Nairobi — Loss of professionals from Sub-Saharan Africa to developed countries has raised major concern, as it has become one of the region's greatest threats to economic development.

Emigration of qualified manpower especially academics from African universities was one of the central issues that were discussed during the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development held in South Africa. The meeting heard that in less than two decades Sub-Saharan Africa has lost a third of its skilled professionals and had to replace them with over 100,000 expatriates from the West at a cost of US$4 billion a year.

Dr Chris Buckley a senior researcher at University of Natal and an expert on Africa's human capital flight says between 1985 and 1990 Africa lost over 60,000 middle-level and high-level managers to Western economies. About 23,000 lecturers from African universities also continue to emigrate each year. "The biggest migratory flows are from Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana in that order," say labour experts at Addis Ababa based United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

But despite the large number of academics leaving African universities, rarely do many of them find university teaching or research positions.

According to the Institute of International Education, a professional body that keeps track on the mobility of students and staff from and to United States, last year there were only 2,256 African scholars teaching in American universities as compared to 35,620 from Asia, 26,668 from Europe and 4,676 from Latin America.

The big picture is that most of the 80,000 foreign scholars in the American universities are engaged in high profile scientific research. Statistics from the Institute of International Education show that 26 per cent of the foreign academics are conducting research in health sciences and 14.7 per cent in biological sciences.

Another cohort of 14.7 percent is performing research in physical sciences and a small segment in engineering. Only a small minority are involved in teaching says the report.

Of the 2,256 African academics working in United States universities last year, Egypt had the largest share of 671 a drop from 773 the previous year. South Africa came a distant second with 327 while Nigeria emerged third with 176. Although Kenya was placed fourth with 136 academics, the country had the highest number of scholars in United States universities among 21 countries in Eastern and Central Africa.

For instance Zimbabwe was second to Kenya in the region with 67 scholars and Cameroon third with 56 and Ethiopia with 53. However, a major surprise drop was in Mauritius that had 12 scholars in US last year as compared to 90 in the previous year. However, assuming that a large number of African scholars are economic migrants, one cannot rule out the significant drop among Mauritian scholars. To date Mauritius textile exports are more than the rest from Sub-Saharan African countries put together.

Considering the large number of African academics who leave the continent each year in search of career and economic opportunities abroad, it is quite evident that most of them are getting employment outside academia. According to Prof Thomas Odhiambo, the reputed Kenyan scientist and the founder of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) says highly qualified African scholars end up as teaching and research assistants abroad after failing to secure high profile teaching and research fellowships.

Even then, this scenario has not discouraged African scholars among other skilled African workers from going abroad in search of jobs that are scarce at home. In comparison to other developing regions with high migratory flows to developed countries, over 60 percent of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa have tertiary education."Migration of Africans with only a primary education is almost nil," says William Carrington, a labour economist at the US Bureau of Labour Statistics.

But as the debate of brain drain takes centre stage, the issue that is likely to arise eventually is whether African scholars are being used as cheap labour.

There is also the issue as to whether the expatriates that sub-Saharan African countries are replacing their migratory scholars and skilled workers at enormous cost represent the proverbial adage of someone trading his golden vessel for a polished calabash.