• On developed countries

On developed countries

This brief article analyses the debate surrounding the issue of brain drain. Developed countries today are seen as taking highly skilled workers from developing countries to meet their own labour needs. This is seen as having a negative impact on the development of poor countries. The article reviews the current policy options related to brain drain and suggests an alternative approach to the issue.

The authors recommend that developed countries, who clearly benefit from the migration of skilled workers, should pay greater attention to where people are trained and the sources of their funding.

For instance, by combining public sources of aid with private sources of finance, developed countries could seek to build, fund and monitor centres of advanced training at key centres in the developing world. The centres would train men and women to the standards required of the developed world, thus avoiding the issues of accreditation. It would be accepted that many would migrate overseas but the costs of their training would be met from overseas sources.

While there may be some political and ethical issues surrounding such an approach, the authors believe that the country of origin would also benefit from this move in that not all skilled workers trained in these programs would choose to migrate. Therefore, over time, the numbers remaining at home could be expected to increase if the training schemes are successful.

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