The Challenges of Brain Drain

The Challenges of Brain Drain Abdigani Jama, Secretary General Somalia Telecom Association 11th Arab Regional Meeting on HRD/M Khartoum, Sudan Dec. 16 -18, 2003

Outline • What is Brain Drain? • The impact of the Brain Drain at Different levels and Sectors . • Importance of Brain Drain. • Policy Responses, • Obstacles for Dialogue, • Least Developed Countries and Brain Drain • Conclusions.

What is Brain Drain? • One way movement of highly skilled people from Developing counties to Developed Countries That only benefits the Industrialized (Host) Countries (UN). • The emigration of highly educated workers from developingcountries to developed countries. • Depletion or loss of intellectual and technical personnel.

What Situation Brain Drain Occurs ? • When political uncertainty and future ambiguousness in the nation ( Hong-Kong 1997, South Africa 1994, or disintegration of Soviet Union1990) • When Civil conflict broke-out (Somalia, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Rwanda), • When Power Transition takes place • (Nigeria, Kenya), • When Country is Occupied( Palestine, Iraq)

Four Dimension That Falls Under Brain Drain • Developed country to Developed country (USA vs Canada). • Developed country to Developing country (USA vs Brasil). • Developing country to Developing country (Saudi Arabia vs Egypt). • Developing country to Developed country (South Africa Vs UK).

Why Brain Drain is becoming increasingly important issue? • Globalization • Recent Economic Growth, and • Explosive growth in information communication technology, • As a result: industrialized nations have embarked on massive recruitment drives.

What is the Policy Responses?Six R’s • Restriction of International Mobility. • Recruitment of International Migrants. • Reparation for loss of Human capital. • Re-sourcing Expatriates: (Diaspora Options). • Retention Through Educational Sector Policies. • Retention Through Economic Development

Policy Responses Cont. • Losing-sending Countries be compensated from gaining receiving countries. • Personal taxation system (USA) or taxation system on post-industrialized countries. • Increased training assistance and technology transfer to the developing country.

Obstacles for Dialogue • Lack of constructive dialogue on skilled migration globally. • Lack of political sensitivities such the exploitations of developing nations to more developed or wealthy nations. • Unwillingness to discuss policies that appear to restrict freedom of movement. • Unwillingness to consider issues of compensation by Post-Industrial Economies

LDC and Brain Drain • Low Technical skills for rapidly changing Technologies. • Chronic Human Resource Development deficiency. • Lack of prioritizing of available resources. • Lack of identifying affordable, cheap and appropriate training for unskilled employees.

LDC and Brain Drain • Close to 10 million Arab LDC now constitute an invisible nation that resides outside their boundaries. • If it were to be a nation with distinct borders, it would have an income roughly equivalent to all Arab LDC gross domestic product. • International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges its economic importance. • Developing countries in Diaspora now constitutes the biggest group of foreign investors in these countries.

Retention policy Adopted by some of the LDC Countries • Clear career paths for all categories of staff and effect promotions transparently • Adopt shorter-term training strategies • Staffs should be bonded particularly when embarking on training vacations overseas • Use the Renewable Contract Award methodology for recruitment • Create the sense of belonging (ownership of organization) among the employees and share profit accruing from the business

Retention policy Adopted by some of the LDC Countries • Use of e-learning to discourage overseas face-to-face traditional training should be adopted whenever possible • Give recognition to returning employees from overseas training and ensure that they share the knowledge and experiences gained • Frequent contacts with the home company/ office by the overseas trainee should be mandated by the Human Resource Development Department

Retention policy Adopted by some of the LDC Countries • Holistic approaches involving all stakeholder consultation for policy formulation and implementation • Need for improving competition in the sector (Innovation) • Holistic multi-sectorial development approach that can support the ICT sector i.e. energy, • Use of appropriate policies and technologies that address the demographic realities of LDCs.

Conclusion • Historically, wars between nations have always been about land and its appropriation. Now a new type of war is emerging, the war about technology, human brain and its control. • Because it is only a nation’s human capital that can be converted into real wealth. • There is a clear need for international cooperation.

Thank you for your Attention Jama@ties.itu.int

The Challenges of Brain Drain