Rural-urban migration in West Africa: towards a reversal? Migration trends and economic situation in Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire

Although Africa is still the continent with the highest urban growth in the world, this paper shows that, in some African countries, rural outmigration is tending now to decrease, or at least to stagnate, while urban outmigration is on the rise. These trends are so sharp in Côte d'Ivoire that the country is experiencing a pattern of counterurbanisation (i.e. the level of urbanisation is decreasing). Results are based on a proposed method to build a history of migration using retrospective data from national migration surveys. A review of literature is also provided on the potential explanations of the observed trends. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.