Brain drain is a rampant epidemic detrimentally impacting developing nations across the earth. As a result, businesses and political figures are making fantastic efforts to reverse brain drains on both a national and global level.
What is Brain Drain and Why is it Happening?
According to Merriam-Webster, brain drain is defined as, “a situation in which many educated or professional people leave a particular place or profession and move to another one that gives them better pay or living conditions.”
The term brain drain was first coined around the 1960s when Great Britain experienced a high percentage of British scientists and intellectuals leaving the country to find better careers in the U.S.
Since then, many other countries such as Greece, Lithuania and a number of African nations have experienced brain drain at an alarming rate.
The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reports that brain drain stems from a wide range of economic, social and political conditions. Most of these conditions are observed in developing countries where the careers of citizens are stifled from issues such as poverty, political instability and lack of technology.
These conditions make developed countries more attractive to those with a degree or a specialized skill. Countries such as the U.S., Canada and the U.K. have been gaining a significant amount of doctors and nurses from abroad.
Migration Abroad
In 2006, the U.S. received roughly 213,331 doctors and 99,456 nurses from abroad. Research from the WHO estimated that brain drain resulted in a global shortage of 4.3 million healthcare workers. Countries experiencing brain drain lose educated working-class employees by anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of workers.
In just 2011 alone, Lithuania reported 54,000 migrating to find work in the U.K. The continent of Africa loses one in nine university graduates to Western nations. In addition, Greece estimated that 160,000 to 180,000 college graduates have left the country for better opportunities.
Though developed countries can benefit from receiving these educated migrants, the sheer amount of incoming, educated people can overwhelmingly disadvantage various sectors within developing countries.
However, there is hope to reverse brain drain as seen from the efforts of nations such as Lithuania, the UAE and many African countries.
Lithuania
Business leaders and government officials in Lithuania are combating brain drain through a series of university mergers. University mergers are when multiple universities unify in order to foster stronger university brands. The plan is that these university mergers will attract current citizens and international students to study in Lithuania.
Marius Skuodis, a former citizen of Lithuania, has returned to his country because of the new opportunities provided within the university mergers. He plans on pursuing his PhD at Vilnius University, despite having to accept a lower salary.
Skuodis is quoted saying that, “Lithuania offered me career opportunities I could not expect in the UK.”
UAE
The UAE has also made gallant strides in turning brain drain into a brain gain. The UAE is a nation that suffered from brain drain as well as high levels of violence for numerous years.
Recently, businesses have made tremendous efforts in the UAE to improve the quality of life for workers and residents. These efforts have turned the UAE into a thriving nation with one of the highest standards of living for citizens in the world.
Africa
In Africa, reports indicate that brain drain has slowed substantially within the continent. A study in 2014 from South Africa’s Adcorp, stated that 359,000 highly skilled South African workers had returned to work in their countries of origin.
Economists have noted that this accomplishment was possible due to the policies that governments and businesses have put in place in order to encourage workers to come back home.
Finding a solution to reducing brain drain is no easy feat, as it requires both businesses and governments to coincide with one another to tackle the issue at hand. Businesses and corporate leaders need to implement solutions to create more job opportunities with quality benefits for those with desired skills.
Governments need to strive for policy changes that encourage workers to return to their countries. However, if governments and businesses can work together to make substantial legislation changes, many nations may follow suit and reverse their brain drain into a brain gain.
– Shannon Warren
Photo: Flickr
Fighting Poverty in the UK Through Early Childhood Education
International charity Save the Children urges Parliament to deliver world-class early childcare in the U.K. through its “Giving All Children the Best Start in Life” campaign. The campaign focuses on young children who are currently falling behind before they start school, especially impoverished children.
In March 2016, Save the Children released a report called Lighting Up Young Brains, which shows how parents, caregivers and nurseries support a child’s brain development in the first five years of life. The paper includes a recommendation to the government to ensure an early childhood educator leads every nursery in England by 2020.
