THE BRAIN DRAIN: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND REMEDIES

THE BRAIN DRAIN: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND REMEDIES Henry Kyambalesa is currently an adjunct professor in the College for Professional Studies’ MBA program at Regis University in Denver, an Independent Business and Management Researcher and Consultant, and the Founder and President of Agenda for Change (AfC) party in Zambia.

Abstract African countries continually lose a significant number of trained nationals, who decide to emigrate and live abroad in search of higher incomes and a better standard of living, among a host of other reasons. Between 1974 and 1985, for example, an average of 12,146 technical and professional personnel per year (computed from data collected by Logan1) were admitted to the United States from various countries in Africa. Between 1993 and 1995, the United States admitted 32,317 of the continent’s skilled human resources.2 And, according to the World Bank Group,3 nearly 70,000 qualified Africans leave their home countries every year to work in industrialized nations. Clearly, this is a significant loss to a continent that is in dire need of skilled professionals to facilitate and expedite the process of socio-economic development. Without large pools of such professionals, African countries are not likely to attain meaningful levels of economic growth, development and competitiveness. In this discussion, an attempt is made to discern the causes, adverse effects and positive side of the emigration of Africa’s technical and professional personnel, and to suggest viable ways and means of addressing the cancerous problem.

1

Logan, B.I., “The Reverse Transfer of Technology from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Volume 25/Number 4, December 1987. 2 See U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Fact Book: Summary of Recent Immigration Data, August 1995, p. 14, and January 1997; and Kyambalesa, Henry, Socio-Economic Challenges: The African Context (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2004), p. 48. 3 See Allen, Ahkiah, “Medical Migration Drains Africa,” Washington Week, www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/, May 12, 2005.

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BRAIN DRAIN: A DEFINITION The term “brain drain” may be defined broadly as the migration of trained and talented individuals from one institution, or from one country or part of a country, to another in search of better working conditions, a higher quality of life and/or a less hostile environment. Such migration may, according to the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC),4 take any of the following forms: 1) “Primary external brain drain,” which occurs when trained and skilled human resources leave their country to go and work in developed countries; 2) “Secondary external brain drain,” which occurs when trained and skilled human resources leave the African Union— or any other less-developed region of the world—to work in other parts of the developing world; or 3) “Internal brain drain,” which occurs when trained and skilled human resources are not employed in the fields of their expertise in their own country, or when such human resources move from the public sector to the private sector or within a sector of a particular country. In this paper, the discourse is about the “primary external brain drain” and the “secondary external brain drain” to the exclusion of the “internal brain drain.” CAUSES OF THE EXODUS There are many factors obtaining in countries which are affected by the brain drain that have contributed to the exodus of skilled talent; following is a survey of some of the salient factors, that is: poor conditions of service, human rights abuses, misplacement of trained personnel, disregard for local talent, scarcity of jobs, limited access to education, poor healthcare services, a high level of crime, and the fear of losing valued relationships developed in host countries.

4

Adapted from Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC), “An Analysis of the Cause and Effect of the Brain Drain in Zimbabwe,” www.queensu.ca/, July 31, 2008.

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Considered from the standpoint of the origin of trained and skilled emigrants, the foregoing causes may be referred to as the “push factors” of professional flight. The inverses of the causes are essentially the “pull factors” from the point of view of emigrants’ host countries. Poor Conditions of Service Poor conditions of service in migrants’ home countries are, by and large, a major reason why African researchers and professionals have decided to “vote with their feet” so to speak. In Senegal, for example, a study conducted by the Independent Union of Higher Education for Teachers has found that a university lecturer earns between US$246.00 and US$261.50 per month, while a senior professor at the top of the pay scale earns around US$923.00; their counterparts who emigrate to Europe or North America, on the other hand, earn between three to five times more.5 In the Republic of Zimbabwe, a massive staff exodus is reported to have “hit the crisis-ridden Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) … with a number of senior managers having left the organization citing low remuneration.”6 At the University of Zimbabwe, most faculties have continued to experience a mass exodus of professionals due to unsatisfactory remuneration and poor conditions of service.7 In 2004, the reported lecturer vacancy rates at the University were as follows: (a) the Faculty of Medicine: 51.3 percent; (b) the Faculty of Science: 43 percent; (c) the Department of Veterinary Sciences: 36 percent; (d) the Faculty of Education: 35 percent; and (e) the Faculty of Engineering: 34.6 percent.8 Human Rights Abuses Human rights abuses or violations in Africa take many forms, including genocide, slavery, torture, mass disappearances of individuals, denial of freedom of speech, and repudiation of freedom of the press.9 The following assessment of human rights abuses and 5

Faye, Abdou, “Education: Europe, North America Tapping Africa’s ‘Brain Reservoir’,” Inter Press Service News Agency: http://www.ipsnews.net/-africa/, December 27, 2003. 6 The Financial Gazette, “Massive Staff Exodus Hits ZMDC,” October 14-20, 2004, p. C5. 7 The Sunday Mail (Zimbabwe), “Shortage of Lecturers at UZ Persists Unabated,” October 24, 2004, p. 5. 8 Ibid. 9 Derechos Human Rights, “Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa,” http://www.derechos.org/, October 25, 2008.

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violations on the continent by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is perhaps in order at this juncture:10 1) Widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspects in Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Togo, and Zimbabwe; 2) Women and girls raped and sexually abused by perpetrators from different parties to conflicts in the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, the Sudan, and Uganda; 3) Recruitment of child soldiers as combatants and sex slaves in Burundi, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and the Sudan; and 4) Malicious prosecution, arbitrary arrest and excessive force against demonstrations as tools of political oppression in Cameroon, Chad, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. According to Whande,11 gross human rights abuses and government cruelty on citizens in countries like Zimbabwe have compelled a lot of locally trained experts to migrate to less-hostile countries. And he has the following question for the Zimbabwean government and its sympathizers: “Zimbabwe used to produce export-quality professionals to serve it. But today, where are our doctors, nurses, teachers, farmers, and pharmacists?”12 Misplacement of Talent Misplacement of human resources has contributed to what Logan13 has preferred to characterize as the “reverse transfer of technology”—that is, the migration of professionals from Africa to industrialized countries where they were trained. Many technical and professional personnel have decided to move to other countries upon finding that the rewards of their labor in native countries are generally measured on the basis of political patronage rather than excellence,14 and that corruption, nepotism, tribalism, and other

10

See BBC News, “Amnesty Deplores African Rights Record,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/, May 26, 2004. 11 Whande, Tanonoka J., “Time Running Out for Dictators,” Zimbabwe Independent, October 15, 2004, p. 13. 12 Ibid. 13 See Logan, B.I., “The Reverse Transfer of Technology from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States,” pp. 597-612. 14 Zambia Daily Mail, “Zambia’s Economic Malaise: Workers Lack Incentives,” June 4, 1988, p. 4.

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similar forms of behavior have permeated every level of organizational life.15 Here is a good example: “It is not always about the money. Often it is also about mental sanity. I am from Suriname and it is a daily challenge to handle the enormous stupidity around me, especially in government circles, where the only qualification one needs to get top management jobs is fierce loyalty to an ethnic leader.”16 In Zambia, Valentine Kayope, quoted in Ollawa,17 has also contributed to the debate on this issue: “It is not uncommon to observe that only those civil servants who can count on the strong backing of powerful ethnic politicians have the chance of upward mobility in the public service.” Disregard for Local Talent The unfortunate and common tendency among local and national governments in African countries to scout for expatriate scientists, technologists and consultants from industrialized nations has made indigenous experts to feel disregarded and have become less creative as a result. As Ayittey has observed,18 African leaders tend to have “more faith in expatriates and foreign systems than in their own African peoples.” In Ghana, for instance, when the country’s military government embarked on a program of participatory democracy in 1987, it sought the services of a Bulgarian expert; and between 1986 and 1988, the government recruited 265 foreign consultants, whose fees and expenses amounted to 34 percent of the total compensation it paid to 200,000 of its indigenous employees.19 And while consultancy fees paid to expatriate personnel ranged between US$3,000 and US$5,000 per month, those paid to local personnel with equivalent or higher qualifications and experience were between US$80 and US$200 per month.20 Moreover, expatriates were accorded furnished residential accommodation, office ac15

Woldring, K., “Survey of Recent Inquiries and their Results,” in Woldring, K., editor, Beyond Political Independence: Zambia’s Development Predicament in the 1980s (Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1984), p. 187. 16 Anonymous, in Hennessey, Matthew, “Who’s to Blame for Brain Drain?” Global Envision, www.globalenvision.org/, July 26, 2007. 17 Ollawa, P.E., Participatory Democracy in Zambia: The Political Economy of National Development (Elm Court, Great Britain: Arthur H. Stockwell Limited, 1979), p. 388. 18 Ayittey, George B.N., Africa Betrayed (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 111. 19 Ayittey, George B.N., ibid, pp. 111-112. 20 Ayittey, George B.N., ibid, p. 112.

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commodation, logistics support, a vehicle, and the best hotel accommodation while travelling.21 In the Republic of Zambia, the late President Levy Mwanawasa branded citizens who had migrated to other countries as failures during an official opening of a leadership workshop for Cabinet ministers, Deputy Ministers and Permanent Secretaries in February 200422—a typical bashing of emigrants without making any effort to find out why they actually found it necessary to vote with their feet, so to speak. In Malawi, during the leadership of the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the Kamuzu Academy and Kamuzu Hospital did not hire black teachers and doctors because, according to Dr. Banda,23 black people were not talented enough to fill such positions. The late Lameck Goma of Zambia, quoted by Neelamegham,24 has attributed African government leaders’ indiscriminate faith in expatriate personnel to the colonial legacy; he has alleged that the colonial experience has distorted Africa’s image of herself and her ideas about other continents, and that this distortion has tended to linger on long after the attainment of political independence, rendering the conquered mind to continue to have blind faith in the supposed superiority of personnel from the former metropolitan and allied countries. The common feeling among some officials in Western donor countries, though, seems to be that less-developed countries actually lack competent people to provide sound leadership in commerce, industry and government. The following words of an unnamed aid official quoted by Timberlake25 is indicative of this: “In a sense, we’re talking about ... sending smart white boys in to tell them how to run their countries.” This feeling is perhaps engendered and/or reinforced by the unwarranted preference of some government leaders for foreign experts, particularly those leaders who have explicitly, or at least by implication, claimed that indigenous experts—locally trained or otherwise—are half-baked. The following excerpt about the senti-

21

Ayittey, George B.N., ibid. Mambwe, Kennedy, “Careless Levy Angers Zambians Abroad,” Lusaka Information Dispatch, www.dispatch.co.zm, November 14, 2004. 23 See Ayittey, George, B.N., op. cit., p. 111. 24 Neelamegham, S., “Localization of Professional Training in Management and Accountancy: The Zambian Experience,” Zambia Journal of Business, Volume 1/Number 1, April 1982, p. 10. 25 Timberlake, L., Africa in Crisis: The Causes, the Cures of Environmental Bankruptcy (Philadelphia, USA: New Society Publishers, 1986), p. 199. 22

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ments of a Zambian government official will perhaps corroborate what is implied here:26 “A member of the Central Committee has called for an urgent rehabilitation and improvement in the standards of Zambian engineering if local economic development is to make any headway ... [he] said the standard of local engineers is so atrociously poor that very few ... can measure to the definition of what an engineer or technician should be able to do.” But if this state of affairs is actually true, it is certainly government leaders who are to blame for not having initially devoted adequate financial, material, and other pertinent resources to the training of citizens who have the potential to excel in their chosen fields of endeavor. It should be common knowledge that no practically meaningful training in any field of endeavor can possibly be expected in the face of inadequate resources and training facilities. Moreover, it should be obvious that trainers of pronounced caliber are necessary in the provision of sound and practically useful training, but are such people willing to be hired and retained to work in an environment that does not provide sufficient incentives and training facilities? In August 2008, the Zambian Vice-President then, Rupiah Banda, was quoted as having said that “an unskilled population placed a severe strain on public social services.”27 But who is really to blame for the presence of unskilled citizens in Zambia— and in other African countries, as a matter of fact? Scarcity of Jobs High interest rates and income taxes in the typical African country have, among other factors, adversely affected investment in new enterprises, and have consequently hampered the creation of jobs for streams of graduates from local colleges and universities. And governments cannot absorb many locally trained citizens due to lack of financial resources. The Republic of Zambia provides a good example in this regard: 1) According to an article published in the Times of Zambia in July 2004 (reproduced by the Lusaka Information Dispatch28), 26

The Times of Zambia, “Zambian Engineers Lack Vital Spark,” April 17, 1989, p. 6. 27 Kapekele, Mutale, “Rupiah Links Poor Livelihood to Unskilled Populace,” The Post: www.postzambia.com/, August 12, 2008. 28 Lusaka Information Dispatch, “Look Elsewhere for Jobs, Teachers Told,” www.dispatch.co.zm/, July 2004.

