Brain Drain: Bte Noire to Progressive African Development

by Rytchad Ola on Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 12:14pm Brain Drain: Bte Noire to Progressive African Development Richard Olawoyin (Pennsylvania State University, USA, Graduate Scholar) The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Albert Einstein

It is unquestionable that intellectuals are the result of meaningful development of any society, finding solutions to societal challenges in the process of producing, reproducing real life, skills and organizations to overcome contradictions presented to all by nature. Labor actuates the desire of every society and it is quintessential to human survival. African labor created the necessary gateway for Europeans to concentrate on mental work in universities and other realms of endeavors to advance the industrialization of Europe and North America. For five centuries, African labor has been subjugated to ill-use at the detriment of its own benefit and development. From the slave colonies in the Americas to the enslaved African continent itself, her labor has been used first to build better lives for Europe and America.

The outright underestimation of the African continent, its people and invaluable resources can be said to be done with a stratagem characterized by pretense that proliferates the entire African grassroots, with the first phase of slavery epoch. Currently, it is observed that a poisonous image of Africa is being painted and defined as a charity case. The deliberate misrepresentation and awkward insinuation by western media, music, movie stars, movies (e.g. the movie District 9)and various personalities in imperialist countries are involved in charity activities all over Africa creating a demoralizing

perception of the true AFRICAN worth and consequently, preempting the dream on the minds of several generational Africans to grow. This notion of charity unnerves African peoples cognizance to the reality that Europe and America are treacherously living off African resources. Inasmuch as the original blame is attributed to the western heavy weights, the inability of the African intellectuals and even the uneducated to stand up for what they strongly believe is right remain appalling. In China, one finds that the Chinese media and their experts present news from a Chinese perspective, also the European media present news from a European standpoint. The American media certainly express the American perception of issues in a way that is consistent with the American values and interest. But unfortunately in Africa, everybody seems to sing the European perspective. Its astonishing that there is hardly an African outlook on anything. Africa is not diseased, poor or rancorous as being indiscriminately portrayed; Africa is being raped, looted, manipulated and disrespected by several selfish wings that only agreed to abolish slavery on paper but not in reality. Angola, Chad, and Nigeria produce enormous quantities of crude oil and natural gas, while Ghana and Ivory Coast top the list of highest cocoa producers worldwide. It is heart breaking however to know that all these resources are processed, consumed and resold (by Europe, North America, China, and Japan) to Africa at an unaffordable cost subjecting the African people to untold hardship and frustration. This exposes the fact that Africa does not have its own economy but an imperialist economy.

African historic exploiters and oppressors have now moved past the train of the first stage of slavery to a more sophisticated and advanced strategy of brain draining the African intellectuals and also expropriating of African resources. Arch bishop Desmond Tutu

once said When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.The African Socialist International (ASI) substantiated that only 7 percent of all African trade takes place within Africa, meaning that 93 percent of African trade is simply continually sequestrated by the western economic juggernauts. This meticulous subterfuge adversely affects the African economy as 83 percent of the Gross National Product of the combined African countries goes into debt payment/settlement which can be said to be a consequence of the risky trade relations born of au courant second phase slavery, colonialism and selfish interests at the expense of the innocent African people.

African intellectuals need to rise up to the occasion and start acting as intellectuals, then the continent will develop. The irony cannot elude anyone: Africa, the least educated and most underdeveloped continent in the world has the most educated population in the world's most developed country. The African academic diaspora, as cultural producers, have an important and specific role to play in brokering relations between Africa and the North, in Africanizing the Atlantic. The Institute of International Education indicated in its 1935 annual report, that in 1926 there were three documented Nigerian students in United States universities. In its subsequent reports, the number of students increased to 22 in 1944. Currently, there are over 300,000 highly qualified Africans in the Diaspora, 30,000 of which have PhDs.

It was revealed that Nigerians studying in UK and American universities may have spent over N137.023bn on tuition and living expenses in the last two academic sessions going by an average tuition of 19,000 per session for international students in United Kingdom

universities and $21,000 tuition and living expenses for international students in America. According to findings, the amount expended in pursuit of education by Nigerian youths in both the UK and US-recognized universities is more than a quarter of the nations entire budget for the education sector in two years under review, the 2007/2008 academic session and 2008/2009 academic session, the source revealed. It was further stated that the recognized universities in UK had a total of 20,070 Nigerian students in 2007/2008 and 2008/2009.While 10,000 Nigerian students were admitted in UK universities for 2007/2008 session, the figure according to the report, increased to 10,090 in the 2008/2009 session. On the other hand, the report also stated that 12,478 students were enrolled in recognized American universities during the same period with 6,222 students admitted in 2007/2008 and 6,256 admitted in 2008/09. In Kenya, for example, it costs about US$40,000 to train a doctor and US$10,000-15,000 to educate a university student for 4 years.