The report explains that the brain begins processing information in a more efficient and complex way between the ages of three and five.
However, poverty can get in the way of this essential development. According to Save the Children, the poorest children in England, on average, begin school 15 months behind their wealthier peers in developing key skills, such as language skills.
The Child Poverty Action Group, a U.K.-based nonprofit, reports one in four children in the U.K. is being raised in poverty.
According to UNICEF, investing in early childhood education is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing poverty because the estimated economic returns on investment in early childhood education are as high as a one to 17 ratio.
Numerous countries recently made early childhood education a priority. In 2010, the government of China increased early childhood education significantly. UNICEF reports the percentage of children between the ages of three and six in kindergartens in China increased from 45 percent in 2009 to 70.5 percent in 2014.
Efforts to enrich the development of young children living in poverty in the U.K. go beyond just the nursery school classroom. For instance, CPAG reports that a child’s home environment influences them the most, and poverty experienced in this environment should be taken into account.
“While good quality nursery care and education can supplement this (the home environment),” CPAG’s website states, “it cannot substitute for an impoverished home life.”
The Lighting Up Young Brains report explains how research shows that a strong home-learning environment provides the types of experiences and environment necessary for child brain and language development, such as opportunities to read and be read to.
CPAG’s website states social policies focusing on early years interventions for poorer children are “welcome,” but should not distract from the needs of impoverished children of school age, such as not having a place to study because of the cold or overcrowding.
You can learn more about the “Giving All Children the Best Start in Life” campaign by visiting Save the Children’s website. You can also visit the Child Poverty Action Group’s website to learn more about child poverty in the U.K. and see how the organization works for families affected by poverty.
– Kate Miller
Photo: Flickr
10 Important and Interesting Facts About Burundian Refugees
Burundi is a country in East Africa that shares borders with Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The country’s civil war has left Burundian refugees in a state of emergency.
The tumultuous civil war, which occured from 1993 to 2006, culminated in the parliamentary election of Hutu rebel leader Pierra Nkurunziza. Events similar to those that triggered the war, which claimed 300,000 lives, have once again come into focus.
Although Burundi’s constitution limits presidential incumbency to two terms, President Nkurunziza expressed desire to seek a third term, aggravating opposition groups severely.
A 2015 coup exacerbated the issue further. The power struggle between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities contributed to the discord. Although Nkurinziza received 79 percent of the vote, the crisis led to bloodshed and mass emigration, which has crippled Burundi and left many impoverished.
The following 10 facts about Burundi refugees describe their plight:
These 10 facts showcase the plight of Burundian refugees. The balance of power between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnicities in military and government institutions is fragile. Keeping it in check is the objective of the international community and Arusha Accords.
– Shivani Ekkanath
Photo: Flickr
Why are Athletic Tracks in China Making Children Sick?
Education is meant to be helpful, but recently thousands of Chinese children have fallen ill due to their school facilities. Adding to the unhealthily high levels of pollution throughout the country, athletic tracks in China composed of low-quality materials have been essentially poisoning the students who use them.
Affected students experienced a wide range of symptoms, from nosebleeds to skin conditions and coughs. Many of the affected schools reside in Beijing, but the problem persists at schools throughout the country.
The main school discussed by the Chinese media has been the Beijing No.2 Experimental School, where the track tested positive for high levels of benzene substances and formaldehyde. Other tracks around China have been proven to contain ethylbenzene and other toxic chemicals.
Many of the athletic tracks in China were produced from recycled materials, including old tires. Manufacturers may have been trying to cut costs by using sub-par materials.
Parents across China have been concerned about their children for months, citing illness, doctors visits, and even noting strange smells coming from the tracks. Some concerned parents even petitioned their schools to remove the dangerous tracks.
Users of China’s social media site, Weibo, have taken to the internet to express their experiences and views using the hashtag #ToxicSchoolTrack.
As a result of the national concern, the Chinese Ministry of Education plans to inspect all affected tracks before the start of the new school year and has already begun to replace those that are deemed below standard. According to the ministry, producers of “poisonous tracks” will be severely punished for their actions.
