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by omneity 966 days ago
The prevalence of the rule of law is variable depending on the country. Not the best incentive to park your money.
2 comments

I'd live in Rwanda or Kenya over ~2/3rds of other countries. Certainly over anywhere in the Middle East, North Africa, the nation of South Africa, Central America, etc.

Everyone I know that's gone absolutely loves it, and every Kenyan I've worked with has been a lovely person.

There's a shitty "meme" that Africa is just a huge, hot version of Detroit or St. Louis or other Black American city. It's absolutely not, those classes of areas have remarkably different issues.

You sound like someone who has never been in northern africa or central america. Plenty of areas there that are clean, urbanist, and wealthy, way more than in Kenya or Rwanda.
I for sure have - and I like Central America. I also know that Sub-Saharan Africa is MUCH safer than either of those two.
You could do a lot worse than Rwanda if you were fleeing Russia or the West Bank or something. Usually CBI are investment only in name, they're seen as a total loss.
Not really.

Rwanda has an HDI of 0.545 and this is suspect as well because they have been found to be fudging poverty and GDP metrics

Even Gaza under occupation had a HDI of 0.699 (roughly comparable to Vietnam). The West Bank regions are roughly comparable to neighboring Jordan around 0.710-0.730.

Even most Pakistanis, Afghans, and Syrians have better options in their home country from an economic standpoint.

Russia itself has almost reached a threshold around "Developed" with an HDI around 0.824.

I never meant to imply Rwanda is better than the aforementioned on a general level. When you are legitimately fleeing rather than economically migrating though that typically means your individual HDI of sorts was already near zero. It doesn't make much sense to use population HDI of origin for such persons.
I've been helping a couple Afghan translators stuck in Afghanistan to get their families into the US. They are all staying put in Kabul or Ghazni until the US processes their visa, and are looking at Pakistan, Saudi, and India as backups in case they need to book it and leave.

They sure as hell aren't going to uproot their lives to end up in another country at a similar developmental level but with no safety net in the form of family if network nor enough relevant jobs nor the relevant language skills

On top of that, there are waaaay better options in general. If you're in WB and want to flee, it's relatively easy to go to Jordan. As a Gazan it is obviously difficult right now with the war, but even before that Gazans who would emigrate abroad (as refugees or immigrants) had a path in Jordan (27% of Jordan is Palestinian), Saudi (1% of Saudi is Palestinian), Qatar (5% of Qatar is Palestinian), and Egypt, which isn't as great as Europe but is definitely better and easier to survive in than Rwanda

It's the same reason Australia opened camps for asylees in Papua New Guinea and Narau - by building a hell on earth they are showing you shouldn't even try apply for asylum.

There are 55k Palestinians diaspora in Yemen and that has an even worse HDI than Rwanda. The number of fallacies you've presented I'm starting to lose track. You've used anecdote of an afghan family, general population HDI of origin to measure subpopulations fleeing, you said "not really" to a statement that you could do worse but then did the opposite and instead argued that there were other better possible choices (I never denied this).

It's baffling that you're so dismissive some could use the option, particularly when circumstances and wealth and connections often dictate where you can flee. Low HDI Comoros (now discontinued ) and Vanuatu have CBI programs that have sold tens of thousands of passports to stateless and others in bad situations in the third world ( most of whom have no chance at US visa), despite in theory with the right means other options being better.

The market case is well established, frankly I suspect it's only a matter of time until these incentives open up such doors again in these regions.

> It's baffling that you're so dismissive some could use the option

Because it's direct fork of Australia's "Pacific Solution". Look at the data from that - asylum applications DROPPED as asylees from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, etc simply decided to return to their home country (even it was dangerous like Afghanistan during the surge or Sri Lanka towards the end of the civil war) instead of waiting indefinitely for processing.

Also, I don't think you've ever travelled to actual developing countries or have a background with them. Going from one undeveloped country to another makes absolutely no sense. Stuff is still fucked in developing country B as it is in developing country A. Developing countries simply do not have the resources to adequately manage a population of refugees.

Put yourself in the shoes of a refugee from Aleppo - do you want to go from Aleppo to some random country in Africa with a GDP per Capita of $800 that is probably falsified [0], isn't fully English speaking yet, and is still overwhelmingly agricultural (aka you will be working in a field for less than $2 a day) [1], minimum wage is $2 a MONTH [1], or would you rather just go across the border to Türkiye where median incomes are $400/month, there is a semi-functioning healthcare system, and there are half decent universities so your kids will absolutely have a shot of emigrating to the first world.

> Vanuatu have CBI programs that have sold tens of thousands of passports to stateless and others in bad situations in the third world

You are talking out of your ass.

Vanuatu's CBI program gives you visa free access to Ireland and used to have visa free access to the UK until a couple months ago when they shut down that loophole.

It also requires you to spend $130,000 and have a bank account with at least $250,000. A stateless individual, migrant worker, or refugee does not have half a million dollars to spend on a random citizenship! If they did they would already have an easy time emigrating to a first world country above board.

It's a program used to get a backdoor into Ireland and formerly the UK.

Also, based on your comment history, you look like someone who's education about the world came from Reddit and Youtube. Learn to read real sources (books, NYT, Financial Times, The Economist, Nikkei, NBER papers, etc).

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/683047ac-b857-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea...

[1] - https://align-tool.com/source-map/rwanda