Despite the unfair treatment, obstacles and challenges confronting the resilient African people, Africa remains an active participant in the production of knowledge. The upsurge in universities and research facilities, though with often dwindling resources, have produced great African producers of knowledge in all fields such that brilliant sons and daughters of Africa are to be found in all the universities in the world. Africans have the highest educational attainment rates of any immigrant group in the United States, estimates indicate that a significant percentage of black students at elite universities are African or the children of African immigrants, a notable example of this is constitutional law Professor Barack Obama. In an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Journal of Blacks in higher education, African immigrants to the United States were found more

likely to be college educated than any other immigrant group. African immigrants to the U.S. are also more highly educated than any other native-born ethnic group including white Americans. Some 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma. This is slightly more than the percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S., nearly double the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans.

Africans from Nigeria (98.1 percent), Ghana (96.9 percent), Botswana (96.7 percent), and Malawi (95 percent) were the most likely to report having a high school degree or higher. Those born in Cape Verde (44.8 percent) and Mauritania (60.8 percent) were the least likely to report having completed a high school education. The ancient Egyptians invented and developed geometry because they were involved in the task of controlling the flooding of the Nile River. This was necessary to guarantee agricultural production and land delimitation upon which the whole country depended. Other notable African intellectuals are;

Africa requires an effective innovation system, linking up with, innovation friendly enterprises the various research units, universities, consultants, and other organizations that are able to access the growing stock of global knowledge and create new knowledge and new technologies. Intellectual Diaspora may constitute a key resource for Africa, by providing contacts of many types, contributing know-how and investments and enhancing international trade and creation of wealth.

At the same time, Africa spends four billion dollars a year (representing 35% of total official development aid to the continent) to employ some 100,000 Western experts performing functions generically described as technical assistance. Yet, African nations

are unwilling to spend a similar amount of money to recruit one million African professionals working outside Africa. Africa as a whole counts only 20,000 scientists (3.6% percent of the world total) and its share in the worlds scientific output has fallen from 0.5% to 0.3% as it continues to suffer the brain drain of scientists, engineers and technologists. The brain drain quandary has reached quite disturbing proportions in certain African countries, with Ethiopia ranking first in the continent in terms of rate of loss of human capital, followed by Nigeria and Ghana.

The widely held myth is that Africa is only exporting raw materials to the west. Africa is also exporting talented human resources to Europe and America. One million Africans are working outside Africa. The problem is getting worse. One in three African university graduates live and work outside Africa. In effect, we are operating one third of African universities to satisfy the manpower needs of western nations. One third of the African education budget is a supplement to the American education budget. In effect, Africa is giving developmental assistance to the United States. To acquire the scientific knowledge and technology required for a technological regime, Africa will have to strengthen its capacity to use wisely a mix of channels, including, copying, imitating, duplicating, intelligence gathering, resource engineering, licensing, FDI, partnering networking with the Diaspora, overseas studies, technical assistance and international and regional cooperation. However, reliance on foreign technology results in heavy dependence on foreign sources of materials, parts and components. This limits the beneficial linkage effects and amplifies vulnerability to external shocks. The basic driving force behind economic growth is technological change, that is improvement in knowledge about how we transform inputs into outputs in the production process.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Africa has already lost one third of its human capital and is continuing to lose its skilled personnel at an increasing rate, with an estimated 20,000 doctors, university lecturers, engineers and other professional leaving the continent annually since 1990, which largely depend on individual's Pan-Africanist aspirations, developmentalist anxieties, globalist or