Thus far, Chinese officials have shut down nine factories involved in the production of the dangerous unregulated tracks. Multiple executives and employees of the factories, who are believed to be directly involved in the scandal, have been detained by authorities.
Even though the Ministry of Education is taking steps to improve the conditions of various running tracks, some parents still lack hope. One father states, “It takes a time to clean up things like these and it requires action from different agencies. I doubt we’ll see any real effects soon. For me, my priority is to guarantee my child safety and a good environment to grow up in.”
Hopefully, the Ministry of Education will take the public outcry to heart and continue cracking down on poisonous track producers, as well as continue working to ensure the safety of affected students.
– Carrie Robinson
Photo: Flickr
The Growing Need to Reduce Chronic Hunger in Chad
Chad is a country located in Africa where there is a growing need to reduce chronic hunger.
Here are some facts outlining the severity of hunger in Chad:
Hunger in Chad is exacerbated by the country’s geographical location, climate, susceptibility to political instability and vulnerability to natural disasters.
Action Against Hunger is looking to reduce the effects of hunger by improving agricultural production, jumpstarting local business markets and enhancing access to sustainable sources of income and food in Chad. In 2015, the foundation helped 413,325 Chadians receive nutritional support.
Similarly, the World Food Programme (WFP) is working to eliminate hunger in Chad with four different operations:
Specifically, the WFP looks to provide 120,000 meals in prioritized areas where chronic hunger is prevalent. In addition, 15,000 meals are being provided to the Lake Chad region.
Chad’s chronic hunger situation continues to improve with the help of foundations like Action Against Hunger and the World Food Programme. There are some factors that these foundations cannot affect (like climate and geography), but the programs are doing all they can to make sure the country of Chad is in the best position possible in order to succeed.
– Casey Marx
Photo: Flickr
Business and Government Leaders Fight Global Brain Drain
Brain drain is a rampant epidemic detrimentally impacting developing nations across the earth. As a result, businesses and political figures are making fantastic efforts to reverse brain drains on both a national and global level.
What is Brain Drain and Why is it Happening?
According to Merriam-Webster, brain drain is defined as, “a situation in which many educated or professional people leave a particular place or profession and move to another one that gives them better pay or living conditions.”
The term brain drain was first coined around the 1960s when Great Britain experienced a high percentage of British scientists and intellectuals leaving the country to find better careers in the U.S.
Since then, many other countries such as Greece, Lithuania and a number of African nations have experienced brain drain at an alarming rate.
The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reports that brain drain stems from a wide range of economic, social and political conditions. Most of these conditions are observed in developing countries where the careers of citizens are stifled from issues such as poverty, political instability and lack of technology.
These conditions make developed countries more attractive to those with a degree or a specialized skill. Countries such as the U.S., Canada and the U.K. have been gaining a significant amount of doctors and nurses from abroad.
Migration Abroad
In 2006, the U.S. received roughly 213,331 doctors and 99,456 nurses from abroad. Research from the WHO estimated that brain drain resulted in a global shortage of 4.3 million healthcare workers. Countries experiencing brain drain lose educated working-class employees by anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of workers.
In just 2011 alone, Lithuania reported 54,000 migrating to find work in the U.K. The continent of Africa loses one in nine university graduates to Western nations. In addition, Greece estimated that 160,000 to 180,000 college graduates have left the country for better opportunities.
Though developed countries can benefit from receiving these educated migrants, the sheer amount of incoming, educated people can overwhelmingly disadvantage various sectors within developing countries.
However, there is hope to reverse brain drain as seen from the efforts of nations such as Lithuania, the UAE and many African countries.
Lithuania
Business leaders and government officials in Lithuania are combating brain drain through a series of university mergers. University mergers are when multiple universities unify in order to foster stronger university brands. The plan is that these university mergers will attract current citizens and international students to study in Lithuania.
