I saw this somewhere earlier and I figured it would be of interest. Why a richer Africa means more migrants

Essentially, as the economy improves, Africans get more access to information (they see how much better off Europe is) and more people get the resources to leave. The truly destitute people can't afford to leave, so we're getting their 'middle class'.

This is a bit of a quandary for people who suggested helping Africans in Africa rather than letting them in and helping them in Europe.

Some want to cut foreign aid because we should take care of 'our own' first, but I've seen some argue that aid hurts the African agriculture industry, and that aid often ends up in the hands of warlords and such who distribute aid to their followers to increase the peoples' dependence on them. I'm sure this happens in some instances, but I'm not sure to what extent to happens.

In relation to the above, China is increasing its influence in Africa which still has significant economic potential (lots of people, lots of resources), so decreasing foreign aid may put Europe at a disadvantage long term compared to China, assuming Africa does grow. This whole thing is fairly complicated.

Finally, there's the brain drain aspect. The West takes in a lot of Africa's educated, and as the first link showed, we're taking their young men who can afford a relatively decent living too. This could hurt their long-term economic growth.

This article is one of the first that I found on the topic, which essentially suggests that we should educated them so that they have skills and a network, then encourage them to go back to Africa. The African Union has been trying to do this too, European countries could give them a big help here.