Meeting to chart route for tourism marketing

Investors in tourism in Kenya and around the region meet in Mombasa from next week to create a joint marketing platform.

The East Africa Tourism Development Forum at the Sarova Whitesands, will be used to explore ways of unlocking the region's tourism potential.

It will be held under the auspices of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.

It will be chaired by the organisation's secretary-general, Dr Taleb Rifai, and will host discussions on intra-Africa opportunities while strengthening regional cooperation.

Over 250 participants expected to attend will come from 10 countries including Ministers from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Seychelles and the secretary-general of the East African Community.

The meeting's theme is "Connecting Opportunity" and will seek ways of enhancing the visibility of the East African market in the highly competitive global tourism.

Kenya's tourism Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie said the forum will provide an important opportunity to market the region as a single destination.

"The idea is to showcase East Africa to a wider global audience. One of the key issues on the table is how to build the image of the region as a tourism destination," Mrs Kandie said.

Kenya seeks to lure tourists back to the coastal town of Mombasa that has experienced a slump blamed on attacks from the Somali militant group Al Shabaab.

In September last year, the UK relaxed a travel advisory to Nairobi apart from Eastleigh, but maintained a warning for Mombasa and towns bordering Somalia.

Britain, the source of more than half the country's tourists, lifted a travel advisory covering most of the Coast in June, setting the stage for recovery.

Kenya is also riding on the successful visit of United States President Barack Obama with over 3,000 investors during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit to keep the tempo up.

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation has been pushing for countries to form regional tourism clusters. Such groupings, it is argued, would provide an effective marketing platform beyond individual country destinations.

The Thursday meeting will come in the wake of another major tourism conference to be held in Accra, Ghana next week, seeking to create synergies among African countries in promoting a common continental brand.

Source: Meeting to chart route for tourism marketing

A Big Shiny Guide to African Safaris

There's nothing like your first time -- first time taking a safari, that is. Deciding to do one is easy (yes, a resounding yes), but picking a destination is more difficult -- what with a long list of magnificent countries to choose from. To help, here's a handy overview of when to go, what you'll see and where to stay.

Across the board in Africa, August through October is prime safari season. While there are never any guarantees with wildlife, this timeframe is when you're most likely to see most species - it's the dry and everybody's mingling around waterholes. But let's take it country-by-country, and hone in on some of the highest rated lodges, because, hey, on the off chance you don't catch a glimpse of your fave creature, a comfy bed, big bath and fine dining can relieve any disappointment. Most are all-inclusive so that makes things extra easy.

BotswanaNorthern Botswana is the hot spot for elephants, and a boat cruise down the Chobe River is a great way to see them. The abundant Okavango Delta is home to big cats, wild dogs and birds galore. Meerkat lovers should head to Makgadikgadi Pans. That area gets busy with migrating zebras, and in turn predators, come December.

Abu Camp offers elephant-back safaris -- a unique way to see the rich Okavango Delta region. The tent accommodations feel at one with nature while still being really, really ridiculously luxurious.

Savute Elephant Camp in Chobe National Park is for those who'd rather just watch those largest of land animals -- they're known to just amble by. Right on the river, it draws a lot of thirsty beasts.

San Camp is another tented oasis, one that makes guests feel like the region's original explorers, albeit cushier. Its place on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans p rovides easy access to meerkat territory.

Kenya

The popular Maasai Mara is a goldmine -- big cats, elephants, hippos, giraffe, crocs, baboons and the largest antelope, just to name a few -- and it too plays host to the epic wildebeest migration through October. A quieter but no less astounding spot is Meru National Park, made famous by the lioness Elsa immortalized in the book and Oscar-winning film Born Free, and home to a black and white rhino sanctuary.

Olarro is perched on a hillside with jaw-dropping views in close proximity to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The ways to see wildlife here are varied -- in addition to the 4x4 variety, there's helicopter and balloon options.

Elsa's Kopje Private House, so named for the f amed lioness and situated above George Adamson's original camp, also offers bird's eye views, but from Mughwango Hill overlooking Meru National Park. The thatched roofs and earthy décor blend into the background so as not to inhibit the natural beauty.