Marius Skuodis, a former citizen of Lithuania, has returned to his country because of the new opportunities provided within the university mergers. He plans on pursuing his PhD at Vilnius University, despite having to accept a lower salary.
Skuodis is quoted saying that, “Lithuania offered me career opportunities I could not expect in the UK.”
UAE
The UAE has also made gallant strides in turning brain drain into a brain gain. The UAE is a nation that suffered from brain drain as well as high levels of violence for numerous years.
Recently, businesses have made tremendous efforts in the UAE to improve the quality of life for workers and residents. These efforts have turned the UAE into a thriving nation with one of the highest standards of living for citizens in the world.
Africa
In Africa, reports indicate that brain drain has slowed substantially within the continent. A study in 2014 from South Africa’s Adcorp, stated that 359,000 highly skilled South African workers had returned to work in their countries of origin.
Economists have noted that this accomplishment was possible due to the policies that governments and businesses have put in place in order to encourage workers to come back home.
Finding a solution to reducing brain drain is no easy feat, as it requires both businesses and governments to coincide with one another to tackle the issue at hand. Businesses and corporate leaders need to implement solutions to create more job opportunities with quality benefits for those with desired skills.
Governments need to strive for policy changes that encourage workers to return to their countries. However, if governments and businesses can work together to make substantial legislation changes, many nations may follow suit and reverse their brain drain into a brain gain.
– Shannon Warren
Photo: Flickr
Potential Hope for Myanmar: Will the IDA Offer Aid?
Earlier this summer, the state counsellor and minister for foreign affairs (also a Nobel Peace Prize winner) of Myanmar, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, spoke at the opening ceremony of an International Development Association (IDA) meeting held in Myanmar to spread awareness about conditions in her country.
IDA is a sector of the World Bank that aims to assist the world’s poorest nations. IDA is currently working towards a triannual replenishment initiative and Myanmar is one of the possible recipients. The recent meeting was the second of four talks about the replenishment plan in 2016.
While the meeting was held in a more urban area of the country, Suu Kyi urged attendees to consider sending aid to the rural villages of her country. According to Suu Kyi, these areas suffer from a lack of electricity, hunger, poor education, and a lack of jobs.
She told her audience, “We would like to work together with you to lift our people…out of a situation where they are dependent either on other institutions or on other people to survive. We want our people to feel that they are capable of carving out their own destiny.” While Myanmar has already received financial report from IDA, the country hopes to receive greater aid in the future.
While speaking, Suu Kyi organized her points to fit with the numerous themes of the meeting. She worked to highlight how each theme would impact the small nation. She also shared that two of the nation’s current goals include working towards national reconciliation and internal peace.
Suu Kyi does not wish to take aid away from other countries that may need it as much, if not more, than Myanmar, and acknowledges that she knows many other nations working towards development too.
She believes that Myanmar needs more material and logistical support from the IDA to address some of the current issues plaguing the country. In the words of Suu Kyi, “ending poverty is a difficult task, and we all have to join in.” Suu Kyi supports Myanmar, now it’s up to the IDA if they do too.
– Carrie Robinson
Photo: Flickr
Rwanda’s New Town Library Goes Digital with WorldReader
Rwinkwavu, a community of 30,000 people in Rwanda, is significantly economically disadvantaged. The town is mostly made up of farmers and lacks basic modern resources such as running water and power.
Despite these conditions, the non-profit Ready for Reading built a town library in 2012 that Worldreader, a Barcelona-based charity, then filled with e-readers, smartphones, Wi-Fi and a broad range of digital books for locals to explore.
Books not only provide entertainment, but their educational value is paramount. This access to knowledge helps to improve language skills and literacy while explaining new and different information in an enjoyable way. More specifically, reading has helped adults in Rwinkwavu master various skills including applying for new jobs, opening bank accounts and even running their own businesses.
Accessing knowledge through reading has also helped children develop interests in topics they most likely would not have explored otherwise. Each night, people of all ages now gather at Rwinkwavu’s town library to read after long days of laboring in their fields. As they continue to learn new information, new doors continue to open for them.
