The Developmental Brain Drain of Africa

Much has been written about the so called brain drain of third world countries, especially in Africa. The idea is that young professionals who have been costly to train move to, and thereby benefit, western countries by pursuing careers away abroad. Valuable intellectual capital and tax revenue is supposedly lost in this manner. That young well-trained professionals are leaving may at first sight seem as a big problem, but very seldom you hear about serious lacks of professionals in the third world. Instead there is a job market filled with overqualified professionals, competing for whatever low-paid and over-taxed existences they can get their hands on. Financially, the argument is also dodgy as the diasporas in the world provide enormous revenue for their home countries through official and unofficial remittances. For a very compelling argument against the brain drain theory, please read fellow writer Martin Kimani’s excellent article "If You Think Africa is Suffering From a Brain Drain, Your Brain is Drained", on http://bulletsandhoney.blogspot.com.

However, there is a brain drain of Africa that is very real, but is a local one. As a lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam I see bright young student graduate and start looking for meaningful and most preferably well-paid occupations. Tanzania unfortunately does not provide large numbers of interesting jobs for highly qualified young professionals, and education in Tanzania does not have the reputation that would make you an obvious choice in the traditional brain drain move to the west. So how do these young professionals make a living for themselves? Obviously, like all entrepreneurial young people they look for the place where the money is at. And that, my friends, is within the development aid business.

Instead of spending their intellectual capital on creating a small business, or improving local farming methods, they spend their lives coming up with development projects proposals that might catch the donor community. Obviously, such proposals rarely reflect real needs of the country, but instead reflects the latest trends in development support. Does anyone seriously think that Tanzanians feel very strongly about “democratisation through youth participation in local councils”, just to name an example? I may sound very cynical, but it is frustrating to see a bright student come in to your office asking for an idea to a development project that I think the donor community would support. There are obviously some real idealists with a mission out there – it’s just that I have not really met them yet!

How do these projects, run by local and international NGOs benefit Africa? In my opinion 40 years of development aid without any development is evidence as strong as any, that aid should have been scrapped as a development concept long ago. However, that is a different a much larger debate. This time it is about the brain drain, and it just makes me sad to see such effort and such talent going into what are most often useless projects, for everyone but those lucky enough to have received funding for their NGO and for desk officers in international organisations and development agencies who obviously make their living in this manner.

I do not for a second blame young Africans for pursuing this track. The amount of money available for a relatively little effort should be incentive enough for anyone, regardless if you are African, British or Swedish. Instead, the international development community is to blame. Through a relentless belief in the benefit of funding corrupt African governments who have learned to talk the talk, and to more or less useful and always short-term NGO projects, the international community is creating a completely skewed local market for young professionals. It becomes easier to make money through funding for an NGO on small business problem management in East Africa, than starting one yourself. What do you think young bright professionals choose?

(c) Robert Egnell