• Brain drain

Brain drain

This short article examines the issues surrounding international free trade in labour markets. The article argues that for all the rhetoric about free trade, the one thing that is not allowed to roam freely, alongside capital, is labour.

It also argues that migration can be a win-win for developing as well as developed countries, for the following reasons:

• temporary migration from developing countries helps normal business activities (such as IT and construction), fosters skill enhancement and ups remittances (8% of national incomes in Uganda) and investment flows from the Diaspora back into the developing countries
• it makes economic sense for countries on the receiving end of developing country emigration to invest in training partnerships in a country that is training workers for the provision of international public goods
• investing in developing country health and education systems helps them meet development goals, but also helps provide an international public good (health) with positive international impacts
• training programmes would be even more effective if they could be coupled with exchange programmes between developed and developing country institutions to actively facilitate migration of a temporary, rather than long-term nature (for example, for 2-3 years).

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