Namibia

A range of wildlife is seen at Etosha National Park. The many waterholes around its salt pan draw a crowd in the dry season, including rhino, elephant and rare black-faced impala. Lions drop by too, either to drink or ambush prey.

Villa Mushara lies near Etosha, and offers but two 1,400-square-foot villas for an exclusive experience. A dip in the swimming pool may offer extra entertainment should a kudu or warthog decide to chill out in the grass just beyond.

Rwanda

Here, it's all about the mountain gorillas, the ones made famous by naturalist Dian Fossey. They live on the slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes, a few hours from the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, with volcanoes in sight, offers the ultimate gorilla experience. They'll clean your boots after you get back from your mountain trek, but even better than that, they're operated by a community trust that works on further conservation and protection initiatives in the park.

South Africa

A diverse landscape -- desert, woodland, mountains, ocean -- provides the country a diverse cast of creatures. The sou theast corner's slew of game reserves provide the Big Five -- lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino. For leopards, Sabi Sands is the place, while Timbavati is where you'll find white lions -- those rare cats with a recessive gene that makes them paler than most. Adorably coy aardvarks and multitudes of meerkats await in Tswalu Kalahari. And you can also get a dose of marine species such as penguins, whales and sharks with a trip down to Cape Town.

&Beyond Exeter River Lodge lives on the Sand River in the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. The private verandas are perfect for watching the river and wildlife roll by, with glass of wine in hand, naturally.

Ngala Tented Safari Camp has the seasonal Timbavati River running through it. Raised off the ground, the tent-style accommodations leave a light footprint. Here's where to stay for proximity to those regal white lions.

Tswalu Kalahari Reserve has rolling dunes within view, the property also offers horseback safaris. W hen not on game drives to see black rhinos and black maned lions, there are also archeological explorations and hot-air balloon rides.

Tanzania

Here the Big Five are easy to see. There's even a chance of glimpsing the critically endangered black rhino. In the northern Serengeti, the start of the dry season is the time to watch wildebeest migration, while January and February is when the calves arrive. The Serengeti is also the spot for big cats and the endangered African wild dog.

The Retreat Selous lives within the largest protected wildlife sanctuary in Africa. With its position on the banks of the Ruaha River, canoe adventures are readily available and it attracts more than 400 kinds of birds. The truly adventurous can hit the road and try nomadic tenting.

Ngoro ngoro Crater Lodge has three camps that operate independently, with the Tree Camp being the most secluded. As the name suggests, it's near the Ngoronogoro Crater which puts that region's resident black rhino population in reach.

Singita Grumeti Reserves, Faru Faru Lodge borders the Serengeti National Park, and its own surrounding grasslands boast antelopes and exotic birds to watch in the restful moments between game drives.

Uganda

Like Rwanda, Uganda offers amazing access to mountain gorillas, and other primates too, with around 20 species including chimpanzees. For big game head to national parks such as Queen Elizabeth, Lake Mburo or Kidepo.

Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp takes you deep into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, a U NESCO World Heritage Site, where some 350 gorillas roam. That's a treat, and so is their spa.

Apoka Lodge is Kidepo National Park is authentic luxury -- the savannah-inspired accommodation is made of wood, thatch and canvas. In the morning, track game along the riverbed; in the afternoon, cool off in the property's rock pool.

Zambia

Kafue National Park, one of the biggest in Africa, teems with both herbivores and carnivores, in particular it's known for cheetah. If it's leopards you're after, Lower Zambezi is the park. The only real game the Victoria Falls area offers is a few protected white rhino, other than that it's mostly bird-watching and adventuring.

Kapinga Camp in Kafue only has four rooms ensuring its small group of guests get proper attention. In the Bu sanga Plains wetlands witness buffalo, cheetah, lion, and zebra from the deck, as well as venturing out for day or night drives.

Royal Zambezi Lodge sits on the banks of the Zambezi River and that means water activities -- casting for tiger-fish and canoeing to see crocodiles and hippos. The property also has one of Zambia's only spas to pamper you après-safari.

