An economist, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson has challenged developed countries to repatriate all African experts if they are interested in seeing African countries leapfrog from their current underdeveloped status to emerging economies.

Dr. Thompson pointed out that as things stand now, Africans are the only victims of globalization, where rich countries pick and choose African professionals, while shutting their doors on the majority of Africans who need skills training.

“Let them send back all Africans-not just the unskilled but the highly skilled professional as well-the people we spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars educating for national development.”

Dr. Thompson was speaking recently at the launching of the Africa Development Indicators compiled by the World Bank. The report said many African economies appear to have turned the corner and may be moving to a path of faster and steadier economic growth needed to reduce high levels of poverty.

“Over the past decade, Africa has recorded an average growth rate of 5.4 per cent which is at par with the rest of the world”, the report said, but added that greater integration with the global economy especially through export trade are characteristics common to all African countries that have recorded sustained growth.

In all, the report found that generally, African countries, including Ghana suffer from low growth volatility which has asymmetrical impact on the poor. Dr. Thompson said brain drain was at heart of Africa’s slow development and questioned why rich countries, which have been the biggest beneficiaries of the phenomenon have failed –for obvious reasons failed to place on the global development agenda. “They seem more concerned about the protection of intellectual property than discussing this scorch which is debilitating our overall development efforts.”

“They are tapping our trained brains and rejecting the ill-trained brains. If they don’t want Africans they should don’t pick and choose.

According to the economist, the irony of it all is that, after they have taken the best from Africa, they reject the leftover –the unskilled labour whose productivity is naturally low and thus adds little to the continental development effort.

“In fact they call it ‘illegal’ migration and in recent years there have been efforts by some of them to keep these victims of globalization from Europe and North America”, Dr. Thompson points out.

He prefers to call ‘illegal migration ‘the Int ernational Labour Adjustment Process (ILAP), an integral part of globalization and a necessary mechanism for the reducing poverty in low-growing areas like Africa. Dr. Thompson’s views come against the backdrop of debate for the formal exportation of labour. A few months ago, Ghanaian policy makers at a meeting in Accra seriously considered recommending to government to formalize the exportation of skilled labour in order to take advantage of the benefits accruing from the phenomenon of migration.

The policy makers believe that the time has come for a shift from focusing attention only on the negative aspects of migration to the positive contributions it could have on the economy.

At a “National Consultation on Migration, Remittances and Development,” Government officials, migration experts, and researchers agreed on the need for a national policy on migration through which the country can incorporate the formal export of its skilled labour. The Private Enterprises Foundation (PEF), the Government of Ghana, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly organized the consultation.

Internationally, migrants account for about 3% of the world’s population of 175 million persons. However, it is believed that a chunk of migrants coming from developing countries, including Ghana are unregistered, (illegal).

On the other hand, remittances from registered migrants continue to be the mainstay of many families and communities in migrants’ home countries. In the case of Ghana, remittances have become a major source of foreign exchange. The Bank of Ghana estimates that remittances to Ghana rose from US $410 million in 1990 to US $2.4 billion in 2006 and has over the period been higher than the Official Development Assistance (ODA), Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and exports.

It is against this backdrop that the stakeholders who converged at the roundtable voted in favour of a policy that would allow for “brain gain” rather than “brain drain.”

Leading the proponents for a national policy, Mr. Daouda Toure, United Nations Resident Co-ordinator said, “Ghana needs a holistic National Migration Policy which will look at the multifaceted nature of migration and address the key issues of legal and regulatory frameworks, human resources development and training”, among others.

Mr. Daouda who doubles as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Representative in Ghana also proposed that Ghana should develop a National Human Resources Development (NHRD) strategy and training to enable Ghana train and export skilled labour, based on negotiated agreements with receiving countries.

He said, “such a proactive approach to human resource development, will enable Ghana to manage migration to her advantage.” He also proposed that government could engage the receiving nations in discussions that could ensure the acquisition of visas for migrants by the Ghana government.

“It is estimated that over the next 10-15 years, USA alone will require an additional one million health workers. It has also been noted that 23 percent of Africa’s trained medical doctors have migrated to the Northern Hemisphere, leaving Africa with a terrible deficit on health services: with 100,000 doctors to a population of 700million as compared to 200,000 doctors to France’s population of 83 million”, he revealed.

Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Akwasi Osei-Adjei, was of the view that “ though remittances stand out among the benefits of migration, in most cases those benefiting from migration are traffickers. Hence, the country needs a national policy in order to optimize the full benefits of migration.

For his part the Minister of Finance, Mr. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu noted that remittances represent an enormous transfer of resources from the endowed to the less endowed countries and in many cases between countries of the South. These, he said “constitute the second largest capital flow to developing countries.” He disclosed that, “private inward transfers received by groups such as non-governmental organisations, embassies, service providers and individuals through the bank and non-bank financial institutions in Ghana amounted to $1.52 billion dollars at the end of the first quarter in 2007.”

This, according to him, represents an increase of about 17.1 percent over the same period in 2006. “Indeed, remittances from abroad have emerged as one of the foremost contributors to Ghana’s GDP.”