Biomedical Research in Developing Countries - UNICRI

THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
The need for African countries to invest in capacity building in scientific and
technological innovation is the more urgent as more young scientists leave their
home countries to find more rewarding professional careers and a climate of social
stability and security.
The so-called Africa “brain drain” is becoming a serious trend with 20,000
professionals lost each year since 1990, according to IOM and increased dependence
on foreign expertise, with more than 150,000 expatriates being hired at a cost of US
$4 billion per year 50 . The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
states that “emigration of African professionals to the West is one of the greatest
obstacles to Africa’s development.” The loss of investments from higher education
is also a dramatic problem, since graduates in African universities leave or fail to
return home at the end of their studies. In Ghana, a loss of approx. £35 million in
training investment only for health professional was recorded over 4 years (1998-
2002) as compared to the UK that, by hiring Ghanaian doctors, saved £65 million
in health costs. In Ghana, between 1986 and 1995, 61% of the students of one
medical school had left to migrate to developed countries. 51 600 to 700 Ghanaian
physicians were practicing in the USA alone in 2005, a figure that represents
roughly 50% of the total population of doctors in Ghana.
Brain drain is creating an increasing dramatic situation especially in the health
sector, where the shortage of health professionals is putting at risk an already weak
health delivery system. High income countries sustain their high percentage of
health care workers, which is currently ten times higher than the minimum WHO
standard of 20 physicians per 100,000 people, by recruiting medical graduates from
middle and low income countries through recruitment agencies and specialized
corporations that use very aggressive strategies, including advertising in local
newspapers, establishing offices that offer recruitment workshops, personal email
to health workers. Offers of employment include legal assistance with immigration,
the coverage of relocation expenses and guaranteed earnings twenty times higher
than the average in their countries. In contrast, two thirds of the 47 Sub-Saharan
African countries fall short of the minimum World Health Organization (WHO)
standard. In Sub-Saharan countries, there is an average of 1 physician for every
8000 people and in some countries, like Malawi, the physician–population ratio is
0.02 for every 1000 (1 per 50.000).
The impossibility for health workers to provide for the minimum health care
services in a setting already burdened with the highest rates of communicable
diseases and with insufficient infrastructure is reflected in the high mortality rate
50 Tebeje A., Brain drain and capacity building in Africa, The International Development Research Centre, 2005
51 Dovlo, D., Nyonator, F., Migration of Graduates of the University of Ghana Medical School: A Preliminary Rapid
Appraisal, Human Resources for Health Development Journal (HRDJ), 1999, Vol. 3, No. 1, Pages 34-37
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