Jeff Otieno and Patrick Nzioka
20 July 2007
Nairobi — Brain drain is one of the major impediments to Africa's sustained economic growth and achievement of the millennium development goals, a United Nations report says.
According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), poor countries, Kenya included, were losing thousands of qualified personnel to Europe and North America, leaving behind a chronic shortage of skilled people.
Throes of poverty
The report warns that if the current trend continues it would be impossible for many African countries to rid themselves of poverty.
According to the 189-page report, the least developed countries (LDCs) most affected by the brain drain are in Africa.
They are Gambia, Eritrea, Mozambique, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Madagascar and Equitorial Guinea.
Kenya is experiencing the same problem, with increased number of nurses and doctors leaving for greener pastures, mainly in Britain and America. Most of the medical personnel leaving the country are those employed in government-owned institutions compromising health care services to a chunk of the population depending on public hospitals.
The report entitled Least Developed Countries Report 207; Knowledge, Technological Learning and Innovation for Development says economic growth and creation of employment opportunities for educated manpower in LDCs appear to be closely associated with slower rates of brain drain.
It adds that pressure for deployment of skilled migrants from developing countries has increased in industrialised countries, despite their rapidly rising numbers of tertiary graduates.
Other countries experiencing increased emigration are Cape Verde, Samoa and Sao Tome and Principe which, the report says, have lost half their university-educated professionals in recent years to developed countries.
The document estimates that one million skilled people from LDCs lived and worked in developed countries in 2004, a brain drain of 15 per cent.
Other reasons given for the worrying trend are slow economic growth and political instability, especially in Africa.
It says the low level of pay and the huge and widening gap between earnings in LDCs and those in developed countries are also to blame.
The document adds that the contribution of skilled professionals was a precondition for increasing productivity in the export market and sophistication of domestic businesses.
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