Brain drain in Kenya:
Over the last three decades, Kenya and many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced rapid emigration to the developed world. Kenya is one of the African countries that has so much been affected by brain drain. This article gives an overview of brain drain in Kenya.
In Kenya, students move every year to go and study abroad but they never return back after attaining the appropriate education. They get jobs there and fail to return. Professions also move in search of jobs that pay well as compared to Kenyan jobs. More than a million Kenyan professionals live and work abroad, making the country one of the most heavily drained in Africa. Statistics released by the Government show that between 500,000 and 1.8 million Kenyans work overseas, although their skills are much needed locally (Siringi & Kimani, 2005).
Although more than 30,000 Kenyans leave for higher studies overseas, less than 9,000 of them return home on completing their learning. According to Kirui, (2005) when highly skilled people leave the country, or those who have acquired high skills do not return, it poses serious brain drain, robbing the country of essential human capacity to help in socio-economic development.
Statistics also show that 37,724 African students were enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States in 2001/2002. Some 18.8% of this students were Kenyan students. Of the 15,331 East African students from 19 countries enrolled during that same period (Kaba, 2005).
So many Kenyans have moved from their homeland to other countries. In fact, one can find Kenyans today in all parts of the developed world or rich nations, from Australia to Canada. As of 2001, there were 47,000 Kenyans in the United States, 20,600 in Canada, 15,000 in the United Kingdom, 6,900 in Australia, 5,200 in Germany and 1,300 in Sweden (Okoth, 2003).
The primary cause of Brain Drain in Kenya is the difference among countries in economic and professional opportunities, hence the imperative to move from one area to another to improve their social and economic status. Brain drain has a direct relationship to levels of education attained, and access to training and employment opportunities abroad.
Further Reading
Chu, J. (2004) How to Plug Europe's Brain Drain, TIME, Retrieved 7th September, 2011 from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/
Siringi, S. (2001) Kenya government promises to increase doctor's salaries to curb brain drain, The Lancet.
http://writersbureau.net/brain-drain-in-kenya/
Generate decent jobs 'or a billion people will remain in extreme poverty'
Poverty reduction initiatives worldwide are having insufficient impact on the chronically poor, advisory group warns
Up to a billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 unless countries focus on inequalities and confront social, economic and cultural forces that block their escape or pull them back into impoverishment, a major report warns. The report (pdf) by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) asserts that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, only to tumble back when they are hit by a combination or sequence of shocks such as drought, illness and insecurity or conflict.Drawing on household panel surveys, the report found that in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30-40% of those who escaped from poverty, fell back, rising to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999-2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion has been 20%. Individual cases highight the ease with which people can slip back into poverty.
Amin, 61, from rural Bangladesh, has seen his livelihood gradually decline, due to his own and his wife's illness, the cost of his son's marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, 74, from Zimbabwe, has become one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job as a car park attendant due to ill health and had to take in his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/mar/10/jobs-billion-people-extreme-poverty
President says Gambia to shift from English
By ,
New $70m climate change study in Africa
Cape Town - The UK's department for International development and Canada's international development research centre have jointly announced a partnership to research initiatives in tackling climate change in Africa and Asia. According to the International Development ResearchCentre (IDRC) the initiative is a $70m research programme that will be conducted over 7 years.
This work according to the collaborative adaptation research initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) will utilise fresh perspectives in understanding climate change in high risk areas in Africa and Asia.
CARIAA will primarily focus on three "hot spots", within Africa and South and Central Asia. This will mostly be semi-arid regions, African and South Asian deltas and the Himalayan River Basins. The programme additionally will contribute to already existing effective policies in those areas
This work according to the collaborative adaptation research initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) will utilise fresh perspectives in understanding climate change in high risk areas in Africa and Asia.
CARIAA will primarily focus on three "hot spots", within Africa and South and Central Asia. This will mostly be semi-arid regions, African and South Asian deltas and the Himalayan River Basins. The programme additionally will contribute to already existing effective policies in those areas
http://www.news24.com/Green/News/New-70-climate-change-study-in-Africa-20140310
Africa rejects cultural imperialism
In one of the major campaigns against homosexuality in Africa, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in July 1995 shut down a book exhibition organised by the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe at the prestigious Harare International Book Fair in the capital Harare.