More than one in three adults in sub-Saharan Africa, a total of 182 million, are unable to read and write. In Rwanda, 48 million of the youths are illiterate. The population’s lack of education has led to 44 percent of people living below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. However, new town libraries like the one in Rwinkwavu could potentially change the status quo.
Worldreader has already used its digital books to fill multiple schools and libraries across 14 different countries in sub-Saharan Africa, helping to educate over 100,000 children and adults. The charity hopes to continue its expansion, with plans to fill another two libraries by the end of the year.
“There is massive inequality in the world. Africa needs education at scale to start closing the gaps,” said Worldreader Co-Founder Colin McElwee.
– Alice Gottesman
Photo: Worldreader
China’s Free Technical Training to Reduce Poverty
Although China has experienced an annual GDP growth rate of 10 percent since the 1970s and lifted 800 million citizens out of poverty, 82 million of its rural poor continue to live on less than $1 a day. In an effort to combat poverty, the Chinese government has launched a free technical training program for the rural poor.
According to ONE, a poverty campaign organization, millions of people fail to escape the cycle of poverty because they do not have access to quality education. More specifically, currently, 59 million children of primary school age do not attend school. Though governments provide free public education programs, many families living in poverty send their children to work or have them help out at home.
In China, only 40 percent of rural students attend high school because they cannot afford the tuition, uniforms and other costs. Many students also drop out in middle school to work and help support their struggling families. By the time they are of college age, only five percent of rural students remain in the education system.
There are resource disparities between rural and urban students that have contributed to these statistics. Urban students have access to newer technology and well-qualified educators who teach them English, reading, math and sciences in state-of-the-art classrooms. Meanwhile, the rural poor learn from under-resourced teachers in crowded rooms.
Uneducated individuals living below the poverty line mostly participate in non-formal economies as self-employed entrepreneurs. Two-thirds of the Chinese rural population work in the farming, forestry and fishing industries, which make up 40 percent of all employment in China.
Providing technical and vocational education to the rural poor through China’s free program provides the necessary skills to access better career opportunities.
An estimated 1,000 Chinese schools will provide free technical training to impoverished rural communities over the next four years. Project participants will also receive a yearly subsidy of $450 from the government poverty relief fund.
“Anyone who is able to work from a poverty-stricken area can receive training,” the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development announced. The two institutions urge local governments to implement subsidies, provide fee exemptions and implement other policies to encourage students to pursue education.
– Ashley Leon
Photo: Flickr
Buffett Donates $2.2 Billion to Gates Foundation
This year, as part of his annual pledge to eventually contribute 500 million shares of the Berkshire Hathaway Inc to the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett recently donated nearly $2.2 billion worth of class B stocks in support of improving global health and embarking on a new challenge to assist U.S. education.
In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett created the Giving Pledge, which rallied the world’s billionaires to donate at least half of their fortunes to charity. Since the pledge has been put into place, 154 affluent individuals have made the oath.
Gates acknowledges the possibility of failure in some projects, but remains optimistic, stating “we not only accept that [projects will fail] we expect it—because we think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make.”
Bill and Melinda Gates are both optimistic about the future of the Foundation, which is aimed at alleviating extreme poverty and poor health in developing countries in addition to improving the failure of America’s education system.
According to a SEC document filed on Thursday, July 13, 2015, Buffett donated 14,968,423 shares of Class B Common Stock valued at $145.93 per share to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Buffett also donated 1,047,785 shares of Class B Common Stock to foundations owned by his three children: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the NoVo Foundation.
Warren Buffett believes philanthropy is associated with taking risks and remains steadfast and patient whenever Berkshire investments bear no fruit. “If you succeed in everything you’re doing in charity, you’re attempting things that are too easy,” Warren Buffett declared in 2011.
The philanthropist also donated $215 million worth of stocks to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which is named after his late wife. The main objective of the Susan Thompson Buffett foundation is to provide scholarships for eligible recipients within the Nebraska region on a competitive basis.