cosmopolitan affectations, or analytical predispositions toward international skilled labor migration. The academic diaspora can be analyzed as either a liability, denuding Africa of desperately needed professionals trained at enormous cost, or an asset providing the continent crucial connections to the global North that can facilitate transfers of capital (technological, financial, cultural and political), and help mediate, in terms of knowledge production, the globalization of African scholarship and the Africanization of global scholarship. The Zimbabwe National Association of Social Workers estimates that 1,500 of the countrys 3,000 trained social workers left for the United Kingdom over the past 10 years. The health sector is particularly affected; indeed, desperate shortage of health professionals is the most serious obstacle as Africa tries to fight AIDS and support other health programs. Kenya loses on average 20 medical doctors each month. Ghana lost 60% of its medical doctors in the 1980s, 600 to 700 Ghanaian physicians are currently practicing in the USA alone, a figure that represents roughly 50% of the total population of doctors in Ghana. The United States has 126,000 fewer nurses that it needs and government figures show that the country could face a shortage of 800,000 registered nurses by 2020 because of such shortages; industrialized nations have embarked on massive international recruitment drives, offering African nurses the opportunity to earn

as

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The 1993 UNDP Human Development Report indicated that more than 21,000 Nigerian doctors were practicing in the United States alone while Nigeria suffers from a shortage of doctors. If we were to add the number of Nigerian doctors in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Europe, Australia and those in other African countries, the figure would be close Developing a Culture of to Institutional and Intellectual 30,000. Philanthropy

The West and other advanced nations did not arrive at this appreciation of intellectuals and intellectual discourse overnight. For centuries, diverse philosophers from around the world grappled with the question of the role of knowledge in society. Americas prosperity and global dominance today is not accidental. It was meticulously charted by its constitution, guided by a succession of excellent leaders (for the most part) instilled with world class education and intellect and protected by its democracy. It is also important to stress that Africa has not developed a culture of celebrating honest, hardworking achievers. Instead we have allowed others to foist upon us a paradoxical antiintellectual situation in which recognition, indeed the highest National honors, are heaped on former military dictators for, shooting themselves into power and boorish looting of the national treasury and their corrupt civilian cohorts who serve these kleptocracies with amusement, over the truly deserved heroes of our country. For decades, black people on the African continent and in the Diaspora have looked to Africa to provide an example of a nation run by blacks that can attain economic, cultural and political success. Intellectuals from CLR James, Michael Thelwell, Aime Cesaire in the Caribbean to Leon H. Sullivan, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael to

Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Johnetta B. Cole, Cornell West and Julian Bond in the Americas have all at one time or the other, with great anxiety, marveled why Africa, with all its human and material blessings seems never to be able to get its act together I will encourage extremely wealthy Africans to make a commitment to Africas development by taking part in intellectual and educational transformation. Goodwill and money donated will make it possible for institutions to recruit superstar intellectuals they would ordinarily not be able to afford. Howard Hughes, the eccentric American billionaire, left his money after his death to The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, MD. Today, the endowment of the Institute valued at $11 billion, makes it the third wealthiest private foundation in the world. Their grants are responsible for cutting edge bio-medical research in Cystic Fibrosis, channel membrane signaling, Muscular Dystrophy, and Juvenile Diabetes.

Better telecommunications will mean increased access to the internet and therefore entre into the information age that the rest of the world is enjoying. In the 21st century, this access will mean admittance to avenues of commerce, science, the arts and education, and thus intellectual and material power. There is thus a critical part for the IT revolution to play in the envisioned intellectual re-invigoration of the African continent. Thandika Mkandawire categorized intellectual work as quintessentially to the labor of the mind and soul. Intellectuals have played a major role in shaping passions, ideologies and societal visions. This is principally true in Africa, where for several decades -in spite of military autocracy and repression - intellectuals helped shaped public debates and public policies. But to avow that intellectual pursuit is a dying art in Africa is not an exaggeration. There is a price to be paid for silence and cowardice in the face of

oppression and injustice. In the same vein, there is a price to be paid by any nation or society that does not encourage intellectualism or intellectual pursuit. Such a society may regress, become stagnant, or spend all her years and resources imitating fluff from other parts of the world. Isnt that what Africa has become?

Lack of support and in many cases, lack of awareness asphyxiates invention, innovation and pauperizes the economic growth of many African countries. Africans invented walking! But as usual it did not want to profit from it, brand it or commercialize it! Africa sat back, relaxed and let the West run away with the idea. What would the world be like if Lucy had not taken that first step(walking)?

(Lucy", one of the oldest known hominids that preceded humans was discovered in Ethiopia.) Alphabeta