From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Aug 21 2008 - 23:39:06 EDT
Is Brain Drain Good for Africa?
August 21, 2008
Stephanie Hanson
Nearly half of Ghana's educated citizens live abroad, while one in three
skilled Angolans resides outside that country. "Brain drain"—the exodus
of skilled workers from their home countries—is nothing new. India,
China, Ireland, and Russia, too, complain about it. But it hits Africa
particularly hard. Of the ten countries with the highest percentage of
educated citizens living abroad, six are in sub-Saharan Africa, where many
governments heavily subsidize higher education. Development experts decry
the adverse impact of brain drain on the region. But recent research on
migration of skilled workers concludes that brain drain might, through
remittances and the return of talented workers, be good for Africa.
Many experts believe the flight of health workers, scientists, and teachers
hinder the continent's development. "It will be impossible to achieve an
African renaissance without the contributions of the talented Africans
residing outside Africa," writes Ravinder Rena of the Eritrea Institute of
Technology. A lack of skilled local labor means that the continent spends
roughly $4 billion a year to hire foreign skilled workers, according to the
International Office on Migration. "If you don’t have qualified people on
the ground with strong local roots to carry out development projects,
it’s not likely they will move forward in a sustainable way," Joan Dassin
of the Ford Foundation tells Voice of America. Public health experts,
including CFR Senior Fellow Laurie Garrett, also contend that brain drain
in medical fields have contributed to a decline in health indicators in
several African countries, including Ghana and Kenya. Economists caution,
however, that there is no systematic data on overall brain drain from
Africa (PDF).
A small group of economists now argue that brain drain might have a
positive impact on Africa. Those skilled workers, their research shows, are
often sending significant quantities of money back to their home countries.
A March 2008 paper by economists William Easterly and Yaw Nyarko says
remittances to Africa are likely undercounted, but on average they are
equivalent to 81 percent of the foreign aid (PDF) received by an individual
country. A 2005 World Bank study showed that remittances from skilled
workers to their families in Guatemala, Mexico, and the Philippines helped
reduce poverty in those countries.
In some cases, talented workers are even returning to their home countries
to work or start businesses. Though research on this phenomenon in Africa
is limited, economists have documented the effects of Chinese and Indian
tech entrepreneurs returning to their home countries. This so-called brain
circulation—in which entrepreneurs start new companies but maintain
business links in the United States—has been extensively researched by
AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California, who calls these
entrepreneurs "The New Argonauts." Some experts believe African skilled
workers could have a similar positive effect on their native economies. In
an essay in the book, African Brain Circulation, Rubin Patterson of the
University of Toledo proposes that African nationals have the opportunity
to spearhead an environmental-conscious industrial economy similar to the
information economy pioneered by Asian nationals in Silicon Valley during
the 1990s.
Instead of waiting to see if skilled Africans will return to their home
countries, some are building institutions to encourage talented students to
stay on the continent and help develop their countries. Neil Turok of
Cambridge University has built a science and technology postgraduate
program in South Africa that he hopes to expand to fifteen countries.
Another new program, the African Leadership Academy, will waive tuition for
most of its students, but if they are not working in Africa when they turn
twenty five, they'll owe the school full tuition plus interest (Forbes).
Panelists at an April 2008 meeting at the Brookings Institution advised
developing countries to implement policies that create incentives (PDF) for
skilled workers to stay rather than restricting their ability to migrate.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
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