Buffett has vowed to give away 99 percent of his wealth in support of charitable causes and innovative solutions to end global poverty. After over 10 years of donating to the Gates foundation as well as other nonprofit organizations, Buffett’s fortune is now estimated at approximately $65.6 billion.
Buffett’s recent donation to the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, when added to the other donations made over his lifetime, brings his total donations to more than $28.5 billion.
– Shanique Wright
Photo: Finance Buzz
Domestic Workers in Mexico: Accessing Education
Teresa Ramirez Murillo was born in the Mexican state of Guanajuato in the 1960s. Ramirez grew up on a farm where she helped her family grow and harvest corn and beans. Most of the farm produce was used to feed the family of nine and the little that was left over was sold for minimal profit. Ramirez says life in the countryside was hard and the land “gave you very little for all you put in.”
One Woman’s Quest for Education
Given the lack of opportunity and the preponderance of low-paying jobs in rural Mexico, Ramirez left her hometown when she was 11 to go work in Mexico City as a domestic worker. Ramirez claims this was a very good decision, as it allowed her to send remittances back to her parents that helped them pay for much needed medical services, medicines, clothes and food.
Furthermore, Ramirez believes she would be lost in the world if she had not gotten out of rural Guanajuato, since she would never have attained the standard of living and the skills she has today.
Through her job as a domestic worker, Ramirez was allowed to continue her elementary school education as an adult. During the time she worked for an American family in Mexico City, she was not only allowed but encouraged to go back to school after work. Ramirez was able to complete elementary school up to the third grade before the night school for adults she attended closed. After this, she did not return to school and as time went by, she began to feel that the opportunity had passed.
Ramirez’s deep love of school and passion for mathematics inspired her determination to give her children a full education. She used the money she earned as a domestic worker to give her three sons an education that would let them “do something with their lives.”
Today, Ramirez’ three sons are very accomplished young men. Ricardo Ramirez, the oldest, finished his university degree in accounting and is currently completing his masters in business administration.
Her youngest son follows in Ricardo’s footsteps and the middle son prepares to enter university to become a defense attorney. Ramirez’s sons have accomplished what she could never have dreamed of as a child in Guanajuato, and she is very proud that her domestic worker job could provide and finance her children’s education.
For Ramirez, working as a domestic worker allowed her family to make the transition from poverty to lower middle class and created the groundwork for future generations to begin life in a higher rung of society. As such, every subsequent generation of her family can continue to rise as their parents are given better and better opportunities.
Ramirez was very lucky that the families she worked for were respectful, fair and always paid for the work Ramirez did accordingly. This is not the case for many domestic workers in Mexico.
The Domestic Worker’s Plight
According to Mexico’s national statistics, there are 2.3 million paid domestic workers in Mexico, of which a vast 95% are women. There is also an unknown number of women working as domestic workers in the informal sector.
Whether working in the informal sector or not, many domestic workers in Mexico face sexual and physical abuse and unfair work conditions. The Guardian reports there are usually no employment contracts so domestic workers have no guaranteed fair pay and their employers take advantage by paying very low wages.
For a long time, no domestic workers’ union existed so women had no one to defend their rights or pursue cases of abuse; domestic workers in Mexico were entirely alone.
At the end of 2015 domestic workers decided they were fed up being treated as less than human and formed the first National Union of Domestic Workers (Sinactraho). General secretary of the Union, Marta Leal-Morales, told the BBC, “this union would be to defend the rights of domestic workers, so they could have a better quality of life.” The purpose of the union is to ensure that Ramirez’ positive experience as a domestic worker becomes the rule rather than the exception. Most domestic workers in Mexico want it to be a right, not a matter of luck, to benefit from their work.
Hopefully, the Union will bring the shift to domestic work becoming a transition job that allows families to cross the bridge out of poverty and move forward toward a better life for themselves and future generations.
– Christina Egerstrom
Photo: New Statesman