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about 9,000 trained teachers were roaming the streets—unemployed—as they anxiously awaited their postings by the country’s Ministry of Education. A comment about the plight of the affected teachers by the then Labor and Social Security Deputy Minister, Chile Ng’uni, revealed that the government could not hire them to work in public schools because it did not have money to pay them! In spite of most Zambian schools having been understaffed, the country’s education minister then, Andrew Mulenga, announced several months later that only about 1,000 out of 7,000 needed teachers would be employed by January 2005 through financial assistance rendered by the Netherlands.29 2) In November 2008, Wesley Ngwenya30 made the following observation concerning the scarcity of jobs in Zambia: “I had been gone to the United States for nine years and during that time had never come back home. I experienced reverse ‘culture shock’ from the dilapidated infrastructure around the [capital] city to the many people standing around street corners with nothing to do. It was then it really hit home in my mind on how real and high unemployment rate was in my country. The next day after arriving I went straight to work—applying for a job at various businesses and both government and non-governmental organizations where I thought my education and experience would be taken advantage of. I have never been offered a job to this day although I was able to attend a few interviews. I must mention here that at my last count I had applied to roughly 260 places over a period of a year and half.” Limited Access to Education Formal education in industrialized nations is, by and large, both free and of high quality. In much of the African Union, on the contrary, education is of pitifully low quality, and is not widely accessible due to cost-sharing arrangements which most families cannot match without sacrificing some of their basic necessities of life. Emigration to wealthy nations, therefore, assures African migrants access to free and high-quality formal education for their children and/or young dependants. Poor Healthcare Services 29

Banda, Joseph, “Only 1,000 Teachers Will Be Employed—Mulenga,” The Post, www.post.co.zm/, December 7, 2004. 30 See Ngwenya, Wesley, “Should Zambians in Diaspora Come Back?” Lusaka Times: http://www.lusakatimes.com/, November 20, 2008.

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Cost-sharing arrangements in the dispensation of public healthcare services in much of contemporary Africa has made such services less accessible to low-income families. Overall, access to life-saving healthcare is seriously hampered by inadequate, dilapidated and antiquated healthcare facilities. Thus, the availability of highquality services and modern facilities in the healthcare sectors of developed countries is an important variable in African emigrants’ reluctance to return to their native countries. A High Level of Crime Unprecedented and widespread poverty and unemployment in the African Union have made burglars, thieves and robbers on the continent more daring. This, as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has concluded, has “contribute[d] to the emigration of skilled labor.”31 Besides, African migrants who are resident in affluent countries, where there is generally greater safety and security, are fearful of becoming obvious targets of perpetrators of such crimes upon returning to their countries of origin. To digress somewhat, failure to address the high incidence of crime has also contributed to lower inflows of investment capital needed by African countries to bolster socio-economic development. Valued Foreign Relationships It is not unusual for indigenous Africans who reside in foreign countries to develop serious professional, marital and/or other kinds of relationships with citizens of host countries. Such relationships are inevitably and earnestly considered in emigrants’ decision to return to their native countries. Moreover, involvement by some African emigrants in medical, mortgage and/or retirement schemes in foreign countries has been a major consideration in making the decision to return to their native countries during their active working lives. THE ADVERSE EFFECTS In less than two decades, the African continent has, according to the Ethiopia-based United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), lost a third of its skilled professional personnel

31

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Crime and Development in Africa,” http://www.unodc.org/newsletter/, Number 3, 2005.

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through emigration and has had to replace them with over 100,000 expatriates at an annual cost of US$4 billion.32 With respect to healthcare professionals, a study conducted by BioMed Central Health Services Research has estimated the economic losses incurred by African countries as a result of emigration of one doctor to be about US$517,931 and that of one nurse to be around US$338,868.33 There are, however, other losses that are not captured in the education-costing methodology, such as the following:34 1) Loss of Health Services: Healthcare professionals contribute to health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. Thus, the emigration of such professionals exacerbates the human resource shortages in national and district health systems and reduces the capability of such systems to perform their core functions. 2) Loss of Supervisors: Practicing doctors and senior nurses normally play major roles in supervising staff in peripheral facilities in any given country that serve the majority of populations—such as health centers, dispensaries and health posts. Thus, when such doctors and nurses emigrate, the supervisory capabilities of a country’s healthcare system are diminished, contributing to a further weakening of the capacities of the healthcare system to provide quality services to patients. 3) Loss of Mentors for Trainees: In any given country, practicing doctors and senior nurses train and counsel new healthcare employees and students on internship. The emigration of such professionals, therefore, can have a negative inter-generational effect on the process of health-related human capital creation in a country. 4) Loss of Public Health Researchers: Many of a country’s specialized doctors and nurses who may decide to migrate to other countries are often among the very few active researchers in local healthcare institutions. Therefore, emigration of such 32

See Faye, Abdou, “Education: Europe, North America Tapping Africa’s ‘Brain Reservoir’,” op. cit., and Mutume, Gumisai, “Reversing Africa’s Brain Drain: New Initiatives Tap Skills of African Experts,” Zambia Daily Mail, www.daily-mail.co.zm/, July 25, 2003. 33 Kirigia, Joses M., Gbary, Akpa R., Muthuri, Lenity K., Nyoni, Jennifer, and Seddoh, Anthony, “The Cost of Health Professionals’ Brain Drain in Kenya,” BioMed Central Health Services Research, July 17, 2006. 34 Excerpted and adapted from Kirigia, Joses M., Gbary, Akpa R., Muthuri, Lenity K., Nyoni, Jennifer, and Seddoh, Anthony, ibid.

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people can stifle innovation and invention in finding solutions to persistent local public-health problems like cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. 5) Loss of Role Models for Children: Doctors and nurses are often viewed by children in communities where they work as examples to be imitated and emulated. Emigration of such people, therefore, not only robs children of positive role models, it also negatively affects their dreams and aspirations and, hence, the number of children aspiring to become healthcare professionals in their adult lives. 6) Loss of Potential Entrepreneurs: By virtue of their education and earnings, doctors and nurses often set up healthcare-related and/or non-healthcare business entities—such as private clinics, pharmacies, hospitals, retail outlets for groceries, or wholesale shops. Emigration of such people, therefore, undermines the growth of entrepreneurship in affected countries and communities, and diminishes prospects for economic growth and development. And 7) Loss of Domestic Jobs: Doctors and nurses usually provide employment opportunities for housekeepers, gardeners and security guards at their places of residence. Thus, emigration of such people usually results in loss of employment opportunities and incomes for domestic workers and their families. Let us now consider a few examples of the dire effects associated with the exodus of skilled and trained nationals on the following African countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, South Africa, the Sudan, and Zambia. Ethiopia: The migration of highly trained professionals from Ethiopia to other countries has, according to Meera Sethi of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), caused a “massive brain drain, [and] economic and technical stagnation and regression” in the country.35 In his contention, the emigration from the country has, by and large, been prompted by the following factors: (a) A mismatch between the professional personnel involved

and the local demand for them; 35

See Eskinder, Michael, “Ethiopia the Most Affected By Brain Drain in Africa,” The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa), www.allAfrica.com/, November 8, 2002.

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(b) Lengthy recruitment processes—which usually take at least

three to six months; (c) Poor working conditions and low salaries; (d) Limited or no opportunities to pursue advanced studies or vocational training; and (e) Rampant human rights abuses or violations.36 Malawi: The exodus of health workers and professionals out of Malawi’s civil service, as the Project Appraisal Document of the World Bank Health Sector Support Project has noted,37 started in early 2000 and was precipitated largely by the erosion of salaries, although there are other systemic underlying causes such as poor working conditions, and lack of drugs and medical supplies which health workers and professionals needed to work with. Figures for nurses and midwives who have been leaving the country and seeking validation of certificates are running at just over 100 per year. In 2002, of the 103 who left, 83 went to the United Kingdom, with the remainder divided between the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. In 2003, 108 nurses and midwives left, with 90 going to the United Kingdom. Recent reports in June 2006 suggest that this migration pattern has continued to outstrip the country’s current annual training rate of around 60 nurses per year. Senegal: According to the Independent Union of Higher Education for Teachers,38 more than 105 Senegalese lecturers and researchers emigrated, mainly to the United States and French colleges and universities, during the early 2000s. Inevitably, this resulted in an erosion of the quality of education, training and research in the country. South Africa: According to the South African Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA), as reported by Mutume,39 the University of Cape Town’s graduates in medicine, engineering, commerce, and education have migrated to Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the 36

Adapted from Eskinder, Michael, ibid. Record, Richard and Mohiddin, Abdu, “An Economic Perspective on Malawi’s Medical ‘Brain Drain’,” Globalization and Health, www.globalizationandhealth.com/, December 18, 2006. 38 Faye, Abdou, “Education: Europe, North America Tapping Africa’s `Brain Reservoir’,” op. cit. 39 Mutume, Gumisai, “Reversing Africa’s Brain Drain: New Initiatives Tap Skills of African Experts,” op. cit. 37

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United States, and other developed countries—causing an acute shortage of skills in these fields. With respect to healthcare personnel, South Africa is one of the countries in Africa that are most affected by the brain drain; it loses over 50 percent of its healthcare professionals every year.40 As a result, the country is forced to recruit expensive foreign expertise to replace the trained natives who decide to migrate to foreign countries. The Sudan: The migration (by the end of 1979) of about 29 percent of the academic staff of the University of Khartoum, about 50 percent of engineers of the country’s major institutions, and 60 percent of medical doctors has had very serious consequences on research and development (R&D) activities and the growth of science and technology in the country.41 The quality of education in the country is also adversely affected by the migration of teachers to the neighboring gulf countries for better pay and living conditions.42 Zambia: Out of 600 physicians trained in Zambia’s medical school between 1978 and 1999, only 50 are still working within the country.43 And at the Copperbelt University (CBU) in the country’s Copperbelt region, administrators have expressed fear that the institution risks losing international recognition because of deteriorating standards caused by a marked shortage of academic and senior administrative staff; according to the minutes of a meeting convened by the CBU Council in December 1998, the institution had been adversely affected by the brain drain resulting mainly from poor conditions of service.44 In August 2008, Zambians were shocked by their government’s decision to award hefty increments in the compensation packages of 23 Ministers, at least 32 Deputy Ministers, 158 Members of Parliament, and a host of senior government officials45—barely a week after government’s failure to meet the demands of unionized em40

See Schnidman, Amy, “The Global Effects of the Brain Drain on Health Care Systems,” Georgetown Journal of Health Sciences, Volume 3 /Number 1, March 15, 2006. 41 Sardar, Z., Science and Technology in the Middle East: A Guide to Issues, Organizations and Institutions (London: Longman, 1982), p. 12. 42 El-Kogali, Safaa, “Sudan at the Crossroads,” a paper presented at The Fletcher School: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/, March 12, 2004. 43 See Clifton, Eli, “HIV/AIDS: Medical ‘Brain Drain’ Worsens Africa’s Crisis,” Inter Press Service News Agency: www.ipsnews.net/, August 30, 2004. 44 Times of Zambia, “Staff Crisis Haunts CBU”: www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/, January 12, 1999. 45 Kabwela, Chansa, “Cabinet Offers Itself Salary Increments,” The Post, August 1, 2008.

