Raking in the billions for development

A political scientist has called on the Government to institute a guest worker scheme for Ghanaians resident abroad, in order to reap billions of dollars as foreign exchange, and not merely lament the mass departure of nurses to seek greener pasture in foreign countries.

12,356 health professionals, including doctors, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and nurses, left Ghana between 1993 and 2002, with the pace of escape picking up year-on-year. Yet little is being done to stem the exodus, or to bring back to Ghana any of the fruits being enjoyed by foreign health care systems benefiting from our healthcare workers.

Billions of dollars could be flowing back into our own hospitals every year if a proper system was in place, says Beatrix Alla-Mensah, a lecturer at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana.

She suggests Government could do this by following in the footsteps of the Philippines and other countries which have established viable and profitable guest worker schemes.

According to Dr Alla-Mensah, the government could easily make those billions it needed for developmental purposes, if it consciously and deliberately put in place as a matter of policy a scheme whereby employers of trained Ghanaian professionals, especially doctors and nurses, working overseas, would remit to Ghana a certain quantum of money for utilising expatriate Ghanaian human resources. She also proposed that Ghana could modify her scheme to suit her local circumstances.

Ghana should devise a scheme that will both minimise the brain drain and derive maximum profits from it, she said.

Dr Alla-Mensah was speaking as the chairperson of a lecture on the topic ?Ghanaian Women and Globalisation,? held in Accra as part of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research ? Merchant Bank Development Seminar series. The programme was being held under the theme: ?Does Globalisation Hurt or Enhance National Development? Ghana?s Experience in the Last Two Decades.?

?Governments need to be more active in taking from the development movement engendered by globalisation,? Dr Allah-Mensah urged.

She further noted that Government could benefit directly from migrating nurses, for instance, with the nurses and their families also gaining indirectly and directly when a guest worker scheme is established.

Speaking at the lecture, Nana Akua Anyidoho, a Research Fellow at ISSER, said a holistic approach to tackling the problems of women and economic development was imperative since women are not a monolithic group with regards to the effects of globalisation. ?Different types of policies will address different problems of women?, she advised.

Dr Nana Anyidoho said Ghanaian women have increasingly been migrating for greener pastures, with nurses traveling to the developed world in search of better working conditions and remuneration. The impact for the country?s development, she stated, has been mixed since Ghana has gained in terms of foreign exchange transfers. She admitted, however, that Ghana has lost in terms of worsening nurse to patient ratio.

?But nurses and their families benefit from higher remuneration and remittances. Globalisation will not necessarily bring about development; there has to be policy intervention by the state to ensure the collective good,? she pointed out.

According to her Ghanaian women have a long history of participation in the labour force both in the formal sector and informal sector in Ghana and abroad. She was therefore convinced that we needed to explore all the options regarding globalisation, and marry individual and national opportunities for the good of the nation.

?Globalisation has enhanced the opportunities of some groups of women already in the market. Trade liberation has opened up other avenues of trade locally and internationally?The distributive trade sector has grown as women have taken advantage of the opportunity to begin to import global consumer goods. There are, however, restrictions to the benefits of trade in a globalised system?but these are matters we have to discuss and take vital decisions on,? she concluded.