Malawi November 2006 |
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| Turning brain drain into brain gain, (Malawi Nation, 2006-11-03):-In 2005, the Medical News Today reported that there are only 100 doctors and 2,000 nurses for Malawi’s 12 million people because many health care workers trained in the country now practise in developed countries. These shocking statistics have not only affected the health sector, but the teaching, engineering, research and other important departments. Although it is difficult to calculate the financial cost of brain drain in terms of the value of lost human capital, a World Bank study indicated that countries have been losing billions of dollars in tax earnings and gross domestic product (GDP), due to emigration of its professionals. Indirectly brain drain has important knock-on effects on efficient and sustainable delivery of services. An increasing number of migration experts acknowledge that the real challenge in brain drain is how to manage it as well as possible and not really how to stop it. This article argues that this paradigm shift can be effectively utilised by developing countries in general and particularly Malawi where the problem seems not to halt. Two schools of thought arise around this paradigm shift. On the one hand, the critic raising the questions: Why bother? Why try to involve those that did not want to be involved? “Let those who left live where they are; for he or she who left did not want to stay”. The other school of thought, on the other hand, goes beyond the realms and bounds of countries. The proponents of this school of thought argue that the salient characteristic of globalisation is the capacity for countries to generate and acquire innovative scientific knowledge for socio-economic development of individual nations or regions of the world. Indicating that those countries without the capacity, knowledge and resources to take appropriate timely actions are less likely to survive the surge of globalisation and technological innovation. That is where the issue of brain gain comes in. The bridge between the above views is to understand whether is it the issue of repatriating the Africans in diaspora to resettle home or, it is a question of engaging the professionals in diaspora in a meaningful way in the scientific and development endeavours of Africa. There are merits and demerits to all this. The advantage of repatriation is that the professionals will be physically located home and hence contribute from within. Countries like China, India, Pakistan and Malaysia have managed to do this. But one needs to look at what the economies of these countries have been in the last decade to unlock the secret. Is Africa in general and Malawi in particular at that level yet? Probably not. But the lessons are there to be learnt from. The downside to this is what a snapshot of the activities the professionals in diaspora are involved in reveals. Most of these have permanent jobs and/or lucrative contracts. That coupled with a bunch of other personal reasons may make it difficult to ‘uproot’ them from where they are. Therefore, engaging professionals in diaspora from where they are seems to be a more plausible option than not. There are several points, however, in this regard. To start with, any contribution by the professionals in diaspora should not be looked at as African professionals helping Africa. It is nothing like helping. Firstly, this is because just like any citizen of Malawi, professionals in diaspora have an obligation to their country. Secondly, in capacity development terms, this is a case of adding onto existing capacity. One has to recognise the fact that there are other professionals on the ground. The capacity may be limited but it is there. What is needed is an add-on effect. Further, the other professions just like in football are fast finding themselves to be universal. The point of departure, however, is how professional football players find themselves duty bound and play for the national team whenever called upon. We have witnessed players coming in from as far as Russia to join with their home-based colleagues. The synchrony that is produced by utilising talent and skill shaped by different exposure has always been good for the country’s football, otherwise by now the Government and the Football Association would have stopped supporting this whole process. What is wrong with the other professions that they cannot learn from sportsmen and women? The receptive nature of the players (both home-based and those based elsewhere), the ability to accommodate each other, the willingness to learn from each other, and the enthusiasm to complement each other are characteristic in the sports circles. Is this what is witnessed in the other professions? On the contrary, friendly fire! How can we harness the sporadic efforts by individuals to teach and do research together, to ship books and computers, to have college hostels painted and refurbished, to source and solicit funds for students’ scholarships? How can we utilise Internet forums in research and development? As long as the current efforts remain ad hoc it will generally be difficult to keep the wolf from the door for a bit. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |