I could either write a twenty page essay here, or simply post the quote, below, from the SouthAfricanDiaspora blog and express my heartfelt wish to see people and money some day flowing in the opposite direction.

A skilled worker is one of the most valuable members of any society and represents a significant investment of time, money and training. A skilled worker can create on average 10 jobs for unskilled labourers (so I have heard). Only fair that countries would want to attract them. But where are they attracting them from? Someone told me that 20 000 skilled people left Africa last year. … A three year degree at Wits will cost the student about R40 000. The true cost is probably 10 times that. … That is just the tertiary education portion, what about the 12 years of primary and high school before that? Even if we take the very low amount of R1 million per person, that means at least R20 billion was lost by Africa last year. That is R20 billion that was spent by Africa on its future that will now not be part of Africa’s future, but America’s future. $3 billion a year. And that is just the direct cost. If you estimate that each person would have had an income of R100 000 a year (another very low estimate), that is R2 billion a year in lost GDP. If you include the 10 unskilled workers that each person would have employed, it is probably another R2 billion a year. $3.5 billion a year in total. I am sure you have got the point now, each skilled person represents a massive loss to the country losing them and a massive gain to the country gaining them. Immigration of skilled labour where the flows in either direction are fairly equal or where there is a genuine surplus in a country make sense, but when that flow is in one direction it can be disastrous.
So taking this from America’s point of view, they can basically pick and chose who they want from Africa’s talent pool, not have to pay a cent for their education and training, and have no trouble getting them to immigrate. What a great system. Africa, why are you so poor and stupid?
(http://www.southafricandiaspora.org/archives/2006/05/30/take-take-take/)

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“Do you think Live8 could have achieved more?” asks reader, Simon Halton, of Bob Geldof, in today’s Independent ‘You Ask The Questions’ Special.

“You can always achieve more”, responded Sir Bob. “We asked for debt cancellation and a commitment to double aid to Africa by 2010. We got that. I had hoped they’d be prepared to discuss trade issues, but they weren’t. I’d also have liked an agreement to end all trade-distorting subsidies.”

OK, let’s think a moment about that one. Debt cancellation? partially so for 14 of 54 African countries (for Mozambique, for example, the proportion is 48%) many of which were thrust into unnecessary debt by ill-advised IMF policies in the first place, as is conceded by a recent World Bank report. Double aid by 2010? “Findings show that in Cambodia, consultants fees were $17,000 a month while government salaries were only $40. In Ghana, even relatively inexperienced consultants earned per day what government officials earned in a month. In Sierra Leone, according to one former UK-funded consultant, daily take-home pay was the same as the Auditor General’s monthly salary.” So doubling aid may, then, boost an external consultant’s fee to $34,000 a month?

The tricky ones, of course, are ‘trade issues’ and ‘trade-distorting subsidies’. Now there would be a real opportunity to make a difference … were it ever to happen.

Actually, there’s another way to make a difference. Whatever a nation’s debt, it must never be confused with the poverty of ordinary individuals scraping a living in those countries. Let’s face it, South Africa ain’t exactly on the breadline as a nation, which is why it was so wonderful to see Gertruida Baartman, a 38-year-old fruit packer from South Africa, became a spokesperson for underpaid workers throughout the majority (i.e. so-called ‘developing’) world when she highlighted at Tesco’s annual shareholders’ meeting in London the plight of farm workers. ActionAid, whose pluck and ingenuity one has to admire, “bought one share in Tesco in her name, giving her the right to speak up at the retailer’s annual meeting.” So when you next walk past those delicious Cape apples in Tesco’s, spare a thought for Gertruida Baartman, supporting her family on a mere £3.49 per day, who maybe made an impression on the 500 shareholders in that meeting and on the thousands of us who read all about it in The Independent yesterday morning.

References

‘Real Aid 2‘, ActionAid. [PDF]

“Tesco profits at expense of poor”, ActionAid.

“Bob Geldof: A ‘You Ask The Questions’ Special”, The Independent, 10th July 2006

‘Worker pleads with Tesco to honour the fruits of her labour’, The Independent, 8th July 2006

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