New initiative to tackle regional brain drain

A new project to stem the tide of skilled migrants from southern Africa was unveiled on Wednesday in Johannesburg. Sponsored by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the scheme centres around bringing diaspora skills and capital back to the region to promote sustainable development. “This is about much more than just bringing qualified Africans back to their country of origin,” Katrin Cowan-Louw of IOM told IRIN. “That had been tried, but with only moderate success, mainly because of the expense involved,” she added. The IOM’s Return of Qualified African Nationals (ROQAN) initiative, which ran from 1993-1998 and was funded primarily by the EU, successfully placed 2,000 skilled Africans back in targeted countries, but ran into funding difficulties due to the high cost of repatriation. The ‘Migration for Development’ initiative would be different, Cowan-Louw said. “We’re looking at three possibilities here; temporary return’ virtual return and economic return,” she said. The scheme allows skilled Africans working abroad to contribute to the development of their home countries without giving up the better salaries and lifestyles that they left to pursue. The migration of skilled professionals from southern Africa - the so-called brain drain, is having a major economic and social impact on the region. “Skills are flowing from the region much more readily now as southern Africa interacts more fully with the globalised economy,” Sally Peberdy of the Johannesburg-based Southern Africa Migration Project (SAMP) told IRIN. Although skills migration is a headache for many countries, it’s hitting sub-Saharan African countries particularly hard. “The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is adversely affected by poverty, food scarcity, unemployment, as well as HIV/AIDS, and recruiting and retaining skilled and experienced people is a major problem for the region,” Nhlanlha Nxumalo of the SADC’s Human Resources Development sector told IRIN. He added that at least 10,000 teachers had left SADC countries for greener pastures since 1996. Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) told IRIN the migration of skilled people combined with the difficulties of importing qualified foreigners were key factors holding back economic growth, particularly in South Africa. “There is a real crisis here and we need to face it. We need economic growth of between 6 and 8 percent. To get that we need a much more flexible immigration policy and strategies to get our skilled expatriates back here,” Bernstein said. Analysts say the long-term solution to skilled migration is economic growth. Under the IOM’s temporary return programme, a qualified and experienced Zambian doctor working in Canada, for example, would be assisted to return home to teach, perform operations or share skills for a finite period. Virtual return involves skill sharing, teaching, mentoring and even marking exam papers via the internet. “A Zimbabwean academic in the UK could make a real contribution to further education at home by creative use of the internet and video conferencing,” Cowan-Louw said. Already, video conferencing is changing the lecturer-student relationship in countries with access to the technology. Medical students in Los Angeles can watch a surgical proceedure being conducted in real time in London via the internet and satellite. Jean-Baptiste Meyer, a migration researcher, told IRIN that at least one third of science and technology professionals from developing countries were currently working in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia. The third component of the ‘Migration for Development’ programme involves encouraging investment in southern African countries by professionals abroad. “The scheme would allow people with critical skills and accumulated capital to contribute in a way which would not disrupt their lives,” added Cowan-Louw. The idea is to hook potential investors up with regional agencies and investment houses. Lack of investment is another factor inhibiting economic growth in southern Africa. “In 1996 SADC received just 0.3 percent of foreign direct investment and it hasn’t got much better since,” Nxumalo said. Although regional analysts agree that economic growth is the key to stemming the growing tide of skilled migrants, the IOM’s initiative, if it can attract sufficient funding and support from the diaspora, could be a step in the right direction.