The Guardian 28 June, 2006
Brain drain hurts Third World countries
Alberto D Perez
A report published by the UN on the issue of international emigration confirms that the exodus of millions of individuals from their countries of origin, principally for economic reasons, has a positive impact in the receiving nations not only on account of resolving problems of unskilled worker shortages, but also, increasingly, by supplying highly educated migrants.
The developing countries are contributing to this intellectual, scientific and technical brain drain to the detriment of their own aspirations of progress.
To have an idea of the magnitude of this phenomenon, suffice it to say that between 33 percent and 55 percent of all highly-educated individuals from Angola, Burundi, Ghana, Kenya, the Mauritius Islands, Mozambique, Sierra Leona, Uganda and Tanzania have left their countries to live in developed European nations
But the proportion is even higher in other developing nations: no less than 60 percent of highly educated persons from Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Fiji have left their homelands.
Emigration also has a devastating effect on families in the emitting nations. Many families, especially in poorer countries, lose their male family heads to the search for work.
Illegal emigration is the tragic aspect of this movement, fed by the desperation of millions of individuals who lack employment and means of sustaining themselves and their families in their country of origin. The Mexico-US border — now in the processes of fortification on the US side — has been the scene of many fatal incidents: the border patrol has fired on — sometimes killing — alleged violators of the perimeter. Many migrants have also drowned trying to cross the Río Grande.
In a unique case, designed to encourage politically motivated immigration, the US government offers residency to Cuban citizens who succeed in entering US territory, no matter the method used, which is usually illegal: this policy is known as "dry foot" (the migrant stays in the United States); "wet foot" (the migrant is returned to the island).
This policy has inspired clandestine exits from Cuba by means of paid pirates in speedboats as well as non-professional ones aboard precarious craft. On many occasions, both ways have cost human lives.
Although they do not enjoy the same privilege as Cubans, a large number of Haitians have drowned in attempts to reach the United States or Puerto Rico in totally un-seaworthy, makeshift vessels, driven by the desperation of abject poverty.
There is a similar situation in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic with small vessels loaded with African migrants trying to reach southern Europe and the Canary Islands. Seldom does a week pass without the European press publishing the tragic news of the death of would-be immigrants at sea.
But international emigration also has an aspect that some consider positive: family remittances, which in 2005 totalled US$232 billion ($102 billion in 1995). Of all these transfers, $167 billion (72 percent) went to developing countries. Although many families count on those remittances to survive, this habitually distorts national economies and make them even more dependent.
One third of this sum was destined for only four countries: India, China, Mexico and France. At the same time, remittances make up the main part of the gross domestic product of the Philippines, Serbia and Montenegro.
Obviously, international emigration is a complex problem wrought with pros and cons, although, unfortunately, the latter would seem to outweigh the former.
This is a segment of an article first published in Granma