The River Club lies further up the Zambezi by the famed Victoria Falls. It too will boat you by hippos and crocs, but also boasts manicured gardens well-suited to croquet. Bungee jump off the Falls or simply fall into the Club's riverside infinity pool.

Zimbabwe

With President Mugabe's dubious rule and Cecil the lion scandal, Zimbabwe isn't the safari Mecca it once was. However, the private Malilangwe Wilderness Reserve h as protected itself from much of that, escaping heavy poaching that the country's political upheaval has wrought. In addition to the Big Five, they like to show off their Little Six -- six species of smaller antelope. The country also has its side of Victoria Falls for a natural wonder of another kind.

Singita Pamushana Lodge is one of only two in the Malilangwe Reserve, and it's magical. Inside, bright colors abound, and outside, ethereal flora casts its spell. There are twice daily game drives, and also tours to 2000-year-old San Bushman rock art.

The Victoria Falls Hotel on the Zimbabwe side of the Falls provides a very different Colonial-era experience with four-poster beds and antiques. Here, elephant-back safaris and canoeing are options, as well as the high adrenaline activities the area offers.

Source: A Big Shiny Guide to African Safaris

Dan Reed: U.S. airlines play the role of cowardly lions

Paula French/AP

The well-known, protected lion known as Cecil was killed by Walter Palmer, an American dentist who paid to hunt the animal. Outrage over the killing led the Big Three U.S. airlines to ban the carriage of some big-game trophies from Africa.

It's ironic that it took the killing of a lion, the animal most closely associated with the noble quality of courage, to expose the cowardice of the Big Three U.S. airlines — Delta, United and American.

Everyone by now knows the story of Cecil, the African lion killed by a Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 for a guided safari. Whether the kill was legal or not remains unclear. But Zimbabwe, hardly a shining example of probity under the nearly 30-year rule of the brutal kleptocrat Robert Mugabe, seeks the dentist's extradition even though the country aggressively markets big-game hunting licenses to Western hunters.

But the glaring absence of legal facts did not keep a relatively small but well-connected minority of Americans from roaring loudly. About 400,000 signed an online petition demanding that U.S. airlines stop allowing the transport of big-game trophies.

They did, in an amazingly quick demonstration of spinelessness.

Delta, which carried the lion's share of big-game trophies back from Africa because it actually offers nonstop service between the United States and five African destinations, caved. American and United, in pathetic fits of me-too-ishness, immediately imposed similar bans. Arguably their cowardice is all the greater because they're banning the shipment of items that they likely did not carry much or at all. United serves only one African destination; American none.

The reality is that big-game trophies represent a teeny-tiny slice of airline revenue.

Delta reported carrying cargo — all cargo — accounted for $207,000 million in revenue for the recently ended quarter. That's less than 2 percent of all total second-quarter revenue. Big-game trophies made up just a tiny portion of that, not even a rounding error in the big picture.

So the airlines' sudden shift in policy can hardly be considered brave or courageous. At the very best, those were incredibly cynical decisions made to deflect criticism on a subject of virtually no economic importance. In other words: corporate cowardice.

So what's the social, political or economic calculations behind the decision to ban the transport of big-game trophies from Africa?

Note that there is no moral calculation involved. All three still carry big-game trophies from other parts of the world, and even African trophies other than those from the "Big Five" species — lions, leopards, elephants, cape buffaloes and rhinoceros.

Also, the numbers and the dollars don't support a business-driven decision. In fact, if anything, banning the transport of big-game trophies is likely to stir up more opposition among the much larger number of people who either hunt or don't object to hunting — who probably resent companies that establish policies they view as intended to shame them.

So that leaves political correctness as the only plausible reason, and that's a very dangerous, infested swamp into which corporations should rarely, if ever, wade.

What are they going to do when the next loud roar comes from some offended, outraged group? What if People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals demands that they stop accepting luggage made of leather? Or what will airlines, which actually have a thriving business in the transport of fresh flowers from South America, do when child-labor activists demand that they stop carrying child-picked blooms?