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ployees at the University of Zambia for improved conditions of service, which led to an abrupt closure of the institution following a go-slow by the employees.46 THE POSITIVE SIDE One would perhaps do well to cite some of the salient benefits associated with the flight of professionals from the African continent. In Ghana, citizens working abroad are accounting for the fourth largest source of foreign currency after cocoa, gold and tourism.47 The foreign currency remittances to the country have become more significant than development aid, which is normally delivered with a lot of conditions attached.48 And, according to Easterly and Nyarko,49 family members left behind by emigrants are likely to derive indirect utility from the greater well-being of the emigrants, and if the emigration includes an entire family, the family would generally be better off. Besides, the exposure of emigrants to outside ideas is itself an engine of growth, because having a significant portion of the population in foreign countries means that individuals who are resident in the emigrants’ native countries would benefit from information flows through visits, the Internet or telephone discussions with the emigrants.50 Moreover, some of the professionals who may initially emigrate often return to their home countries with new skills and ideas to help develop the economies of their respective countries.51 Further, emigrants generally work in diverse socio-economic settings where they interact with people from different cultural, ethnic and/or religious backgrounds. This is potentially benign for emigrants’ native countries where ethnic or religion-based conflicts are common as it is likely to make the emigrants less bigoted upon their return to their countries and contribute to the harmonization of relations among cultural, religious and ethnic groupings. 46

“University of Zambia Closed,” Times of Zambia, August 1, 2008; Kachali, Lambwe, “MPs Vote to Increase Their Salaries,” The Post: http://docs.google.com/, November 20, 2008; and Mulenga, Kasuba, “Ministers Revise Pay Rise,” Zambia Daily Mail: http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/, November 20, 2008. 47 ZAMNET, “The Positive Side of Brain Drain,” www.zamnet.zm/, April 15, 2005. 48 ZAMNET, ibid. 49 Easterly, William and Nyarko, Yaw, “Is the Brain Drain Good for Africa?” in Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution: www.brookings.edu/, Working Paper 19 / March 2008, p. 3. 50 Easterly, William and Nyarko, Yaw, ibid., p. 25. 51 Easterly, William and Nyarko, Yaw, ibid.

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Additionally, unhindered migration of a country’s citizens is a reflection of its observance of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 948 by the United Nations General Assembly, which provides for the following: (a) everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each country; and (b) everyone has the right to leave any country, including his or her own, and to return to his or her country.52 For governments and private institutions that hire trained personnel from other countries, professional flight is a benign phenomenon; it makes it possible for them to benefit from the knowledge and skills of people whose training they did not finance. They reap where they did not sow, so to speak! REDRESSING THE BRAIN DRAIN There are many ways in which countries affected by the exodus of their native professionals can address the problem. Following is a survey of some of the viable ways and means by which a country can stem the exodus of its skilled nationals; that is, creation of a conducive socio-economic environment for citizens, respect for human rights, stamping out corruption, peace and stability, adoption of Logan’s prescriptions, provision of low-interest loans, adoption of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) proposal, the African Brain Gain initiative, the Direct Expatriate Nationals Investment (DENI) proposal, the African Union (AU) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) framework, and involvement in the Reintegration of Qualified African Nationals (RQAN) program. A Conducive Environment Unless the factors that initially lead to migration are redressed, the exodus of skilled Africans will continue to haunt governments and employer-organizations on the African continent. As Mutume53 has observed, migrants who are resident in affluent nations are dissuaded from returning to their home countries by the economic and political crises that have bedeviled the continent—including failing economies, high rates of unemployment, human rights abuses, armed conflicts, and inadequate social services. 52

See Carter, B.E. and Trimble, P.R., International Law: Selected Documents (Boston, MA, 1995), pp. 381-86; Lipset, S.M., editor, The Encyclopedia of Democracy, Volume II (Washington, DC, 1995), pp. 573-78; and numerous other sources. 53 Mutume, Gumisai, “Reversing Africa’s Brain Drain: New Initiatives Tap Skills of African Experts,” op. cit.

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Apparently, these factors are among some of the discernible considerations that have continued to compel contemporary Africa’s indigenous professionals currently working within the continent not to be completely oblivious about the prospect of leaving their native countries. It is, therefore, essential for African leaders to foster job creation, private investment, savings, and consumption through attractive incentives and lower taxes and interest rates. And, to paraphrase Rohey Wadda of Gambia’s Strategy for Poverty Alleviation Coordinating Office (quoted by Mutume54), it is essential for African governments to create socio-economic settings that are free from politically motivated harassment and persecution, and to accommodate dissent and criticism. In this direction, it would be necessary to adhere to the dictates of good governance, elements of which are discussed in a nutshell below. Elements of Good Governance: Essentially, good governance requires a country’s leaders and their government to adopt the following elements cited by United Nations Development Program:55 1) Accountability: Availability of a mechanism for ensuring that individuals are directly and fully liable for the outcomes of their decisions and actions, and the appropriation of resources assigned to them; 2) Transparency: Public access to information about the state, its decision-making mechanisms, and its current and contemplated projects and programs—except for state secrets and matters relating to public officials’ right to privacy; 3) Rule of Law: The existence of non-discriminatory laws and law enforcement organs of the government that are efficient, impartial, independent, and legitimate; and 4) Citizen Participation: Availability of channels and mechanisms through which the citizenry and non-governmental institutions can—directly or through representation—have an influence on governmental decision-making processes and the behavior and actions of public officials.

54

Mutume, Gumisai, ibid. United Nations Development Program, “Addressing Corruption through Democratic Government,” http://www.undp.org.vn/, November 2, 2005. 55

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In this endeavor, Amoako56 has recommended the creation of a nation-state which has the following attributes: the state as a political order, the state as a system of laws, the state as the embodiment of the nation, and the state as the property of the people. For lack of an orthodox term, let us provisionally refer to such a nation-state as “the propitious state” to distinguish it from the following kinds of nation-states identified in the literature as being characteristic of countries on the African continent:57 1) The Patrimonial State: A nation-state in which government leaders treat the state as their own piece of property; 2) The Predatory State: A nation-state in which government officials look upon the citizenry as prey for their rapacious greed; 3) The Shadow State: A nation-state that is generally characterized by informal political networks and a shadow economy punctuated by illegal activities; 4) The Collapsed State: A nation-state in which common people are generally left to their own devices while government officials revel in conspicuous, state-financed luxury; and 5) The Repressive State: A nation-state where leaders impose sufficient repression to keep their opponents weak and maintain their own power, while adhering to enough democratic formalities that they might just pass themselves off as democrats. A Smaller Government: An improvement in the conditions of service of civil servants, public officials and other citizens who are on the payroll of a country’s government can also play an important role in curtailing the number of citizens who decide to migrate to other countries. Such an improvement can easily be made if a country’s leaders can create a smaller national government in order to save financial and material resources for this purpose. 56

Amoako, Kingsley Y., “Governance for a Progressing Africa: Opening Statement at the Second Africa Governance Forum,” http://www.uneca.org/, Accra, Ghana, June 25, 1998. 57 Amoako, Kingsley Y., ibid., and Kyambalesa, Henry, “The 27th Ordinary Summit of SADC,” a paper prepared as a Press Release for Heads of State and Government, First Ladies, Ministers, the Executive Secretary, the Deputy Executive Secretary, the Chief Director, Heads of Delegations, and Delegates who attended the 27th Ordinary Summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Lusaka, Zambia between August 10 and 18, 2007.

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The creation of a smaller government may, for example, require a country’s leaders to abolish top-level sinecures in their national government and to merge government ministries or agencies which have similar functions. Let us consider how this can be accomplished using the executive branch of the Zambian national government as an example. In November 2008, newly elected President Rupiah Banda constituted a Cabinet with the following ministerial portfolios, many of which had two Deputy Ministerial sinecures: 1. Minister of Justice; 2. Minister of Defence; 3. Minister of Finance and National Planning; 4. Minister of Home Affairs; 5. Minister of Health; 6. Minister of Foreign Affairs; 7. Minister of Agriculture (Veterinary, Livestock and Fisheries); 8. Minister of Agriculture (Cooperatives); 9. Minister of Local Government and Housing; 10. Minister of Gender and Development; 11. Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry; 12. Minister of Communication and Transport; 13. Minister of Community Development and Social Services; 14. Minister of Education; 15. Minister of Energy and Water Development; 16. Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services; 17. Minister of Labor and Social Security; 18. Minister of Lands; 19. Minister of Mines and Mineral Development; 20. Minister of Science, Technology and Vocational Training; 21. Minister of Sport, Youth and Child Development; 22. Minister of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources; and 23. Minister of Works and Supply. For a country with only 11.5 million people, such a Cabinet is perhaps highly bloated. As such, it could suggestively be reduced to the following Cabinet-level positions: 1) Education, Training and Sport: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues relating to the following: general and tertiary education; vocational training; the training of teachers; adult literacy programs; sporting programs in all government-funded educaPage 18 of 61

tional and training institutions; and matters concerning remuneration for educators, trainers and researchers. 2) Public Health and Sanitation: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues relating to medical care, medical research, child health and development, family planning, disease control and prevention, food safety (local and imported foodstuff), drug safety (local and imported medicines), safety of herbal medicines, public health education, public health inspections, and remuneration for public health personnel. 3) Agriculture and Food Security: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues pertaining to agricultural development, long-term food security, agricultural incentives, agribusinesses, agricultural research centers, irrigation schemes, and the food requirements of unemployed citizens and disadvantaged children. 4) Finance and Revenue: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on financial matters and monetary issues; the stock market, national debt management and external debt resolution; management of government-owned enterprises; and revenue generation through taxation, customs and excise duties, service fees or charges, and postal services. 5) Commerce and Industry: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues concerning trade and industrialization, tourism, mining, business and investment promotion, imports and exports, trade relations, registration of foreign companies, and research and development (R&D) support to local manufacturers. 6) Defence and Security: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues concerning the following: national defence and security (including matters and issues relating to the training, equipment, and remuneration for defence and security personnel); and fire-arm control and registration. 7) Works, Supply and Transport: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on matters and issues relating to the following: utilization and management of nationally owned pieces of land; provision and Page 19 of 61

maintenance of vital infrastructure nationwide, including an efficient and inter-modal network of ground and air transportation; development of “malleable” stretches of the Kafue, Zambezi, Luangwa, and other sizable perennial rivers for water transportation; procurement and distribution of government supplies; and construction, renovation and maintenance of government facilities and properties. 8) Justice, Prisons and Immigration: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on legal matters, the protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms, administration of the Zambia Prison Service, legal aid, title deeds, national registration, passports and immigration, citizenship and naturalization, work permits, treaties and agreements with other countries, intellectual property rights, and remuneration for judicial personnel and support staff. 9) Culture and Community Services: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on issues and matters relating to the following: preservation of our national treasures (including national monuments, museums, historical sites, and cherished cultural and family values); promotion of traditional music and culture-related crafts; national unity and patriotism; religious harmony; national ceremonies and festivals; and issues relating to women, children, disabled citizens, and retirees and the aged. 10) Foreign Affairs: To be directly responsible for advising and representing the Republican president on issues and matters concerning foreign political relations; consular affairs and services; profiles of foreign countries; services and vital information to Zambians in, or travelling to, foreign countries; and publicizing of Zambian society abroad. The functions of the Executive branch of the national government would, of course, need to be complemented by the work of a few autonomous government agencies, such as the Zambia Revenue Authority, Anti-Corruption Commission, Electoral Commission of Zambia, Environmental Council of Zambia, Human Rights Commission, Central Supply and Tender Board, Drug Enforcement Agency, Zambia Development Agency, and the National Science and Technology Council. Ideally, such agencies need to be administered by a lean ensemble of technocrats. This structure of the executive branch of the government provides for localized police units to be administered by elected Page 20 of 61

