Nigerian Newsday

Africa needs to train more manpower, especially in the sciences and applied sciences for a competitive 21^{st century world. The snag is that not only is the continent not training enough manpower, but it is also losing those it already has in droves to the developed West.}

At the 11th International Labour Organisation (ILO) African Regional meeting, the administrator of the United Nations labour body, Mr. Kamel Devis painted a graphic picture of the dire straits confronting Africa as regards shortage of professionals to man its economy and the economic cost to the continent as a whole. According to Mr Devis, each year since 1990, Africa has been losing about 20,000 professionals and as of today around 300,000 professionals work outside the continent, mostly in Western Europe and North America. Kamel Devis’s worry, which should also be the worry of every concerned African, is that with the "rapid loss of trained man power as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the brain drain in Africa is eroding the valuable human capital that is critically needed for economic growth and human development".

This is not all. The brain drain according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) cost Africa over $4billion every year in employing expatriates to fill the gap left by these migrant African professionals. In short, in Africa, the brain drain is a huge economic burden its weak economy can ill-afford and more critically a major factor that is increasingly undermining its efforts to accelerate economic development.

Each country in Africa has a sad tale to tell about this nightmare called brain drain. Start with Nigeria. This country, Africa’s most populous nation, has the unenviable distinction of losing more of its healthy workers to the outside world than any other country in Africa. In specific term, 1 out of every 5 black doctors in Britain in a Nigeria while in America, the figure is 1 in every 10 black doctors is from Nigeria. This is from just one professional field. It could be worse in other areas, especially the engineering profession. Or take the case of Ghana, where it is estimated that about 50% of its doctors practice in the United States. In South Africa, each year between 70 to 100 of its doctors leave the country for greener pastures elsewhere. One report also has it that about 18,000 nurses from one particular African country are working abroad, while in another, an entire graduating nursing class was recruited to work in one European country. Malawi’s case is even more pathetic. That tiny southern African country has more of its doctors working in the English city of Manchester alone than those practicing at home. This situation leaves the country severely incapacitated in tackling the rampaging AIDS scourge and other diseases common to Africa, such as malaria and cholera.

If you consider that poor Africa with 1/7 of the world population has about 28% of the global disease burden and yet it has just a mere 1.3% of the total world health force to cope with this huge burden, than it is not surprising that the continent is the sickest place in the whole world. Decaying or poor infrastructure or in some places none at all, shortage of qualified personnel and above all bad governance. The result is that every year, millions of Africans, especially children die from diseases that elsewhere have long been brought under control. And this sorry state of the continent’s health is not likely to change for the better anytime soon as long as the exodus of its professionals continues.

But what is driving this mass exodus to top-flight African professionals from the continent? The main reason is largely due to bad working conditions and poor pay at home. Both result in frustration and low output. On the other European and America, the main destination of African professionals not only offer excellent working conditions and good remunerations, but also unrivalled prospect for career advancement through research and publication, something Africa is yet to appreciate for now.

Still Africa, even with its limited resources has a chance to stem the flood of its experts to the west by deciding which is better, giving the highest priorities to health and education and substantially improving the welfare of those who work in these two sectors with a view to raising the quality of life of the majority of the continent’s population or continued wastage of scarce resources on needless and non-essential projects such as fly-over, skyscrapers, theme parks and designer buildings, which though attractive to the eyes, do not cure the malaria-infected child or keep at home that rate chemical engineer about to pack his bag and head for the welcoming west.