The list could go on, limited only by the imagination of people who can conjure up a sense of outrage over virtually any subject.

The point is that airlines — really, any company — ought to stay out of such debates if at all possible. Americans really don't like it when the companies lecture or shame them on subjects about which people of good will and sound reasoning can and do disagree.

Remember when Starbucks asked baristas to talk to customers about race? Millions of Americans told Starbucks exactly where it could stick its socially conscious cups of skinny latte, and Starbucks shut the campaign down.

Just as Starbucks overstepped its bounds then, Delta, United and American have overstepped their bounds in making a weak-minded decision regarding the transport of African big-game trophies. The same would be true had they previously refused to carry trophies but responded to pro-hunting groups' outrage by starting to allow such shipments.

Indeed, South African Airways did just that. Earlier this year it had made the decision to stop carrying big-game trophies on its aircraft. But once the U.S. carriers went all high-and-mighty, SAA reversed course and resumed carrying hunters' trophies.

In SAA's case, at least, the carrier was bending to financial motive and national loyalty to supporting South Africa's tourism trade. But America's Big Three lack even that excuse for their flip-flops.

Veteran journalist Dan Reed lives in Fort Worth. He has covered airlines and the travel industry since 1982. Reach him at danielfreed@sbcglobal.net.

Source: Dan Reed: U.S. airlines play the role of cowardly lions

TFTA: Africa's Crucial Inflection Point

On June 10, 2015, at the 25th African Union Summit in Cairo, Egypt, African leaders signed the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement (TFTA). Prior to its signing, the agreement had been in negotiations for seven years.

Several bodies have existed in Africa to foster regional economic integration: the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), and the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA).

TFTA intends to unite three of these existing blocks, SADC, EAC, and COMESA, into one unified region. In doing so, the agreement renews the long-standing dream of an economically-integrated entity stretching from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.

If ratified, the agreemen t will create the largest free trade zone in the continent's history with a membership of over 26 African states, a population of 632 million, an area of 17.3 million square kilometers, total trade of US$1.2 trillion, and 60% of continental output.

TFTA also establishes a framework to bring in the Central and West African nations that are currently excluded from the agreement at a later date, which would create an even larger free trade zone across the entire continent.

Details of the TFTATFTA seeks to fulfill three main pillars: market integration, infrastructure development and industrial development.

In terms of intra-regional trade flows, Africa is the least economically integrated region in the world with intracontinental trade constituting around 10% of its total trade. In sharp contrast, within both Europe and Asia, intracontinental trade constitutes around 60% of the totals.

One of the primary reasons for the deal is the desire to ease the movement of goods across the continent. TFTA would benefit the organization's member states, foreign investors, and African citizens by more readily harnessing the potential of the continent's people both as a labor force and rapidly growing consumer base.

However, going forward, TFTA will confront a number of obstacles that have reduced the effectiveness of other free trade zones both within and outside of Africa. In order for TFTA to capitalize fully upon its potential, it must recognize these challenges and avoid falling victim to the mistakes of the past.

Challenges to Implementation1. The Scale of the Effort

TFTA requires approval from three-fourths of the 26 states to enter into force. Furthermore, even after ratification, in order to be successful, the agreement has to bind together and unify drastically different economies and regulatory regimes. In this regard, the sheer scale of the task may prove troublesome.

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), anothe r ambitious, continent-spanning free trade zone, is all but defunct for similar reasons.

2. The Inertia of the Status Quo

The larger, more advanced economies of Africa possess industries and companies that would probably displace or absorb those of the continent's smaller states. While this transformation would probably lead to a more productive reconfiguration of capital, it also requires large-scale economic disruption, at least in the short-term. This would be especially true for states with small economies that currently produce few exportable goods. Without addressing the free flow of people, this aspect of TFTA may sow the seeds for the type of economic resentment that is currently gripping the EU. Worse yet, this may herald the return of beggar-thy-neighbor policies that will not only set the ambitious trade agreement back, but also may trigger wider regional instability and resource crises.