Provincial Governors. Civil servants in government ministries that would be abolished or merged would need to be encouraged to seek early retirement with full benefits, while professional and skilled civil servants would need to be re-deployed in the new government ministries or agencies. For example, professional and skilled civil servants in the current ministries of Science and Technology and Sports and Youth Development would be re-deployed in the contemplated Ministry of Education, Training and Sport. Those in the ministries of Mines and Mineral Development and Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources would be re-deployed in the new Ministry of Commerce and Industry. And so forth. A lot of money, government buildings, office furniture, and automobiles, houses, telephones, cell phones, water and electricity allowances, and fuel allowances for officials would be saved by reducing the number of Cabinet Ministers and Permanent Secretaries by thirteen positions, and by abolishing the positions of forty-three Deputy Ministers. The amounts to be saved per year through savings on salaries, special allowances and utility allowances paid to Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are calculated below, using data mainly from the Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices (Emoluments) (Amendment) Act No. 18 of 2008. Expenditure Per Government Official: Cabinet Minister: Salary: Special Allowance: Utility: K75,117,124 + 26,382,673 + 26,680,000 = K128,179,797 Deputy Minister: Salary: Special Allowance: Utility: K70,953,196 + 24,107,904 + 26,680,000 = K121,741,090 Permanent Secretary: Salary: Special Allowance: Utility: K102,866,638 -

= K102,866,638

By reducing the size of its executive branch of the national government from twenty-three to ten ministers and ten Permanent Secretaries, Zambia would make the following savings: 13 Ministers x K128,179,797 43 Deputy Ministers x K121,741,090 13 Permanent Secretaries x K102,866,638

= = =

K1,666,337,361 K5,194,866,870 K1,337,266,294 Page 21 of 61

-------------------K8,198,470,525 It is important to note in passing that the size of a country’s government can have a significant effect on the level of its economic growth. As Barro,58 Gwartney et al,59 Smith,60 and the World Bank61 have found, there is a correlation between an expansion in the size of a government (reflected by an increase in its expenditures) and a decline in private investment and economic growth. In a study designed to examine the impact of an expansion in the size of a country’s government on economic growth, for example, Gwartney et al62 have found that: 1) An excessively large national government can have a negative effect on economic growth. Grossman,63 among other researchers, has found a similar correlation in his study of the U.S. government: “there [is] … indeed a negative relationship between growth in government and the rate of economic growth.” 2) As a government grows in size, it crowds out investment, leads to a decline in productivity growth and contributes to a slowdown in the growth rate of its real gross domestic product (GDP). Similarly, Smith64 has found that “economies with large public sectors grow more slowly and suffer high rates of unemployment than those where this is not the case.” 3) An increase of 10 percentage points in government expenditure as a share of a country’s GDP is associated with a decline of approximately 1 percentage point in the growth rate of real GDP. Barro65 has also found that a 1 percentage point rise in the share of government consumption in GDP is associated with a 0.14 percentage point retardation in the rate of growth of 58

Barro, Robert J., “Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross Section Empirical Study,” MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. 59 Gwartney, James et al, “The Size and Functions of Government and Economic Growth,” http://www.house.gov/, April 1998. 60 Smith, David, “The Effects of Public Spending and Taxes on Economic Growth,” http://www.iea.org.uk/, May 19, 2004. 61 World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21st Century? (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2000). 62 Gwartney, James et al., op. cit. 63 Grossman, Philip, “Government and Economic Growth: A Non-Linear Relationship,” Public Choice 56 (1988), pp. 193-200. 64 Smith, David, op. cit. 65 Barro, Robert J., op. cit.

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real GDP per head of population. Folster and Henrekson66 have found a similar correlation. And 4) From 1980 to 1995, the world’s 5 fastest-growing economies —that is, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong—had total government expenditures averaging 20.1% of GDP, and was less than half the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Similarly, in a study focused on the growth of public expenditure in industrialized countries between 1870 and 1996, Tanzi and Schuknecht67 have found that countries with relatively small governments can perform “as well or even better than their counterparts with relatively big governments.” In Middleton’s words, a “smaller, better-focused government is better able to deliver than is big government.”68 Peden and Bradley,69 using U.S. data for the period 1949-1985 to examine the effect of the size of government on economic output and productivity, have also concluded that the “level of government activity in the economy has a negative effect on both the economic base and the economic growth rate growth.” Vital Social Investments: The creation of a smaller government can also make it possible for a country to make greater and sustained investments in education, healthcare, food security, and crime-fighting, which can ultimately make the socio-economic settings in countries that are adversely affected by the brain drain even more conducive to both migrant and non-migrant nationals. A brief discussion of such investments follows. 1) Education: It is essential for a country’s government to abolish examination fees and Grades 7 and 9 elimination examinations, and to provide for free education through Grade 12 at least. In 1917, a philosopher by the name Alfred North White66

Folster, Stefan and Henrekson, Magnus, “Growth Effects of Government Expenditure and Taxation in Rich Countries,” European Economic Review 45 (2001), pp. 1501-1520. 67 Tanzi, Vito and Schuknecht, Ludger, Public Spending in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 68 Middleton, Roger, “Book Reviews: Public Spending in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective” by Tanzi, Vito and Schuknecht, Ludger: http://www.eh.net/, October 2000. 69 Peden, Edgar and Bradley, Michael, “Government Size, Productivity, and Economic Growth: The Post-War Experience,” Public Choice 61 (1989), pp. 229-45.

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head warned about the ill-fated destiny of a society which does not make meaningful investments in its people’s education that is perhaps truer today than it was during his time: “In the conditions of modern life, the rule is absolute ... [a nation] which does not value [education] ... is doomed.” It should be obvious, therefore, that accessible and highquality education can be said to be the most important investment a country can make in its people. As experience has taught us, it is not possible for any society to succeed in the pursuit of other human endeavors without adequate pools of enlightened citizens. To promote scholarship and academic excellence in education and training, high-school graduates who would obtain a Division 1 would need to be automatically awarded scholarships upon being accepted at any local college or university. All other high-school graduates and working men and women wishing to pursue further studies should be granted with lowinterest loans upon being accepted into classroom-based or correspondence-based study programs offered locally. Loan recipients who would graduate with “Distinction” should be excused of 75% of their debt obligations, while those who would graduate with “Merit” should be absolved of 50% of their debt obligations. And all citizens who would graduate from local colleges or universities with “Distinction” should be automatically awarded scholarships to pursue higher educational or training programs at local educational institutions or in foreign countries. Besides, it is essential to provide for the establishment of computer laboratories at educational and training institutions nationwide, and for eventual connection of computers to the Internet. The need to equip the youth with the computer skills they need in order to compete successfully in the modern socio-economic system cannot perhaps be overemphasized. In all, there is a need for government leaders to make a sustained effort to cater for the basic needs of educational systems in their respective countries. Some of the basic needs are the following: (i) schools and classrooms that are adequately equipped for both teaching and learning; (ii) qualified, self-motivated and well-paid teachers or lecturers in every classroom; and (iii) competent school administrators on competitive conditions of service, and adequate office supplies and fixtures. 2) Healthcare: African countries need to seriously consider the prospect of providing free life-saving healthcare to all their citizens. And, among a host of other healthcare needs and expectPage 24 of 61

ations of their people, they need to wage a vicious and relentless war against HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera, diarrhea, cancer, tuberculosis, whooping cough, and other deadly diseases. 3) Food Security: According to the resolutions of the World Food Summit held in Italy in November 1996, food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” African countries need to strive to attain such a state of affairs through government-financed irrigation dams and canals, cattle re-stocking and disease control, provision for a fertilizer subsidy, and zero sales or value-added tax on agricultural inputs and raw food. There is also a need to promote food canning, efficient marketing of agricultural produce, agribusiness, and agricultural schemes by municipalities, the civil police, the prison service, the defence forces, and educational and training institutions in a deliberate effort to attain food security and self-sufficiency. 4) Crime-Fighting: Every family and business in the African Union today is directly or indirectly affected by robberies, burglaries, vandalism, and other senseless crimes. There is clearly a pressing need for African leaders to address the high incidence of crime in their countries. Among other initiatives, they need to allocate adequate financial and material resources to police units in order to enhance their capabilities in terms of communications, transportation, crime-fighting gadgets and equipment, and security cameras for installation in town centers and on major roads and streets. They need to do so in order to make it possible for police officers to discharge the following duties more effectively: (a) protection of life and property; (b) preservation of peace, and prevention of crime; (c) detection and apprehension of law breakers; (d) enforcement of laws and ordinances; (e) safeguarding the rights and freedoms of members of society; and (f) developing sound police-community relations. The fight against crime certainly involves more—much, much more—than just rounding up alleged criminals and/or handing out stiff punishment. Among other things, it is of the utmost importance to address the factors that induce criminal activity. Although habitual criminals cannot be easily reformed, creation of adequate jobs by stimulating supply and demand through lower taxes and interest rates can greatly reduce the number of citizens who are disposed to engage in criminal Page 25 of 61

activities for the purpose of obtaining financial and/or material resources in order to meet their basic needs. As an age-old maxim teaches us, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” Respect for Human Rights In December 1948, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted and proclaimed what is referred to as the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” which stipulates the rights and freedoms of all individuals worldwide. According to the Declaration, all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and have the rights and freedoms summarized below,70 which all African countries need to honor in order to forestall the potential for human rights abuses. 1) Personal, Civic and Political Rights: These include the right to life, liberty, privacy, and security of person; freedom from slavery and torture; the right to legal personality; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, and exile; the right to due process, legal defense, and a fair trial; the right to freedom of movement and to seek asylum from persecution; the right to a nationality; the right to marry and found a family; the right to own property and not to be deprived of it except by due process of law; the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to freedom of both opinion and expression; and the right to peaceful assembly, association, and political participation. 2) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: These include the right to work, to choose one’s employment, to equal pay for equal work,71 to a just wage and to supplemental social security, to participation in unions,72 to rest and leisure, to an adequate standard of living, to an education, and to participation 70

For a full text of the thirty articles in which these universal human rights and freedoms are stipulated, see the following sources, among others: Carter, B.E. and Trimble, P.R., op. cit.; Gorman, R.F. and Milhakanin, E.S., Historical Dictionary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations (Lanham, MD, 1997), Appendix 1; Lawson, E., Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Second Edition (Washington, DC, 1996), pp. 1551-53; Lipset, S.M., editor, op.cit. 71 In reality, the term “equal pay for equal work” is at best a misnomer used to imply “equitable remuneration.” Ordinarily, employees who perform the same chores in any given organization tend to earn disparate, but fair, wages or salaries due to competence-based and/or periodic increments in their earnings, among a host of other factors. 72 The right to participate in unions is often flouted in countries like the United States where some employer-organizations have a formal “non-union policy” forbidding employees from forming or joining labor unions. Besides, trade unionism and labor laws are, by and large, restrained in “maquiladoras” or export processing zones (EPZs).

