Juliana Taiwo
26 April 2007
Addis Ababa — United Nations Development Programme has said brain drain has cost the African continent over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually.
UNDP Administrator, Kemal Deris, said at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 11th African Regional Meeting, that since 1990, Africa has been losing 20,000 professionals every year
"300,000 professionals reside outside Africa. Ethiopia lost 75 per cent of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991. This large exodus of qualified Africans is a huge burden on the African economy. African institutions are increasingly dependent on foreign expertise.
"To fill the human resource gap created by brain drain, Africa employs up to 150,000 expatriate professionals at a cost of $4 billion a year. Coupled with the loss of trained professionals due to HIV/AIDS, brain drain erodes the valuable human capital critically needed for economic growth and human development," Deris said.
He said there is a widespread consensus that unemployment represents one of the greatest challenges to the development of the continent, "turning the current pattern of growth into pro poor, employment centered growth is vital if extreme poverty is to be halved by 2015. Economic policies need to focus on employment generation as the critical link between growth and poverty reduction," he said.
Deris said the living conditions of Africans in connection to the world overall per capita growth for the first time since 1960's, has been growing at a rate slightly exceeding world economy standard.
"Despite these welcome advances, growth in sub Saharan Africa remains below the levels of other developing regions, and even in those countries that have seen considerable economic growth, this has not so far had much of an impact on poverty levels.
"The recently released World Bank 2007 global monitoring report indicates that sub Saharan Africa remains the poorest developing region in the world, with about two fifths of its people living on less than $1 a day," he said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