Troublingly, periods of economic disruption, especially when ex acerbated by the presence of inefficient, corrupt institutions and ethno-religious heterogeneity, can catalyze armed conflict and violence. For example, from the mid-1980s onward, East Asian imports decimated the mostly industrial economy of northern Nigeria and created conditions amenable to the rise of groups such as Boko Haram. Considering the economic and political risks involved with ratification, many parliaments may simply veto the TFTA treaty.

3. Non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs)

Following the model of Africa's previous free trade areas, TFTA intends to reduce tariffs between its member states. Fatima Haram Acyl, the African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, has recently cited the EAC as a model of tariff reduction for TFTA to follow.

However, many doubt that the tariff reduction that Africa's regional blocs have undertaken has actually improved the intraregional trade of their members. In regard to the performance of the East Africa Community (E AC), Jeffrey Lamoureux, an expert on African economic institutions, states, "For every step toward liberalization made, an equal step is taken backward. So, for example, the reduction in headline tariff rates has been accompanied by, if anything, a retrenchment of non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs)."

If TFTA members continue to overemphasize tariff reduction as a metric for institutional success, they will continue to suffer from the same myopia that has marred EAC and the other regional blocs.

4. Lack of Infrastructure

While African states have been attempting to pursue economic integration since the colonial period, the poor quality of interstate infrastructure has proved to be a persistent stumbling block.

In addition to being the largest free trade zone in Africa, TFTA would be the most geographically expansive free trade zone over contiguous land, creating an added burden to bring the region's infrastructure up to par.

Hopefully, the advent of the new agreement will help spur much-needed infrastructure developments, including interconnected systems of roads, bridges, airports, and internet and electricity networks.

5. Institutional Weakness

The last major factor undermining EAC, SADC, and COMESA has been the lack of courts that are able to enforce effective compliance among their member states and the existence of active opposition to their establishment and jurisdiction.

While nearly all of Africa's economic organizations possess a judicial body of some sort or another, they are unable to enforce their decisions. Moreover, the courts have seen their enumerated powers erode merely for levying politically unpopular decisions. For example, in 2010, following a series of unfavorable rulings against Zimbabwe's government and its long-time president Robert Mugabe, SADC's leaders suspended its Tribunal indefinitely.

While there has been significant talk of reconstituting the SADC Tribunal on a more limited basis, the fact that a regional strongman was able, with relative ease, to pressure other leaders to dissolve and dismember it does not bode well for the impartiality and strength of such institutions in the future. As Lamoreux states, "I don't expect that the TFTA will have much of an ability to ensure compliance and I would think that would seriously undercut its effectiveness."

Future of the TFTA Going ForwardMost predict that TFTA will take effect in 2017. At the same time, on June 15, at another AU meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, African leaders initiated negotiations to expand TFTA to the West African states that it currently excludes.

On the heels of President Obama's state visits to Kenya and Ethiopia, political commitment to TFTA can not only spur a wave of regional trade, but also it can accelerate the rate and permanence for foreign direct investment (FDI) to the region. As the continent is already the fastest growing FDI recipient, the story of Afri ca being merely a destination for extractive investors is beginning to change. Nairobi's vibrant entrepreneurial and technical hubs and the advent of global African entrepreneurs are emblematic of this change.

Successful implementation of TFTA will solidify Africa's role on the global economic stage.

Source: TFTA: Africa's Crucial Inflection Point

Is East Africa The Next Hub For Fashion?!

Photo: WENN  

European-centric companies such as H&M, Primark, and Tesco are all uprooting themselves from Queen Elizabeth and attempting to source their garments to East Africa.

Since 2013, the fashion apparel industry has looked to East African countries as Ethiopia and Kenya as potential sourcing destinations. Add to the mix the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and you have certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are opening up duty-free access to the U.S. market.

Do these factors contribute to East Africa being the next major garment-sourcing hub? McKinsey created a study that took place across the continent, where factories in Kenya and Ethiopia were visited, stakeholders, manufacturers and buyers were interviewed — and market data was analyzed. To drill down the point a bit, 40 apparel CPOs representing a combined $70 billion in purchasing volume in 2014, responded to the survey.