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in the activities of the communities of which one is a constituent part. The “civil rights” of individuals in particular countries reflect and/or amplify the rights and freedoms of individuals that are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the International Bill of Human Rights. They may include the following: the right to equal protection by the law; the right to vote; freedom of religion and worship; freedom of speech; freedom of the press; the right to privacy; freedom of assembly and association; and freedom from slavery and any other cruel, unsavory and dehumanizing forms of treatment. The Declaration, however, acknowledges that each and every country’s ability to honor some of the foregoing rights and freedoms depends on its resources and government structure. And, as stipulated in Article 29 [2] of the Declaration, every individual is subject to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others, and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general socio-economic welfare of a democratic society. It is tempting to advocate the inclusion of a few additional rights to the International Bill of Human Rights which the architects of the Bill might not have deemed to be worthy of consideration as universal human rights during their time; these are: (a) the right to life-saving healthcare; (b) the right to unadulterated air, water, and surroundings; and (c) the right to consumer-related protection. Stamping out Corruption While corruption occurs in all countries worldwide in varying degrees, the adverse effects of the scourge on fragile economies in Africa are perhaps more profound, particularly due to the fact that it has actually compounded the problems of economically beleaguered countries on the continent—countries that are overwhelmed by a catalogue of other bottlenecks to sustainable socio-economic development, including poor leadership, economic mismanagement, bloated national governments, and the debt burden.73 These bottlenecks—together with corruption—have diminished the ability of countries in Africa to harness their abundant natural and human resources to meet the basic needs, expectations and as73

See Houngnikpo, Mathurin C. and Kyambalesa, Henry, Problems Facing Contemporary Africa and Viable Strategies for Redress (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), passim.

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pirations of the common people. The consequences of such a state of affairs are as conspicuous as they are mind-boggling—including pervasive and unprecedented poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, unemployment, disadvantaged children, moral decay, and crime and lawlessness. As such, corruption contributes to the worsening of some of the brain drain’s “push factors.” The remainder of this sub-section is devoted to a brief survey of the following: the nature and classification of corruption, the causes and effects of the scourge, and preventive measures. What Is Corruption? The term “corruption” has been defined in many different ways. In a descriptive study by Houngnikpo and Kyambalesa,74 for example, it is defined in consonance with a definition provided by Nye75 to refer to behavior that deviates from the normal duties of a public role because of private interests and pecuniary or status gains, including behavior that violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regarding influence—such as bribery, nepotism, and misappropriation of public resources. Amoako,76 on the other hand, has described the scourge simply as “the antithesis of accountability and transparency.” To pundit Mauro,77 the term “corruption” represents “the abuse of public office for private gain.” According to J. Macrae—cited by Husted78 and Shenkar and Luo79—the term refers to an “exchange between two partners (the ‘demander’ and the ‘supplier’) which … has an influence on the allocation of resources either immediately or in the future, and … involves the use or abuse of public or collective responsibility for private ends.” To facilitate the enactment and/or enforcement of anti-corruption legislation, countries affected by the scourge have tended to classify corrupt practices in two or more categories. In Tanzania, for example, a Commission of Inquiry against Corruption established by President Benjamin Mkapa in 1996 identified two forms 74

Houngnikpo, Mathurin C. and Kyambalesa, Henry, ibid., pp. 9-12. Nye, J.S., “Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis,” American Political Science Review, Volume 61/Number 2, 1967, p. 419. 76 Amoako, Kingsley Y., “Governance for a Progressing Africa: Opening Statement at the Second Africa Governance Forum,” http://www.uneca.org/, Accra, Ghana, June 25, 1998. 77 Mauro, Paolo, “Corruption: Causes, Consequences, and Agenda for Further Research,” World Bank articles, http://www.worldbank.org/, March 1, 1998. 78 Husted, B.W., “Wealth, Culture and Corruption,” Journal of International Business Studies, Volume 30/Number 2, 1999, p. 340. 79 Shenkar, Oded and Luo, Yadong, International Business (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004), p. 498. 75

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of corruption occurring in the country—that is, “petty corruption” and “grand corruption.”80 1) Petty Corruption: This form of corruption includes the unscrupulous practices of those who receive bribes because of their low incomes and standard of living. Such practices can be said to be common in the socio-economic settings of countries where personal incomes cannot, by and large, meet the basic needs of households. The following are specific examples of such practices:81 (a) Educational Settings: Corruption is demanded and given

during the registration of children in schools, to enable pupils pass examinations, to enable students obtain placement in secondary schools or colleges, to effect a transfer from one school to another, or to be afforded the opportunity to repeat a class. Moreover teachers give bribes in order to be promoted, to be transferred or to be given placements in preferred schools. (b) Law Enforcement: Police officers receive bribes to protect criminals, to arrest innocent people and threaten to take them to court on tramped-up charges in a deliberate effort to solicit for bribes, while traffic officers accept bribes from motorists who violate traffic rules and regulations. (c) Passports and Immigration: Immigration officers seek or accept bribes to issue passports and visas, or residence permits to undeserving foreigners. (d) Employment and Staffing: Personnel officers receive bribes during the recruitment of workers, or they demand bribes from junior officers so that they can promote them, assign them responsibilities, send them for training or to attend seminars, and/or allow them to take duty trips. (e) The News Media: Reporters in media institutions accept bribes in order to publish or not to publish information which glorifies or destroys the reputations of certain individuals, groups of individuals, or institutions. Petty corruption, according to Dike,82 “occurs in the public administration or the implementation end of politics” and may altern80

Mupuchi, Speedwell, “Corruption Is Now Endemic in Zambia—Prof. Chanda,” The Post, August 24, 2005, and United Republic of Tanzania, “Causes of Corruption in Tanzania,” http://www.tanzania.go.tz/, August 14, 2005. 81 Excerpted from United Republic of Tanzania, “Causes of Corruption in Tanzania,” http://www.tanzania.go.tz/, August 14, 2005. 82 Dike, Victor E., “Corruption in Nigeria: A New Paradigm for Effective Control,” Africa Economic Analysis, www.AfricaEconomicAnalysis.org/, February 18, 2004.

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ately be designated as “bureaucratic corruption” or “corruption of need.” 2) Grand Corruption: This form of corruption encompasses the irregular practices of people—such as high-level public servants or government leaders—whose earnings and pieces of property are adequate to meet their basic needs. Such people get involved in corrupt practices mainly due to greed and/or the desire to accumulate wealth or gain political power. As such, grand corruption has also been designated as “corruption of greed” in the literature.83 Examples of the various schemes and tactics used in this respect include the following:84 (a) Decision Makers: Acceptance of bribes in order to breach

tender rules and regulations, grant tax exemptions to undeserving persons or organizations, or conclude construction contracts with private companies without due regard for the national interest. And (b) Parliamentary Candidates: Bribing of voters in order to gain support and votes during elections, or offering of bribes to reporters or media institutions in order to secure a positive profile. In general, interferences in the conduct of free and fair elections, or “electoral corruption,” may also include promises of employment, coercion, intimidation, and other election-related malpractices.85 There are some forms of corruption which do not involve a deliberate exchange of benefits between two or more conspirators; rather, the perpetrator unscrupulously gains access to the financial and/or material resources of unsuspecting individuals or institutions. Such forms of corruption include fraud, embezzlement, and extortion.86 Favoritism in general, and nepotism in particular, can also be said to be forms of corruption.87 Causes and Effects: 83

See Dike, Victor E., ibid. Excerpted from United Republic of Tanzania, ibid. 85 Dike, Victor E., op. cit. 86 See Dike, Victor E., ibid. 87 See Chanda, Alfred W., “National Integrity Systems: TI Country Study Report—Zambia 2003,” http://www.transparency.org/, 2003; Dike, Victor E., “Corruption in Nigeria: A New Paradigm for Effective Control,” Africa Economic Analysis, www.AfricaEconomicAnalysis.org/, February 18, 2004; AmanPalestine, The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity—Aman, “Transparency Palestine,” http://www.aman-palestine.org/, September 27, 2005; and Kpundeh, Sahr J., “Political Will in Fighting Corruption,” Chapter 6: http://magnet.undp.org/, August 17, 2005. 84

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Corruption is caused by a diversity of factors, including poor governance, political instability, regular reshuffles of government leaders, a weak legislative system, a weak judicial system, bureaucratic red tape, inadequate compensation, greed and moral deficiency among employees and national leaders, and lack of professional counsel for employees and government officials.88 By and large, rampant corrupt practices, as the Nigeria First organization has observed, “not only stultify development as resources are diverted or reduced, but also imbue governance with inefficiency and increased costs.”89 Besides, corruption can subvert political processes in a country, endanger economic stability, undermine honest enterprise, and erode the country’s moral fiber.90 In the remainder of this part of the discussion, let us consider the specific effects of corruption on economic growth and public expenditure, and the impacts of the scourge on economic units, human rights and a country’s national image. 1) Impact on Economic Growth: In Mauro’s contention,91 a high level of corruption in a country’s public institutions is equivalent to a large increase in marginal tax rates, and can lead to a sharp reduction in foreign direct investment in the country involved. He has identified the following as potential consequences of corruption on economic growth in a country:92 (a) Lowering of incentives to invest for both local and foreign

investors, because it has the same effect as a tax, and in fact operates as a tax;93 (b) Distortion of the dispensation of public services in a country in favor of people who have the wherewithal to bribe public officials and/or civil servants; (c) Inducement of public officials and civil servants to engage in self-remunerating activities rather than socially productive activities; (d) Lowering of the quality of public infrastructure due to the awarding of construction projects to less-competent, bribegiving bidders; and 88

For a detailed discussion of these causes of corruption, see Kyambalesa, Henry, “Corruption: Causes, Effects and Deterrents,” Africa Insight, www.ai.org.za/, Volume 36/Number 2, June 2006, pp. 102-122. 89 See Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, “The ICPC: Anti-Corruption Crusade,” http://www.nigeriafirst.org/, February 21, 2003. 90 Sid-Ahmed, 2004. 91 Mauro, Paolo, “The Effects of Corruption on Growth, Investment, and Government Expenditure,” IMF Working Paper No. 96/98, 1996. 92 Mauro, Paolo (1998), op. cit. 93 Tanzi, Vito, “Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scope, and Cures,” IMF Staff Papers, Volume 45 / Number 4, December 1998.

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(e) Diversion of public resources to less important tasks, projects and/or programs simply because of their potential to facilitate the extraction of high-value or hard-to-detect bribes. Amoako,94 too, has offered a useful explanation of how corruption can thwart efforts aimed at raising the welfare of a country’s people: “By reducing the amount of public resources for development, it limits economic growth, discourages private investment and savings, and impedes the efficient use of government revenues and development assistance.” Peter Eigen—the founder of Transparency International (TI)— has also provided an assessment of the pervasive impact of corruption on a country’s socio-economic system: “Corruption in largescale public projects is a daunting obstacle to sustainable development, and results in a major loss of public funds needed for education, healthcare and poverty reduction, both in developed and developing countries.”95 In May 1999, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) cited some of the other socio-economic ills associated with the phenomenon of corruption in Resolution (99) 5 as follows: “[Corruption] … represents a major threat to the rule of law, democracy, human rights, [and] fairness and social justice; hinders economic development; [and] endangers the stability of democratic institutions and the moral foundations of society.” 2) Effect on Public Expenditure: Corruption, as Tanzi96 has maintained, can reduce public revenue and inflate public spending in a country and, as such, can contribute to a build-up of a country’s budget deficits and make it difficult for the country’s government to generate a fiscal policy that is less burdensome to tax payers. Besides, one cannot rule out the potential for male civil servants in a corruption-ridden country, for example, to seek to cohabit with female clients—a situation which can contribute to the erosion of public morals, as well as exacerbate the spread of infectious sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 3) Effects on Economic Units: With respect to economic units, USAID and the Institute of International Economics have pinpointed the unsavory effects of corruption on their internal management practices, and the risks and systemic effects associated 94

Amoako, Kingsley Y., op. cit. See Transparency International, “Corruption Research—Chapter 11: Global Corruption Barometer 2003,” Global Corruption Report 2003, http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/, June 1, 2004. 96 Tanzi, Vito, op. cit. 95

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with the specter.97 A brief description of the risks and effects involved follows. (a) Deferring to corruption can shape the mode of internal

management. Jeremy Pope98 of Transparency International has summed up the effect of a company’s involvement in corruption on its internal modus operandi: “Corruption boomerangs on the practitioner because once you establish a methodology in which your sales staffs are trained in offthe-books accounts, non-accountable funds, and breaking the laws of countries with impunity, you create a situation where you have unaccounted-for money. You import an ethic of corruption into your own organization.” (b) In countries where laws are clearly defined and strictly enforced, unscrupulous business practices can expose a company to civil damages, criminal sanctions, legal fees, and/or impaired reputation. (c) The scourge of corruption can consume a significant amount of business entities’ time and resources that would otherwise be devoted to innovation and quality improvement in commerce and industry. As such, it can adversely affect business entities’ ability to compete efficiently and effectively in the global marketplace. According to Daniel Kaufmann of the World Bank Institute,99 corruption creates “an environment of uncertainty, inflates the operating costs of economic units and reduces their profit margins, and takes a toll in terms of time.” 4) Violation of Human Rights: There are many ways in which corrupt practices can lead to a violation of some societal members’ rights, such as the following:100 (a) By diverting necessities of life—such as food, clean water,

health care, and education and training—from the poor and making them available to the rich on the basis of individuals’ ability to pay; and 97

See USAID, “Corruption and the Private Sector: Why Would Businesses Fight against Corruption and How?” http://www.usaid.gov/, March 19, 2005; and Institute of International Economics (IIE), “Corruption and the Private Sector: Why Should Businesses Fight against Corruption and How?”: http://www.iie.com/, 2001. 98 Institute of International Economics (IIE), ibid. 99 See Institute of International Economics (IIE), ibid. 100 See Green, Penny and Ward, Tony, State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2004), p. 18.

