Home >> Africa >> Poverty & Governance

     Email   Print 

Book Review: "Emigration, Brain Drain and Development: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa," Arno Tanner, Washington D.C., Migration Policy Institute and Helsinki, East-West Books Helsinki, 2005. 184 pages.

Prof. Ronald Skeldon - 2/28/2006

This short and accessible book deals with one of the most important issues in research into international migration today: the movement of skilled people from the developing to the developed world or, more popularly, the "brain drain". The first half of the book deals with global patterns and general ideas about the movement of skilled labour. The second half of the book is taken up with a discussion of selected cases in sub-Saharan Africa followed by a chapter in which the author, a Finn, considers how Finnish development aid could be better deployed to alleviate or even prevent the brain drain. The book has a very brief conclusion in which both positive and negative scenarios are outlined, followed by a useful bibliography. This book does not present primary data but reviews the existing literature.

The principal strength of the book, which seems to have been the result of a one-year stay in Washington D.C., is that it synthesizes much of the recent material that exists in the "grey" zone of working papers and web sites. Dr. Tanner has done us all a service in compiling and discussing in a considered way much of this "work-in-progress" material. We now have, within the covers of a single, well-written book, the results of a large number of contemporary studies that would take a considerable time for an individual researcher to track down.

For this reason alone, the book is well worth consulting by migration researchers. But its secondary strength lies in its focus on those countries that may not supply the greatest absolute number of skilled migrants but where the relative impact of their loss may be greatest: poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The author pursues a balanced approach to the issue of the loss of skilled personnel to the developing world by recognizing, for example, the importance of freedom of movement and the benefits that accrue from having a skilled diaspora, particularly remittances. Ultimately, he comes down on the side that sees the loss of the skilled as a bad thing for countries of origin and that policies and aid should be directed in a way that will encourage the skilled to return or not to leave in the first place.

Thus, primacy is accorded to the agency of the few skilled migrants to bring about change in their countries of origin rather than to the structures that prohibit them from achieving their potential and cause them to leave. How the skilled can be productively absorbed into the fabric of their countries of origin is never fully explored.

Nevertheless, the author recognizes that development aid, and the improvement in origin conditions in general, are likely to increase rather than decrease the movement of the skilled. It would perhaps be unfair to expect the author in this short book to resolve all the complex tensions.

All in all, Dr. Tanner has provided a concise introduction to recent thinking on the topic and a very useful review using case studies from the poorest part of the world.

Students of migration at all levels will do well to consult this book for insights into the recent debate on skilled migration in general and to constructive thinking on the brain drain from Africa in particular.