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Passionate Voices of Those Left Behind: Conversations with Ghanaian Professionals on the Brain Drain and Its Net Gains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2016

Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry
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Extract

Since the late 1970s, scholars, organizations, pressure groups, conferences, and governments have examined the brain drain phenomenon in Africa. More recently, brain gain, the antithesis of brain drain, has also attracted considerable attention. The focal point of the brain gain across the continent has been postapartheid South Africa, which has witnessed a large influx of professionals from other regions. Considering Africa as a whole, except for South Africa, the extant literature has overemphasized the debit side of the brain drain.

Type
Part III: Country Studies
Information
African Issues , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 57 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2002 

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References

Notes

1. See, for example, Prah, Kwesi K., The Bantustan Brain Gain (Lesotho: ISAS, 1989)Google Scholar; and Crush, Jonathan and Tshitereke, Clarence, “Contesting Migrancy: The Foreign Labor Debate in Post-1994 South Africa,” Africa Today 48, no. 3 (2001): 49–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Data for this article are derived from group-based structured discussions with 11 resident Ghanaian professionals in summer 2001. The 11 were brought together as a result of an alumnus (Old Boy) “brainstorming” retreat. Apart from brain drain, the discussion included education, transformations in marriage and gender, resurgence of rape cases in the media, ritual murder of women in Accra, national government, rule of law, and democracy. The 11 discussants included 2 certified accountants, 3 university professors, a lawyer, a journalist, 2 high school teachers, an agricultural research scientist, and a pharmacist. The bulk of the taped discussions, which are in English, spiced with slang or broken English, Akan, and Ga, are currently in the author’s possession. In this article I have used Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, Interviews with Ghanaian-based Professions on Brain Drain, 2001, to indicate all references to the discussions. To limit the number of citations, I have referenced only direct quotations from the discussions. Also, I have concealed the identities of the discussants by using professional titles instead of names.

3. “Brain Drain May Force Closure of Hospitals,” Accra Daily Graphic, January 22, 2002; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive; “Brain Drain: Ghanaian Doctors Going to the UK,” Accra Daily Graphic, April 23, 2002; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive; “Homecoming Summit Offers a Good Opportunity—[Kofi] Annan,” Accra Daily Graphic, July 24, 2001; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive; and “Mass Exodus of Nurses,” The Ghanaian Chronicle, May 16, 2002, 2; available at http.//www.ghanaianchronicle.com/220516/page2g.htm.

4. Kwabena O. Akurang-Parry, Interviews with Ghanaian-based Professionals, 2001 (hereafter Akurang-Parry, Interviews).

5. Akurang-Parry, Interviews.

6. Ibid.

7. “GCB Generates over $100 Million from Remittances,” Ghana News Agency, March 26, 2002; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive.

8. Akua Adobea Addo, “Ghanaians Abroad Remit Over $300 Million through Western Union,” Accra Daily Graphic, August 15, 2001; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive.

9. “Homecoming Summit: The President’s Speech” [July 23, 2001]; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/ GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. “Homecoming Summit Offers a Good Opportunity— [Kofi] Annan.”

14. Ibid.

15. “The Homecoming Steering Committee of UK and Ireland Launched,” Ghana High Commission, London [May 16, 2002]; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive.

16. “Ghana Embassy, Ghana Skills Bank to be Launched on June 29,” Ghana Embassy, Washington, D.C. [May 22, 2002]; available at http://www.ghanaweb.com/ GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive.

17. “Homecoming Summit: The President’s Speech.”

18. Ibid.

19. “GCB Generates over $100 Million from Remittances.”

20. Akurang-Parry, Interviews.

21. Ibid.

21. Ibid.