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(b) By denying individuals (through vote-buying, sponsorship

of ruffians to harass members of opposition political parties, and the use of any other undemocratic means) the right to free and fair participation in the political process. 5) Tarnished National Image: Being rated or perceived as a country with a high level of corruption can adversely affect a country’s ability to develop sound bilateral and multilateral relations with other countries. It can, for example, have negative consequences on diplomatic and economic relations” which a country may seek to pursue with other sovereign states.101 For a country that is in dire need of foreign aid, debt relief, and/or technical assistance, a high level of corruption can prompt donor and creditor nations to be less forthcoming. Besides, the country’s citizens are likely to encounter problems in obtaining travel visas, and/or securing jobs or business contracts abroad. And, as Transparency International has noted, “extensive research shows that foreign investment is lower in countries perceived to be corrupt.”102 6) Potential Benefits: In spite of the baleful and ubiquitous nature of corruption, some scholars, as Wei103 has noted, consider the scourge as a beneficial phenomenon. It is, for example, argued that bribes can actually function as grease “that can speed [up] … the wheels of commerce.”104 Another example of the potential benefits of corruption involves what is referred to as “state capture”—that is, the extent to which firms make illicit and non-transparent private payments to public officials in order to influence the generation of laws, rules, regulations, or decrees by government institutions.105 In this regard, state capture generates “substantial gains to the firm both in terms of performance and improved security of property rights, but only in the capture economy.”106 Besides, in circumstances where wealthy people bribe poorly paid employees in order to secure preferential treatment in gaining 101

ACID (Anti-Corruption Internet Database—Nigeria), “Consequences of Corruption,” http://www.antigraft.org/acid/, July 13, 2005 and August 17, 2005. 102 Transparency International, “Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2005,” http://www.transparency.org/, November 29, 2005. 103 Wei, Shang-Jin, “Corruption in Economic Development: Beneficial Grease, Minor Annoyance, or Major Obstacle?” unpublished workshop paper, http://www.nber.org/, June 29-July 1, 1998. 104 See Wei, Shang-Jin, ibid. 105 Hellman, Joel S., Jones, Geraint and Kaufmann, Daniel, “Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition,” The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 2444, September 2000. 106 Hellman, Joel S., Jones, Geraint and Kaufmann, Daniel, ibid.

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access to goods or services, the bribes involved can facilitate the distribution of income to such employees. But while one may think of many examples in which some firms or individuals are made better off either by paying a bribe or the opportunity to pay a bribe, the overall effect of corruption on economic development, as Wei107 has noted, is negative. Preventive Measures: Corruption is, of course, not an insurmountable phenomenon; it can actually be brought under control through governmental and private initiatives. Let us consider some of the many ways in which the scourge can be contained at the national, international and individual levels, and the options available to executives of a transnational company whose operations are conducted in a host country where bribery of public officials is endemic—especially countries that are listed annually in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.108 The following are also tendered in the discussion as important considerations in a country’s fight against corruption in institutional settings: “differential pricing” and the design of facilities used in the delivery of certain kinds of services. 1) The National Context: Let us first consider remedial actions that can be taken at the national level in an effort to combat corruption in public and private institutions in order to create a corruption-free environment for good governance and sustainable socio-economic development—that is, good governance, sustained political will, zero tolerance, streamlining of cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, provision of adequate remuneration to civil servants and public officials, compulsory ethics education, and, among other measures, provision for an anti-graft hotline. (a) Good Governance: Governance characterized by the ele-

ments of accountability, transparency, the rule of law, and citizen participation in governmental decision-making is essential in a country’s quest to abate the incidence of corruption.109 (A bird’s-eye view of what each of the four ele107

Wei, Shang-Jin, op. cit. For example, see Transparency International, op. cit. 109 See Whitehead, Martin, “Fighting Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Can We Win the War?” PriceWaterHouseCoopers: http://www.pwc.com/, December 25, 2005; Kututwa, Noel, “African Anti-Corruption Commitments: A Review of Eight NEPAD Countries,” African Human Security Initiative—Paper 7: www.africanreview.com/, January 2005; and Wolf, Thomas and Gurgen, Emine, “Improving Governance and Fighting Corruption in the Baltic and CIS Countries,” Economic Issues, Number 21, http://www.imf.org/, July 2000. 108

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ments of good governance represents cited here is presented elsewhere in this discussion.) With respect to flagrantly corrupt government regimes, concerted pressure by donor countries, regional governments, and multilateral institutions—including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO)—can prompt such regimes to adopt the principles of good governance. Besides, concrete support by the international community in the fight against corruption, as Kaufmann110 has observed, can bolster the pursuit of government reforms that are likely to lead to improvements in governance. Such support may include the provision of advisory services, as well as financial and material resources, to facilitate publiceducation efforts, training programs in accounting and auditing, reorganization of customs institutions, development of transparent and effective treasury departments, and government procurement mechanisms.111 (b) Sustained Political Will: The baleful nature of corruption

has made it inevitable for countries to create anti-corruption agencies, or any semblance thereof, and charge them with the responsibility of preventing, investigating, and prosecuting cases of alleged corruption in both public and private institutions. Such an effort, however, requires national leadership that is genuinely and perpetually committed to the improvement of the operational efficiency and effectiveness of complementary government agencies created for the purpose of abating corrupt practices in both the private and the public sectors through greater autonomy, nonpoliticization, and adequate financial and logistical support to the agencies. Such commitment is essential if the agencies are to succeed in preventing corruption, and in assisting public and private institutions in revising their methods of work and procedures to remove or reduce opportunities that may facilitate corrupt practices. The creation of an anti-corruption agency is, however, not likely to facilitate the fight against corruption in any meaningful way in the absence of sustained political will. In the typical African country, unfortunately, political commitment in the fight against corruption has tended to be 110

Kaufmann, Daniel, “Corruption: The Key Facts,” Foreign Policy, Summer

1997. 111

See Kaufmann, Daniel (1997), ibid.

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limited to efforts aimed at exposing the alleged misdeeds of a selected number of individuals who served in previous government regimes.112 In passing, one would perhaps do well to pinpoint the conditions (cited by USAID113) that can contribute to an anti-corruption agency’s success in the fight against corruption. Firstly, the existence of intra-agency conditions, which include genuine independence from political influences, freedom to investigate corruption-related complaints without limitations, adequate staffing and remuneration, well-funded staff training and development program, accountability to the general public and all branches of the state apparatus, and effective national integrity reviews (conducted under the aegis of Transparency International) aimed at discerning the causes of corruption and evaluating the potential of the existing institutional framework to curb the scourge. Secondly, the existence of exogenous conditions, such as sustained political stability, good governance, and evidence that anti-corruption efforts result in national gains rather than losses. According to USAID,114 the absence of such internal and external conditions can dispose an anti-corruption agency or commission to serious weaknesses, including the possibility of being used to serve as window dressing for donors and other international observers by otherwise uncommitted leaders, or to distract energy from long-term and more important reforms needed to stem the incidence of corruption. Besides, an anti-corruption commission or agency can very easily and inevitably become a mere tool for harassing political opponents and critics by an insecure or incompetent government regime if such conditions are lacking.115 (c) Zero Tolerance: Each and every government leader should

be expected to serve the citizenry in a diligent, impartial and honest manner. Any slight deviation from this responsibility by any leader should attract serious and immediate 112

See Utstein Anti-Corruption Resource Center (U4), “Conventions Overview: African Union,” http://www.u4.no/, October 27, 2004. 113 USAID, “Corruption and the Private Sector: Why Would Businesses Fight against Corruption and How?” http://www.usaid.gov/, March 19, 2005, p. 17. 114 USAID (2005), ibid. 115 See USAID (2005), ibid, and Williams, Robert and Doig, Alan, “African Anti-Corruption Commissions: Report 1,” http://www.fernuni-hagen.de/, November 19, 2005.

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disciplinary action by Parliament, the executive President or Prime Minister, or the Chief Justice—no excuses, and no exceptions! Unfortunately, most African leaders, as African parliamentary delegates to the Pan-African Parliament conference held in Zambia in August 2005 have observed, are seen on television preaching against corruption even when they do not actually believe in the fight itself.116 (d) Red Tape and Rewards: To reduce corrupt practices in both

the public and private sectors, national governments and business leaders need to identify and streamline cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, as well as provide adequate remuneration for both blue-collar and white-collar employees. (e) Compulsory Ethics Education: A country’s national gov-

ernment needs to compel educational and training institutions to provide basic ethics education by incorporating a topic on ethical and professional conduct in selected core subjects or courses. Such a measure is certainly in the public interest because “to educate a [person] ... in mind and not in morals,” as the late Theodore Roosevelt of the United States once warned, “is to educate a menace to society.”117 Representatives of the government, the business sector and civil society in South Africa, for example, have recognized the need for such an initiative: “Ethics training must form a critical part of the ethics and awareness program of all sectors [in the fight against corruption], including incorporation in the school curricula.”118 (f) Anti-Graft Hotline:

The fight against corruption should also include the initiation of a hotline through which members of organizations and the general public can anonymously or otherwise report observed cases of corrupt practices. The hotline, which should preferably fall under the aegis of a country’s anti-corruption agency(ies), needs to be

116

See Sustainable Development International, “African Parliaments Have Resolved to Tie African Leaders to Fighting Corruption,” http://www.sustdev.org/, August 14, 2005. 117 Platt, Suzy, editor, Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations from the Library of Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1992), p. 99. 118 National Anti-Corruption Forum (NACF), “Resolutions of the 2nd National Anti-Corruption Summit,” http://www.info.gov.za/, March 23, 2005.

