Reversing the Brain Drain

The African Diaspora is a continual source of interest to the development community. It represents a highly accessible and much needed employment pool.  Africans are the most highly educated and highest-earning immigrant group in the US.  But often initiatives designed to attract them fail, for any number of reasons.  One problem is a pervasive belief that remittances (which amounted to nearly $40 billion for Africa in 2008) are more valuable than labor.  

In fact, the World Bank reports that a third of Africa’s “highly qualified human resources” live outside of Africa.  This is a substantial loss for African economies, health systems, governments, and other sectors.

Efforts at rebalancing the debate back towards attracting labor are underway. In particular, initiatives in the private sector are looking more promising. Partly because of its approach to the Diaspora as a consumer base, rather than a development objective, Zebrajobs.com has led this resurgence. A type of Monster.com for Africa, Zebrajobs provides an easy way to find jobs in Africa, both in the private sector and in NGOs.  This website has a highly tuned understanding of the evolving Diaspora labor market and is poised to take off as a result of it.