DIANNA GAMES: Africa’s political class fails to rise to the brain drain challenge
THERE is a saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This seems to be true of the brain drain in Africa.In 1999, the IMF voiced concerns about the scale of the skills flight from the continent to developed countries. At its annual meetings in the US last week — 17 years later — the organisation again raised the issue, saying migration from sub-Saharan Africa to developed countries had picked up sharply over the past 15 years.Most of the emigrants are professionals with tertiary education — academics, computer experts, lawyers, doctors, teachers, nurses, bankers and engineers — multiplying the opportunity cost for a continent already dealing with a dearth of educated and skilled people.The IMF predicted the number of migrants from Africa living in developed countries could increase to 34-million by 2050 from 7-million in 2013, attributing the growth to a "profound demographic transition" in the region, where the working-age population was growing faster than th...
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