Nearly three-quarters of the respondents to said survey mentioned that they expect to reduce their purchases from Chinese firms. This means that China will continue to take a major hit in the industry, yet it doesn't seem it'll stop the billion dollar export apparel industry for a few years. While Bangladesh remains at the top of the list of future sourcing destinations, sub-Saharan Africa will have the highest growth in working-age population anywhere over the next 20 years.

According to United Nations projections, by 2035, the working-age population is expected to be as large as China's today with more than 900 million people filling the labor pool. This statistic alone captures the essence of those intrigued by where the apparel industry is headed. When it comes to countries specifically like Ethiopia and Kenya, and to a lesser extent Uganda and Tanzania, the governments have already begun to develop its domestic textile and garment industries.

For example, barely 7 percent of that land is being used today in Ethiopia. Organic-cotton cultivation suffered a setback after garment manufacturers became entangled in land-grabbing accusations in Ethiopia's Omo Vally. Eighty percent of the CPOs in the McKinsey survey believes that production efficiency and long-lead times are major issues. 80 percent also cited production inefficiency as a challenge to the growth of apparel sourcing in Ethiopia. The government is already attempting to tackle these issues.

In terms of what's going on in Kenya's garment factories, it is quite the opposite as to what's happening in Ethiopia. The market has grown impressively in recent years thanks to foreign direct investments from Asia, the Middle East, and the Export Processing Zones developed by the Kenyan government. According to McKinsey, factories have grown larger and more efficient, employing more than 1,000 employees on average when compared with around 560 in the year 2000.

However, within Kenya's borders, there is a lack of local upstream industry. Manufacturers must import fabrics which means longer lead times and delays. It could take up to 40 days just for fabrics to make its way through customs into a garment factory. High labor costs and paltry monthly wages for garment works make honing the apparel industry an uphill battle. Include energy costs, because the power supply is spotty, and factories are spending four times as much just to keep the lights on.

How will East Africa's government overcome these startling issues to become a new fashion superpower? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Source: Is East Africa The Next Hub For Fashion?!

UN Branding Africa Conference launched

The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts announced that a United Nations Conference on Branding Africa will be hosted by Ghana from Monday 17th to 19th August this year.

The sector Minister, Mrs. Elizabeth Ofosu-Agyare noted that the conference will among other thing analyze the situation of Branding Africa and its impact on tourism on the continent.

She said the conference will draw together the Secretary General of the United Nations World Trade Organization [UNWTO] and so far 24 African Tourism Ministers have confirmed their participation at the upcoming conference.

Discussions at the conference includes positioning, branding, e-communications and media relations as well as crisis communication, public/private partnerships [PPP], resources and capacity building.

Mrs. Ofosu-Agyare indicated that in 2014, Africa received 56 million international tourists up from 26 million in 2000, Ghana had 1 million of the total figure.

She stated that Af rica recorded US$36 billion international tourism receipts [7% of all exports on the continent].

According to her, the conference is aimed at setting a common action plan to advance Africa's image and brand as the preferred tourism destination.

The Minister added that the conference will strike a balance between National Tourism Organizations and private sector operators as tour operators and travel agencies.

She noted that the event will create the required synergies among African countries towards greater co-operation in a common African Tourism Brand.

"The conference will explore how African destinations can successfully build a strong brand in an increasingly competitive market place and changing global business environment," she stated.

The Minister indicated that the conference will identify key challenges facing African countries as well as exchange national experience on country branding and tourism branding.

She added that the confe rence is funded by the United Nations [UN] with support from Ghana.

The sector Minister noted that the conference which was slated for last year 2014 failed due to the outbreak of the Ebola.

She said the effects of Ebola epidemic retarded progress in the tourism sector and as a result creating a negative perception of Africa even though only four countries were affected by the Ebola but it has been put up in the media as if the whole of Africa was affected by the Ebola pandemic.

She concluded that the conference will build the capacity in Africa for the realization of a strong image and brand which is fundamental to achieving a resilient tourism sector.