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widely publicized through the mass media, public notice boards, and bulletin boards at places of work. In this connection, it is also important to introduce pieces of legislation designed to protect whistleblowers in institutional settings. In South Africa, for example, representatives of the government, participants at a National AntiCorruption Summit convened in March 2005 resolved to “encourage whistle-blowing and reporting in all sectors, and … [initiate] measures [designed] to protect all persons from victimization where they expose corrupt and unethical practices.”119 Moreover, it is essential to establish a mechanism for investigating reported cases of corruption. The guiding principle in this regard should be to treat individuals under investigation as being innocent until a verdict of guilt is ultimately established against them by an independent, impartial, and legitimate court. (g) Distribution of Relief Supplies: There is a need for a gov-

ernment to create an autonomous agency to handle the distribution of relief food, cash and other supplies to communities affected by floods, droughts and other kinds of disasters in order to reduce politically clutched distribution of such supplies. This can, for example, reduce the potential for selective distribution of relief food, particularly in countries like Zimbabwe, where food has often been used to gain political leverage by the ruling political party during elections.120 National disaster management units, for example, need to be autonomous in order for them to perform their duties without any political meddling or manipulation. And government programs designed to provide monetary assistance to the needy also need to be managed by autonomous agencies, such as the Social Cash Transfer Scheme in Zambia, which is a component of the Public Welfare Assistance Scheme administered through the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.121

119

National Anti-Corruption Forum (NACF), ibid. Dixon, Robyn, “Corruption Fuels Hunger in Zimbabwe,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2007. 121 Kamboni, K.S., “The Social Cash Transfer in Zambia,” a paper presented at the Basic Income Congress in Berlin, October 26, 2008; and Namwenda, Henry, “Zambian politics!—RB Did Not Donate Food,” http://hapanda.tigblog.org/, September 16, 2008. 120

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There are a number of other practical measures—paraphrased from measures suggested by Tiihonen122 and Hodess123—that can be taken at the national level by African governments in their quest to stem corrupt practices by business executives, public officials and civil servants; they are as follows: (a) Passage of strict pieces of legislation designed to prevent

conflicts of interest in institutional settings;124 (b) Limitation of recourse to immunity by public officials and business leaders and their organizations; (c) Collaboration with other sovereign states in generating rules for extraditing alleged fugitive perpetrators of corrupt practices and other crimes to each other for prosecution; (d) Initiation of inter-governmental mechanisms for repatriating stolen public resources to countries of origin; and (e) Fostering the development of a free press to facilitate the exposure of unscrupulous activities in institutional settings. The SADC Protocol against Corruption has stipulated similar preventive measures; they include the following:125 generation of strict codes of conduct for public officials, ensuring transparency in public procurement of goods and services, easy access to public information by the citizenry and other relevant stakeholders, protection of whistle blowers of corrupt activities, establishment of independent and adequately financed anti-corruption agencies, initiation of systems of accountability and controls, and the use of public education and awareness as a means of eliciting zero tolerance for corruption. With respect to easy access to public information (or “freedom of information”), countries that have enacted pieces of legislation guaranteeing greater access to public information are, according to David Banisar of the United Kingdom’s Freedom of Information and International Privacy Program,126 “more efficient and less vul122

Tiihonen, Seppo, “Central Government Corruption in Historical Perspective,” in Tiihonen, Seppo, editor, The History of Corruption in Central Government (Washington, DC: IOS Press, 2003), p 4. 123 Hodess, Robin, “Part One: Political Corruption,” http://www.globalcorruptionreport.org/, July 1, 2004, pp. 12and 17. 124 For example, through “regulation of post public-sector employment” to provide for a ‘cooling off’ period in order to prevent potential conflicts of interest (see National Anti-Corruption Forum, 2005). 125 See Matsheza, Phil, “SADC Protocol against Corruption: Making It Work,” Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa: http://www.sahrit.org/, October 9, 2001. 126 See Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity, “Activists Say Freedom of Information Aids in the Fight [against] Corruption,” http://www.ivforumglobal.org.br/, June 9, 2005.

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nerable to corruption.” He has, for example, attributed the success of Finland, Norway and Sweden in the fight against the scourge to laws guaranteeing access to public information adopted by the three countries.127 2) The International Level: At the international level, a number of intergovernmental instruments have been developed to combat corruption across national and/or regional borders, including the following: (a) The African Union Convention on Preventing and Combat-

ing Corruption adopted in Maputo, Mozambique, on July 11, 2003 to provide a regional consensus on African countries’ obligations with respect to corrupt practices—particularly in the areas of prevention, criminalization, international cooperation, and asset recovery;128 (b) The SADC Protocol against Corruption, designed to: (i) promote the development of anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level; (ii) promote cooperation in the fight against corruption by national governments; and (iii) harmonize anti-corruption national legislation in the region;129 (c) The Accra Declaration on Collaboration against Corruption assented to in 2001 by members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); (d) The Inter-American Convention Against Corruption initiated by the Organization of American States (OAS) in March 1996 to provide for criminal and non-criminal measures for preventing and repressing domestic and transnational corruption; (e) The General Assembly Resolutions on Corruption generated by the United Nations in May and December 1996 to provide for criminal and non-criminal measures for preventing and repressing domestic and transnational corruption; (f) The Convention on the Fight Against Corruption initiated by the European Union in May 1997 to facilitate the criminalization of active bribery of European Union public officials; (g) The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Transactions, initiated in 127

See Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity,

ibid. 128

Utstein Anti-Corruption Resource Center (U4), op. cit.; and “Measuring Success in Five African Anti-Corruption Commissions,” http://www.u4.no/, July —October, 2004. 129 See Matsheza, Phil, op. cit.

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November 1997 by the OECD, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the Slovak Republic to oversee the criminalization of active bribery of foreign public officials in international business transactions, and corruption within multilateral and bilateral donor organizations; (h) The Criminal Law Convention on Corruption initiated by the Council of Europe in November 1998 to oversee the criminalization of domestic and transnational corruption;130 (i) The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises designed to provide principles and standards of good business practices consistent with applicable laws;131 and (j) The United Nations (UN) Convention against Corruption, which, as Transparency International has noted,132 seeks to: (i) accelerate the retrieval of stolen funds by affected member-countries; (ii) push financial institutions worldwide to take action against money laundering; (iii) enable law-enforcement agencies in member-countries to pursue foreign companies and individuals that have engaged in corrupt activities in their countries; and (iv) prohibit the bribing of foreign public officials by cross-border business operators.133 3) The Individual Level: At the personal level, a high sense of morals and self-respect can enable a civil servant or public official, for example, to overcome the temptation of engaging in corrupt practices. Such a high sense of morals and self-respect may be a culmination of an individual’s belief in God. Mr. Bill Barnard, a former U.S. political commentator has somewhat postulated the potential of divine intervention in a genuine believer’s conduct: “religion is the anchor of morality.”134 4) Transnational Companies: Given the dour effects of corruption on economic units discussed elsewhere in this treatise, transnational companies need to avoid making investments in countries where bribing of public officials is a normal feature in business-government relations. In the remainder of this section, let us consider the 130

Institute of International Economics (IIE), “Corruption and the Private Sector: Why Should Businesses Fight against Corruption and How?”: http://www.iie.com/, 2001. 131 See Shenkar, Oded and Luo, Yadong, op. cit., pp. 510-513. 132 Transparency International, “Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2005,” http://www.transparency.org/, November 29, 2005. 133 A comprehensive listing of other important global, inter-governmental and sectoral anti-corruption initiatives is provided by the United Nations’ Global Compact (2003). 134 See Kyambalesa, Henry, Business Innovation and Competitiveness in the Developing World (Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1993), p. 115.

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options available to the managerial personnel of a transnational company whose operations are already conducted in a host country where bribery of public officials is a normal practice. In dealing with the situation, its managers have the following honorable options suggested by the Institute of International Economics:135 (a) A Concerted Effort: Collaboration with both local and for-

eign managers in the country in denouncing and eschewing bribes of any kind; (b) Dialogue with the Government: Active participation in the initiation of a coalition of managers, local business associations and chambers of commerce and industry designed to influence the host government to combat the bribery of public officials; or (c) Withdrawal from the Country: Implore the parent company to shift its operations from the country to a bribery-free country, especially if none of the preceding options is tenable. Moreover, transnational companies need to guard against what the World Bank Group136 has referred to as “state capture”—that is, a situation that obtains when a powerful corporation exerts undue influence (often through illicit means) on its host country’s state institutions, laws, regulations, and/or policies. 5) Differential Pricing: For certain services, differential pricing can enable a company or government agency to forestall the potential for bribery. Let us consider a few examples of such services and the nature of differential pricing that can be applied in this endeavor: (a) Postal Services: Preferably, allocation of commercial or

private “postal boxes,” or provision of “bag services,” should be made on demand upon renter’s payment of applicable fees and deposits for keys and/or locks. A postal facility that may not have adequate boxes or bags to be allocated on demand can, for example, charge a “regular” fee for applications to be fulfilled within 15-30 days, and a fee 135

Institute of International Economics (IIE), “Corruption and the Private Sector: Why Should Businesses Fight against Corruption and How?”: http://www.iie.com/, 2001; also see Kyambalesa, Henry, Socio-Economic Challenges: The African Context (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2004), p. 89. 136 The World Bank Group, “Six Questions on the Cost of Corruption with World Bank Institute Global Governance Director Daniel Kaufmann,” http://web.worldbank.org/, April 2005.

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for “expedited” allocation to be made between 7 and 14 days. (b) Telephone Services: Charges for connection of “landbased” telephone services to households and businesses may be differentiated as follows: a higher fee for expedited connections made within 7 days in areas where telecommunications infrastructure already exists, and a lower fee for connections made between 8 and 14 days in such areas. Connections to households and businesses in areas without telecommunications infrastructure can, for example, attract the lower fee and be guaranteed between 30 to 60 days. (c) Public Utilities: Charges for water, natural gas and/or electricity connections to residential quarters and business premises may be determined as in the case of telephone services. To digress somewhat, the potential for corruption in public utilities like water, natural gas and electricity companies, as the World Bank137 has noted, is high due to the monopolistic nature of the industries in which the companies are operated. Inevitably, corruption in such companies can result in high utility costs and poor service delivery—a situation which, among other factors, can dissuade private investors from investing in a country’s economy. In passing, “differential pricing” can enable providers of essential goods and/or services to collect revenue that would otherwise be fetched by unscrupulous employees from impatient customers with the wherewithal to bribe such employees. Moreover, formally instituted differential pricing can forestall the possibility of cliques of employees to generate time-consuming and frustrating bureaucratic procedures intended for no other purpose than to extract “grease money” from potential bribers.138 6) The Delivery of Services: In the provision of certain services— such as outpatient health care, immigration services, the issuance of passports, and the processing of various kinds of licences—the design and use of multiple and partially enclosed or open service points can greatly reduce opportunities for bribery, especially if a numbering system is employed whereby a client picks up a number on arrival at a service facility and is served by the next available service provider or representative.

137

World Bank, “Poverty Reduction and Social Policy Unit: Africa Region— Support to the Government of Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Program,” http://www1.worldbank.org/, November 1998. 138 See Green, Penny and Ward, Tony, op. cit.

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Peace and Stability139 It is not possible for any country to attain meaningful socio-economic development that would provide a satisfactory standard of living for would-be emigrants in the absence of sustained peace and stability. This should be obvious because the war effort disrupts productive socio-economic activities, and diverts essential resources away from the pursuit of a country’s goals and aspirations. Unfortunately, attempts at curbing conflicts among countries and/or segments of a country’s people tend to have less or no impact on outbreaks of war. Thus, conflicts have continued to be one of the major “push factors” for African emigrants, besides the heavy losses of property and human life which have often been occasioned by such conflicts—including the devastating losses of human life in Ethiopia (1984-85), Sudan (1987-88), Somalia (199192), Rwanda (1994),140 and the woeful experiences of war-ravaged countries like Angola, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is, therefore, incumbent upon each and every political, tribal and military leader in the African Union to be mindful of the need to find ways and means of forestalling war and instability. Among other things, there is a need for political leaders and their constituents to embrace the following elements of democratic governance: accountability, transparency, adequate checks and balances, a free press, respect for the rule of law, a viable mechanism for peacefully replacing incompetent leaders, and respect for human rights.141 Moreover, there is a need for serious consideration of ethnic and other interests in the distribution of power, educational facilities, health services, and so forth. Logan’s Prescriptions

139

This section has benefited greatly from an informal discussion with Dr. Mathurin C. Houngnikpo at the University of Denver concerning the issue of “peace, stability and socio-economic development.” 140 Prendergast, J., Hope and Crisis in Africa (Washington, DC: Inter-Agency Group and Center of Concern, 1996), pp. 3-4. 141 Annan, K., The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa: Report of the Secretary General to the United Nations Security Council (New York: United Nations, 1998), p. 3. Also see Hyden, G. and Bratton, M., editors, Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 1992).

