Browsing by Author "Meyer, Jean-Baptiste"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Assessing the South African Brain Drain, a Statistical Comparison
    (2000-07) Meyer, Jean-Baptiste; Brown, Mercy; Kaplan, David
    For several decades the analysis of the so-called brain drain has been hampered by measurement problems. It is now recognised that the official figures significantly underestimate the extent of the brain drain phenomenon and its increase since the political changes in the mid-1990's. This paper, using data from various reliable sources, provides new statistical evidence on the size of the brain drain from South Africa.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The diaspora option : a viable solution for the brain drain?
    (1999) Brown, Mercy; Meyer, Jean-Baptiste
    The phenomenon of skills mobility has become quite a topical issue, not just in South Africa, but worldwide. The reason for this is that in today's knowledge and skills-based economy the loss of highly qualified human resources is a critical issue for any country and especially for developing countries. Strategies have been implemented during the last three decades to counteract the brain drain, but these have not been very successful. A new and promising strategy is now emerging, this is referred to as the "diaspora option". The diaspora option seeks to mobilize highly skilled expatriates of a country to contribute to the social and economic advancement of their country of origin by finding ways of setting up links and connections between these highly skilled expatriates and the country of origin The distinguishing feature of the diaspora option is that expatriates don't have to return to the country of origin, they can stay in the host country, but contribute their skills and knowledge to their home country from wherever they are in the world. The diaspora option is quite a recent phenomenon and no systematic research has been done on the number of countries that have actually gone the diaspora route. The aim of this project was to identify and study the experiences of countries that have set up scientific/intellectual diaspora networks and to assess the success of the diaspora option. Through systematic and rigorous searches on the Internet 35 networks were identified. However, because not all of them could strictly be classified as scientific/intellectual diaspora networks, only twelve networks were chosen for analysis. After careful investigation of the information available on these networks, it is concluded that the diaspora option, although not without potential pitfalls, is indeed a viable solution to the brain drain.