By Abubakari Seidu Ajarfor, [email protected]

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Source: UN Branding Africa Conference launched

Africa’s Scramble for Europe

THIS summer, a striking, often tragic story has been playing itself out on the outskirts of Calais in France, at the entrance to the tunnel that connects the European mainland to Great Britain. Thousands of migrants, African and Middle Eastern, have been trying to sneak onto the trucks and trains that traverse the tunnel, cutting through wire fences and evading the police along the way. Ten have died, but enough have succeeded for many more to keep trying, while politicians on both sides of the Channel point fingers and a refugee camp outside Calais remains swollen with would-be subjects of Elizabeth II.

In certain ways this crisis resembles last summer's border surge in the United States, when a wave of juvenile migrants overwhelmed the border patrol's ability to cope. But mostly Calais highlights two major differences between the immigration issue in America and Europe, two ways in which migration — from Africa, above all — is poised to divide and reshape the European continent in ways that go far beyond anything the United States is likely to experience.

The first difference is illustrated by the Calais migrants' desire to reach not only the European Union at large but the specific destination of Britain — because of its relatively stronger economy, because they speak English, because the U.K. doesn't have a national identity card, or for other rea sons still.

An immigrant desire to go further up and further in is entirely normal. (Mexican immigrants to the United States do not all settle down in El Paso or Tucson.) But it poses a major dilemma for the European Union, which allows free movement across its internal borders, but which is composed of nation-states that still want sovereignty over their respective immigration policies.

America has a mild version of this tension: Witness the recent debate over "sanctuary cities," or state-federal conflicts over immigration enforcement. But it's understood that immigration policy is ultimately set nationally. Michigan isn't going to close its borders and impose identity-card checks; Maine isn't going to secede in order to set it s own immigration quotas.

But in a less-united and federalized Europe, the desire for real national control over immigration policy may be as dangerous to the E.U. project in the long run as the already-evident folly of expanding the common currency to Greece.

Already the desire for immigration sovereignty is behind Britain's possible referendum on a "Brexit" from the European Union. It's behind Denmark's experiment with reimposing border controls. It's behind the rise of the National Front in France, and Euroskeptical parties the continent over. It's adding to Europe's already-significant north-south divisions, since (poorer) southern European countries are receiving the bulk of recent migrants and (richer) northern European countries would pre fer the new arrivals remain in Italy or Spain.

And these pressures are only likely to increase, because of the second difference between immigration in Europe and America: Namely, the scale of the migration that may be coming to Europe over the next fifty years.

That scale could be set by the staggering growth of Africa's population, and the native European population's stagnation and decline. Consider how much Latin American immigration has roiled U.S. politics (hello, Mr. Trump), when there are just over 300 million people in the United States and just under 600 million in all the countries to our south — a ratio that's unlikely to change much over the next few generations.

Then consider: Today there are 738 million Europeans (500 million of them in the E.U.) and just under 1.2 billion Africans. In 2050, according to the latest U.N. projections, Europe's population will have dipped to (an aging) 707 million, while Africa's population will be 2.4 billion. By 2 100, there will be 4.4 billion Africans – two of every five human beings overall — and Europe's population will be just 646 million.

The Mediterranean is far wider than the Rio Grande, but this is still a wildly unstable demographic equilibrium. What's more, as Noah Millman pointed out recently in Politico, northward migration – a kind of African "scramble for Europe" – is likely to increase whether African states thrive over this period or collapse. Desperation might drive it, but so might rising expectations, the connections forged by growth and globalization. (Many Africans currently braving the Mediterranean, for instance, seem to be ambitious, educated citizens from countries with growing economies, not just refugees.)

If Africans were to migrate to Europe at the rate Mexicans have migrated to America since 1970, Millman notes, by 2050 a quarter of Europe' s population would be African-born. That probably won't happen: The birthrate projections will be off, the migration patterns will be different, European countries will impose restrictions that actually succeed in keeping people out.

But something significant is going to happen. In some form, a Eurafrican future is on its way. And judging by the stumbling response to a few thousand migrants at Calais, Europe is deeply unprepared.

Source: Africa's Scramble for Europe