Africa Needs to Stem the Current Tide of Brain Drain, If…
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By Adebayo Abubakar
Questions abound around how the African Union (AU) will put in place a policy that will discourage the best of the continent’s brains from emigrating in order for them to stay back and help actualize the dream of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This, by extension, will positively impact the realization of “Vision 2063.” I am not sure if adequate attention is being paid to that.
For any society to attain a meaningful level of socioeconomic, and industrial development, it needs to retain citizens in possession of a plethora of critical skills, and this forms part of the government’s development agenda. In fact, in order to meet their quotas, Governments sometimes go to the mile of head-hunting the best available talents across the globe. This explains why America, Canada, and Australia, among other countries, run lottery visas, to attract the best of brains from every nook and cranny of the world. Once they arrive, after being subjected to some evaluations, they become naturalised as citizens if they meet certain criteria. In an ideal world, nationals should not leave their country for another for all the money in this world, to trade their expertise.
International labour migration is a phenomenon that is as old as time, just like its intra-national counterpart. Across epochs, human beings have been on a constant move in search of better-paying jobs. Even during the era of “hunting and gathering,” the movement was on. It only became much more prevalent following the exponential rise in capitalism, brought about by the industrial revolution in the 18th century.
The negative effects of labour-related migration include what is referred to as a brain drain, where exits of workers begin to create a vacuum that leaves a yawning gap or creates an obstruction in the implementation of development drives of the society in question.
Lately, the rate at which Africa has been losing some of her best brains to labour-related migration is phenomenal as reported by BBC’s Cecilia Macaulay. In the last few years, many Africans have left the shores of the continent for Europe, searching for a better life. Some did not make it to their chosen destinations, as they died on the High (Mediterranean) Sea. Others who eventually made it to Europe died as a result of the negative impacts of the contrasting weather conditions. The story is not the same for all, as some eventually actualized their dreams of a better life, after berthing. These migrants sometimes include skilled, semi-skilled, and skilled categories of workers in different fields of human endeavour, according to “Facts and Figures.”
Migrants are seen at the centre of the Anti-Illegal Immigration Authority, in Tripoli, Libya August 17, 2017. REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny
Furthermore, in an opinion piece written by Richard Kweitsu, he identified brain drain as a bane to Africa’s potential. He sees brain drain as an “obstacle to public service delivery in the health sector” in Africa. He further asserted, “on average, it costs each African country between $21,000 and $59,000 to train a medical doctor. Nine countries – Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – have lost over $2.0 billion since 2010 from training doctors who migrated. Annually, it is estimated that Africa loses around $2.0 billion through brain drain in the health sector alone. This is just an example of how Africa continues to lose its manpower in critical sectors like health, which has its own complete value chain, through brain drain. A healthy population is a wealthy one as the saying goes. If Africa does not have a healthy working population, then the AfCFTA will suffer the backlash, as there will be nobody to drive the actualisation of the dream.
This is not limited to the health sector. It is very rampant in the education sector where university teachers are moving to either Canada, the US, the UK, or Australia, due to the poor remuneration that characterises the industry in most African countries, safe for South Africa, which has become a destination of choice for most university lecturers from Nigeria, for instance. If the ugly trend of brain drain continues in academia, the question would be, “who will help produce the needed high-level manpower required to drive trade and development in Africa?”
The same goes for Information and Telecommunication Technology (ICT). Emmanuel Otori, the Chief Executive Officer of Abuja Data School, Nigeria, told SciDev.Net that, as soon as many of the talents (who come to learn from the school) gather enough skills, they migrate out of the region, in search of greener pastures. Meanwhile, having launched the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) preparatory to the full take-off of the AfCFTA, Africa will need the best the continent can offer in the field of FinTech, to power the system. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also corroborates this, asserting that Africa’s brain drain is more acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, quoting World economic outlook. The story in engineering is not much different. If one goes to the assembly plants of various world-famous car manufacturers in Europe or America, he sees Africans heading strategic units. A prominent example is Jelani Aliyu – a Nigerian automotive designer who once worked for the American car company General Motors. These are not good stories as far as deepening the root of the AfCFTA is concerned.
What about sport? A multi-billion dollar business portfolio that should be incorporated into the to-do list of the African Union, as it affects Vision 2063. It is the same story of Africa losing her best athletes to non-African countries, either by way of plying their professional trades abroad or by way of outright naturalisation (switching international allegiance). For instance, the most expensive footballer of African origin, Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen, plies his trade with SC Napoli in the Italian league (the Serie A), while the reigning best footballer in Africa, Sadio Mane of Senegal is also playing for a German Bundesliga side, Bayern Munich. The only African footballer to have won the prize as the World, European, and African footballer of the year (in 1995) is the current President of Liberia, (His Excellency), George Opong Weah, who throughout most of his career, played for clubs in Europe. Kenya, famous for long-distance running, is also losing its athletes to countries, especially in the oil-rich Middle East. These are human capital losses to Africa. Come to think of how much audience/spectatorship these superstars will attract if they grace with their talents, any competition organised on the shore of Africa, a massive one of course. Advertisers of big brands, from across the globe, would be falling over themselves to sponsor such a competition, thereby generating revenue. It would be a boost to the economy of the continent. But since Africa lacks, for now, the capacity to retain its services, such revenues go elsewhere – Europe to be precise, and the AfCFTA loses.
This is, however, not to say that labour migration is wholly a bad thing in its entirety. According to a report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), there are advantages derived from the migration of people for reasons bordering on labour. It does have its advantages, some of which are, “Transfer of Technology”, and “Remittance”. Jelani Aliyu for instance, was a senior creative designer at GM as earlier stated, until his appointment as the Director-General of Nigeria’s National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) in 2017 by the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari. Remittance running into billions of dollars also flows into the continent, from Africans working abroad. These are critical factors of production (labour and capital), that can stimulate both industrial and socio-economic developments, and end up being beneficial to the realisation of the AfCFTA vision, as it relates to Agenda 2063.
But, we are talking about some of the best brains available that the continent needs to set herself on the path of socio-economic prosperity, through industrial development. Unfortunately, the condition of service, obtainable on the continent of Africa is not as attractive to the labour emigrants, as what is on offer in the western world, or some Asian countries. Talents tend to be magnetized to places where they will be adequately rewarded, whenever there is a distortion to the nexus between effort and reward. Africa, therefore, needs to take urgent steps to curb it. There is a need for the various national governments to initiate a deliberate policy that would see to the improvement of the terms and conditions of work in various disciplines to be able to retain most of the continent’s best brains. Africa must key into the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda, in order for the best of her human capital to stay back and drive AfCFTA, with a view to achieving the dream of the African Union’s “Agenda 2063”. A report published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says some Africans migrate to Europe for jobs, due to reasons that are not related to (poor) remuneration.
Serious and urgent steps therefore need to be taken to stem the tide of the current wave of Brain Drain, so that Africa will not be short of the needed high-level manpower to actualize the vision of AfCFTA, and by extension, Agenda 2063. Care must equally be taken, not to restrict the movement of labour within the continent, otherwise, the spirit of Pan-Africanism that birthed the AfCFTA would be put into jeopardy.
Adebayo Abubakar is a Nigerian writer. You can reach him via email, marxbayour@gmail.com