"Homosexuality degrades human dignity. It's unnatural, and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs," President Mugabe said.
He added, "If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must rededicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings…What we are being persuaded to accept is a sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here."
As Zimbabwean author and historian, Lawrence Vambe, once remarked that the nature of gay people is one of the few subjects that unites all Africans.
"Family life is the bedrock of African society and homosexuality is seen by most Africans as a Western import that undermines our traditional values," observed Vambe.
Since then many African countries have expressed vocal opposition to homosexuality.
On January 13 this year Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan signed into law a bill, which bans same-sex marriages, gay groups and public shows of same-sex affection.
Taking the hardline: inequality is here to stay
Government is trapped by its own rhetoric of blaming the past for the present. This prevents the important debate that a segment of South Africa's inequalities are not economy-related and cannot be changed by "transformation" or selective expenditure.
The rhetoric includes that poverty, inequality and unemployment are the three evils in South Africa; the wage gap causes poverty and we need more rules such as transformation in the workplace to change the face of the economy.
But what if one of the factors keeping the country poor is neither race, nor the actual wage? It is rather the way we live.
Approximately 48% of households in South Africa are single female-headed households. This is of huge concern as the children of these households have less chances to break out of the poverty cycle. American research shows that these children are less likely to complete school and more likely to get into trouble.
The single female-headed households care for 9.3 million children under the age of 17. We also have at least another million orphans or children with only a father. More than seven million households are missing one parent or even both.
These households are also usually very poor as they depend on only one income if maintenance is not paid.
This structural social problem cannot be addressed with money. It will take social change and hard work to achieve.
Fathers must become responsible and assist mothers to raise and educate their children.
If we as South Africans cannot address this, or allow it to continue, inequality will remain forever.
But we do not even talk about this.
World Bank releases $70 million to help Rwanda combat poverty
The World Bank signed off on a $70 million financing package for Rwanda on Wednesday, the last tranche of a three-year aid programme, which will be partly used to make poverty-fighting programmes more effective at combating natural disasters.
The deal, which will include a $46 million loan and a grant of $24 million, was signed shortly after typically tropical rains lashed the hilly capital, Kigali, sending torrents of water cascading through the streets.
African countries' debt undermines growth boom
NEARLY a decade after Nelson Mandela and anti-poverty activists Bono and Bob Geldof persuaded the rich world to forgive Africa's crushing debts, many countries' debt levels are creeping up again, which could undermine the region's growth boom.
As African states line up to join the growing club of dollar bond issuers, economists and analysts warn of a slide back into indebtedness that could undo recent economic gains and create a "Eurobond curse" to match the distorting "resource curse".
"Eurobonds have become like stock exchanges, private jets and presidential palaces. Every African leader wants to have one," said one investor, asking not to be named.
African workers, youth strike against poverty
Although escalating instability and threats of civil war have dominated the corporate media's coverage of the African continent, trade unions and student organizations are raising issues that involve the workplace and educational institutions. Workers and youth, through their unions and mass organizations, have been expressing profound discontent with the impact of the world capitalist crisis, which has its origins in the Western imperialist states.
In the Central African Republic, the mineral-rich state occupied by 2,000 troops from France and forces from several African Union member-states, peace and stability have eluded the country. Now France, the former colonial power, is supporting the intervention of another 2,000 troops from European Union governments, along with an additional 12,000 so-called United Nations peacekeeping forces, ostensibly to bring order to the country.
Nominations open for $1 million Global Teacher Prize
Staff Reporter / 19 March 2014
Staff Reporter / 19 March 2014
Applications and nominations opened on Tuesday for the Varkey GEMS Foundation Global Teacher Prize, a one million dollar award that will be given to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.
The opening of the process was announced by Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey GEMS Foundation, at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai.
Varkey, founder of the Varkey GEMS Foundation, said: "I want to draw attention to the achievements of teachers and the enormous impact they have on all of our lives. They must be returned to their rightful position as the most respected profession in society, which is properly rewarded and celebrated.
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