Experts To Assess Capacity Building In Africa
Panafrican News Agency <http://www.africanews.org/PANA/news>
February 17, 2000
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (PANA) - A major regional conference on capacity
building in Africa opens in Addis Ababa next week to assess the impact of
the brain drain on the continent's development as well as consider "how the
net loss of intellectual capacity can be stemmed and harnessed."
The 22-24 February gathering will bring together leading development and
capacity building experts from within and outside Africa under the joint
initiative of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the International
Organisation for Migration, in co-operation with the International
Development Research Centre and a number of other development partners.
The ECA and the IOM estimate that between 1960 and 1975, some 27,000 high-
level Africans left the continent for the West.
That number increased to about 40,000 between 1975 and 1984 and nearly
doubled by 1987, representing 30 percent of the highly skilled manpower
stock in Africa, the ECA said.
"Africa lost 60,000 professionals including doctors, university lecturers
and engineers between 1985 and 1990 and has been losing an average of 20,000
professionals ever since," it said.
The upcoming conference will provide an opportunity for policy and decision-
makers as well as academics and professionals in both the public and private
domains "to rethink the role of the government in making national education
systems more relevant, efficient and effective," according to the
organisers.
It will also advance strategies to create and sustain "the requisite
political and economic environment needed to strengthen Africa's base of
critical capacities, effectively utilise its human resources and strengthen
the continent's competitiveness within the global economy."