Does brain drain hurt the Global South?

Many countries are mining the Global South for one of its vital natural resources – its people. This creates a ‘brain drain’ of professionals and academics leaving the Global South in search of better opportunities abroad. 

Why exactly is this happening, though, and what is the socio-economic harm done to the countries left behind? Is brain drain sapping the best and brightest from the Global South? Or is it just the effect of global mobility in an interconnected world? 

First, we’ll hear from someone who is himself part of the brain drain, Kevin Njabo. He’s the Africa director and associate adjunct at the Center for Tropical Research, University of California, Los Angeles. The conservation biologist grew up in Cameroon but had to go to Nigeria to study and the US to pursue his academic career.

Host Maggie Perzyna then turns to two esteemed researchers delve into this topic: Ninna Sørensen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, and Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue and senior fellow at the Harvard University Center for International Development. 

Maggie is a researcher with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration & Integration program at Toronto Metropolitan University and this podcast is Borders & Belonging. In it, Maggie talks to leading experts from around the world and people with on-the-ground experience to explore the individual experiences of migrants: the difficult decisions and many challenges they face on their journeys.

She and her guests also think through the global dimensions of migrants’ movement: the national policies, international agreements, trends of war, climate change, employment and more.

Borders & Belonging brings together hard evidence with stories of human experience to kindle new thinking in advocacy, policy and research.

Borders & Belonging is a co-production between the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration & Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University and openDemocracy. The podcast was produced by LEAD Podcasting, Toronto, Ontario.

Show notes

Below, you will find links to all the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.

Art and documentary

‘Arts of war: Ukrainian artists confront Russia’, by Blair Ruble, Wilson Centre (2023)

Below, you find links to all of the research referenced by our guests, as well as other resources you may find useful.

Media

‘37 of 55 countries facing health worker shortages in Africa: WHO‘, by Madhumita Paul, DownToEarth (16 March 2023)

‘Brain drain: Migrants are the lifeblood of the NHS, it’s time the UK paid for them‘, by Natalie Sharples, The Guardian (6 January 2015)

‘Does migration harm developing countries? - five-minute debate’, by Alex Andreou & Paul Collier, The Guardian (7 October 2013) 

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