaceful and self-supporting.

It seems to me that one way or another, rich active countries and areas are going to have to find ways of making migrant source areas viable to solve their own migrant problems.

Roger Briggs, Edenvale

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