From Brain Drain to Brain Gain

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From Brain Drain to Brain Gain

Well-educated migrants worldwide are not only a source of revenue but potential key actors in their countries' development. Perhaps it is time to stop seeing them as a loss of investment.

News 8 of 38

Every year, tens of thousands of highly specialized professionals and academics leave the developing world for what they believe to be a better quality of life in countries of the North. The majority – doctors, engineers, lecturers, researchers and senior managers as well as students – are tempted by more attractive career opportunities, salaries and living conditions. A university degree is also the safest passport out of an unstable political environment. The extent of this “flight of human capital” is staggering, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the International Organization for Migration. An estimated 27,000 skilled Africans left the continent for industrialized countries between 1960 and 1975. During the period 1975 to 1984, the figure rose to 40,000. Since 1990, at least 20,000 qualified people have left Africa every year. As Alex Nunn of Leeds Metropolitan University succinctly states, that makes 20,000 fewer people in Africa who can deliver public services and articulate calls for greater democracy and development. A paradigm shift is needed in the way brain drain is perceived and analysed, argue an increasing number of development stakeholders, including scholars. The idea is to move away from the negative concept of brain drain and start talking about “brain circulation”. Many expatriates already contribute massively to their national economies through sending remittances to their families. For example, Ghanaians living abroad contribute about US$400 million annually to the national economy, constituting Ghana’s fourth highest source of foreign exchange. But many more would like to use their expertise, skills and capital to become real partners in local and national development. This is true even if concerns about living conditions and (in the worst cases) political instability and human rights abuses mean that they do not necessarily want to return to their homeland. Read more

Author(s)	Education Today - Newsletter of UNESCO's Education Sector
Publication Date	31-10-2006
Source	UNESCO

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