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To stem the exodus of trained nationals to foreign countries, African governments need to consider such initiatives as the following, which are adapted from remedial measures suggested by Logan:142 1) Proper human resource planning so that suitable jobs can be reserved for professional and technical personnel undergoing training locally and abroad; 2) Initiation of employment procedures designed to ensure that trained nationals have a fair chance of competing with expatriates for high-level positions; 3) Engaging in more active recruitment of qualified nationals living abroad, whose decision not to return home might have been partly precipitated by the cost of transportation and/or the uncertainties associated with finding a worthwhile job in the home country; 4) Seeking international collaboration in research funding as a means of improving local researchers’ remuneration; and 5) Requiring nationals sponsored by local institutions to sign an enforceable contract obliging them to pay back the costs of their education and/or training if they decide not to work for the sponsor for a prescribed number of years upon completion of studies or training. Low-Interest Loans The effort to stem the exodus of trained nationals to foreign countries may also require a country’s national and local governments to grant low-interest loans to professionals based in foreign countries so that they can return to the country to start and manage their own business undertakings. Such loans also need to be extended to locally based professionals to lure them from migrating to foreign countries for employment. There are, in fact, other benefits which can accrue from pursuing such an initiative. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, a growing body of empirical evidence supports the widely held view that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are instrumental to socio-economic development;143 142

Logan, B.I., “The Reverse Transfer of Technology from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States,” op. cit., pp. 611-612. 143 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, “Financial Policies for Strengthening SMEs Through Microcredit and Credit Guarantee Schemes,” http://www.unece.org, April 1997; also see Acs, Z.J. et al, editors, Entrepreneur-

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they can, as such, play an enormous role in improving the socioeconomic welfare of a lot of people in a country. For example, they can collectively function as a vehicle through which a country’s government can economically empower its people by enabling them to participate actively and directly in their country’s commercial and industrial activities. There are, of course, other ways in which SMEs can positively contribute to the improvement of the socio-economic well-being of a country’s people, such as the following: 1) Alternative Employment: They can create employment opportunities for talented citizens and family members who cannot find jobs in large business establishments. 2) Economic Empowerment: They can function as a vehicle through which the government can economically empower the people by enabling them to participate actively and directly in their country’s commercial and industrial activities. 3) Income Distribution: They can facilitate the generation of wealth for all sectors of the national economy and thereby reduce existing income disparities; as such, they can make a positive contribution to the evolvement of an egalitarian society. 4) Goods and Services: They can contribute to the improvement of the social and economic welfare of people in their host communities through the provision of various kinds of needed goods and services. 5) Economic Backbone: They can function as the backbone of Zambia’s economy if they are mainly operated by citizens, as they would be both indigenous and permanent, as Sardanis144 has maintained. The PHR Proposal With respect to the exodus of nurses and medical doctors, a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) report—cited by Clifton145—has proposed the following measures for governments to consider in their quest to address the exodus of such personnel: ship, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, and the Macroeconomy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 144 Sardanis, Andrew, Africa, Another Side of the Coin—Northern Rhodesia’s Final Years and Zambia’s Nationhood (London: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2003). 145 Clifton, Eli, “HIV/AIDS: Medical ‘Brain Drain’ Worsens Africa’s Crisis,” op. cit.

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1) A sharp increase in investment in rural healthcare infrastructure; 2) Provision of incentives designed to induce healthcare professionals to accept assignments in, and/or postings to, underserved regions of a country; and 3) Reorientation of training and recruitment practices to increase the number of new healthcare professionals who are likely to work in rural areas. It is important for African governments to include these measures in their healthcare policies and programs if they are to meet the World Health Organization’s (WTO) minimum standards of 100 nurses and 20 physicians per 100,000 people.146 Africa’s Brain Gain A new initiative referred to as “Africa’s Brain Gain” has been mooted to promote the generation of jobs on the continent for trained natives who are currently living abroad, and to make employment information available by means of an online bulletin board of employment opportunities in Africa through which skilled indigenous Africans living overseas can register as candidates for jobs with multinational corporations, African governments and development agencies that support the continent’s development agenda.147 The objective of Africa’s Brain Gain is to facilitate the return of native talents to Africa by enabling Africans worldwide to share their expertise through participation in projects in their home countries, making it possible for those who desire to return to the continent to take up jobs and consultancies to do so; and to pool financial and material resources together to undertake investment projects in their home countries.148 The DENI Approach An approach proposed by the U.S.-Africa Business Council in 1994 would have played an important role in encouraging some of the 146

See Physicians for Human Rights, An Action Plan to Prevent Brain Drain: Building Equitable Health Systems in Africa—A Report (Boston, Massachusetts: Physicians for Human Rights, June 2004), p. 2. 147 Mambwe, Kennedy, “Africa Acts against Brain Drain,” Lusaka Information Dispatch, www.dispatc.co.zm/, September 7, 2004. 148 Mambwe, Kennedy, ibid.

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professionals in foreign countries to return to their native countries. The proposal, which is referred to as DENI (acronym for Direct Expatriate Nationals Investment),149 is aimed at reducing bilateral debt by means of selling a debtor country’s debts to its nationals abroad at heavy discounts to a dollar (payable in the local currencies of the foreign countries in which the nationals reside), for which the buyer would get a dollar-denominated debt instrument bearing the original amount of the debt bought from the United States Treasury Department. The buyer would then take the debt instrument to his or her country, where the country’s government would credit him or her with the local-currency equivalent of the amount on the debt instrument for investment in any state or parastatal company that is earmarked for privatization. However, DENI has a number of weaknesses which diminish its potential to contribute meaningfully to the resolution of the debt crisis,150 and to encourage professionals to return to their home countries. First, some debtor nations have too few of their citizens who are resident abroad to constitute a worthwhile market for their external debts. Second, a significant number of debtor nations’ citizens who are abroad is composed of students and “economic refugees” who generally have no funds to invest. Third, the prospect that those who left their countries for political or other reasons to live and/or work in industrialized nations will be enticed to return home by DENI is very slim; the reasons which prompted such people to leave their home countries would generally override their patriotism and/or “attractiveness” of investment prospects provided by DENI. Fourth, the requirement that DENI debt instruments are only good for investment in companies hitherto owned by debtor-country governments may be homely to those who have a preference for self-employment or owning shares in a company not previously owned by a government. Moreover, the fact that the debt instruments involved cannot be converted to cash to prevent governments from printing money to pay holders of debt instruments is a serious disincentive to those prospective debt buyers who do not have surplus funds for use in the event of unexpected personal or family problems. The IOM/AU Partnership 149

For details concerning this debt-reduction proposal, see Davies, D., “A Magic Model,” West Africa, Number 4005, July 4-10, 1994, pp. 1178-80, and West Africa, “Give Magic ‘Formula’ a Chance,” Number 4005, July 4-10, 1994, pp. 1166-67. 150 See Kyambalesa, Henry, Socio-Economic Challenges: The African Context, op. cit., pp. 86-87.

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A partnership developed between the African Union (AU) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) framework for technical cooperation and assistance to African governments on a broad range of migration issues.151 Among other areas, the two institutions agreed to undertake joint activities in capacity building and the return of skilled African nationals to their countries of origin to mitigate the negative effects of the brain drain on the African continent. African countries which have a genuine desire to seek the return of skilled nationals who are based in the Diaspora have sought membership in the AU/IOM partnership. The RQAN Program Some African governments have entered into bilateral and/or multilateral arrangements with various international agencies for assistance in building their national capacities through such arrangements as the Return and Reintegration of Qualified African Nationals (RQAN) program. The RQAN Program has run through three fouryear phases.152 The first pilot phase began in 1983 and was sponsored by the U.S. government and the European Union. During this phase, the program helped to return 503 qualified nationals to Kenya, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Phase II of the RQAN program, financed by the European Commission within the context of the Lomé-ACP Conventions,153 facilitated the return of 619 professionals to six participating countries: Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Phase III returned 887 to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Mozambique in addition to the six countries of phase II.154 The RQAN program is now complete. The examination carried out in 2000 by over 20 African States led to the formulation of novel and pragmatic approaches to the mobility of skills and which were translated into the foundation of the Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) program. MIDA is a program for mobilizing the skills and financial resources of Africans in the Diaspora for development in Africa. In this regard, IOM is working in partnership with regional bodies such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Cooperation (EAC), and the League of Arab States (LAS). Initi151

Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC), op.

cit. 152

Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC), ibid. “ACP” refers to former British colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. 154 Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC), op. cit. 153

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atives such as MIDSA and the Dakar Declaration provide a strong framework for MIDA program development.155 Other Considerations There are many other important policy initiatives which countries that are affected by the exodus of trained personnel need to consider in their quest to address the problem. Such initiatives may include the following:156 1) Restrictive policies aimed at delaying emigration—such as by adding extra years to medical students’ training, requiring doctors and other professionals to stay on for a number of years to ‘pay back’ what they ‘owe’ to society, or to incorporate the delay within the training period, thus ensuring that certification follows rather than precedes a spell of public service; 2) Tax proposals requiring native professionals trained through the public treasury to pay a certain percentage of their incomes earned abroad to their home-country governments; and/or 3) Entering into international agreements that would require developed countries’ governments not to recruit skilled people from contracting less-developed countries. Another approach would be for countries affected by the brain drain to initiate international agreements requiring employers in foreign countries who may hire professionals trained through public resources to reimburse the home governments for financial and material resources committed to the training of the professionals. Other approaches designed to mitigate the exodus of professionals may include the following: (a) introduction of retention allowances for skilled personnel on government payroll; (b) provision for research grants for academic staff in government-supported educational institutions; (c) provision for car-ownership and home-ownership schemes; and/or (d) upward salary adjustments.157 A SUMMING UP 155

Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Center (SIRDC), ibid. Adapted from Mutume, Gumisai, “Reversing Africa’s Brain Drain: New Initiatives Tap Skills of African Experts,” op. cit., and Cohen, Robin, “Brain Drain Migration,” www.queensu.ca/, July 24, 2008. 157 Adapted from Ng’andwe, Talent, “Zambia: Government Announces Steps to Plug the Brain Drain,” http://allafrica.com/, November 26, 2007. 156

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An attempt is made in this article to discern the causes, concomitant effects and the positive side of the exodus of skilled and professional personnel, and viable ways and means of addressing the problem. The brain drain is, no doubt, one of the major constraints on contemporary Africa’s quest for heightened socio-economic development. African leaders who are committed to the finding of viable solutions to the exodus of skilled citizens are, therefore, more likely to facilitate and expedite the process of socio-economic development in their countries. This article is mainly intended for such leaders. In conclusion, a proactive strategy for redressing the brain drain by African leaders is needed, because prevention of the exodus of professional personnel is actually better than cure, so to speak. Such a strategy would require leaders to pursue initiatives designed to prevent the exodus of professionals rather than waste resources on bolstering the return of indigenous talent. Such initiatives may include the following: (a) making improvements in education, healthcare, food security, and crimefighting; (b) adherence to the dictates of good governance; (c) introduction of restrictive policies aimed at delaying emigration; (d) introduction of retention allowances for skilled personnel on government payroll; (e) provision for research grants for academic staff in government-supported educational institutions; (f) provision for car-ownership and home-ownership schemes; and/or (g) upward salary adjustments.158 There is a very slim chance for emigrants to be induced to return to their native countries during their active working lives. Here is why: it would not be easy for them to shirk the professional, marital and/or other kinds of relationships developed with citizens of host nations. Moreover, emigrants’ involvement in medical, mortgage and/or retirement schemes in foreign countries can be a major consideration in making the decision to return to their native countries during their active working lives. Besides, the inconvenience which the return to one’s home country may cause on school-going children and/or dependants can have an important bearing on one’s decision in this regard.