Emigration Out of Developed Countries

It is crunch time for an important presentation next week, but let me share with you an insight that came to me through text yesterday.

Emigration rates are highest not from the so called Global South, but out of developed countries!

Migration researcher Ronald Skeldon suggests in a overview of the migration and development debate in the book “Migration in the Globalised World” from 2010 that mobility is an integral part of development:

Migration is essentially a response of populations to changing development conditions and what governments need to do is to lose their fear of population migration. Migration needs to be accepted as an integral part of the development process, not feared as something unusual…Rising prosperity brings increased population mobility and migration. (p.156)

Skeldon further points at evidence of developed nations having high levels of migration (UK is mentioned as a case in point with 5,5 million citizens, or 9,2%, living outside the country ) and concludes that developed societies are “based upon systems of high mobility” (p. 157).

As a twist, when I came home the top news on the Swedish news site I follow was that Swedish levels of emigration is higher today than under the peak emigration years in the 19th century.

Point taken.

 

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Using Google Forms for Research

Through my friend Edward, I recently got to know that Google Docs now offer forms for free.  The forms can be used to gather simple information such as “which of the following alternatives do you prefer?” and for more complicated forms. Forms can be embedded in emails or websites or you can direct respondents to your survey with a link.

I have tried it out for a draft of the survey I will use for data collection for my dissertation. Likely, the respondents to my survey will fill it out on paper, but I thought Google Forms could be useful for a trial version of the survey to easily be able to obtain feedback on the questions and structure. So far, the experience has been nice – except for the first time I filled the questions and realized after almost one hour’s work that I want connected to the Internet anymore and none of my changes had been saved… Otherwise, I found the tool very quick and intuitive.

You can add questions, select what type of answer you want (multiple choice, text, check boxes, scale etc), add headers and move questions around. The look is instantly professional and the backend allows you to see summaries of your questions with pie charts and percentages already calculated for you as well as the answers in a neat spreadsheet that is downloadable to Excel!

This tool opens up to so many opportunities, my mind just goes off thinking about all the cool surveys one could do!

You can see my questionnaire here – if you are a Ghanaian student, please do fill it out – and if you can remember to give me feedback on the questionnaire itself in the last section.

If you want to try this tool out, go to Google Docs, click on “file”, choose “new” and then “forms” in the drop down list. Happy research Monday!

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Migrants and Human Rights – Tribunal 12 in Ghana?

Yesterday, I got the question if I can help set up a live broadcast of Tribunal 12 in Ghana. So I asked myself, What is Tribunal 12? This is what I found on their website.

Date: 12 May, 2012

Location: Sergels torg & Kulturhuset in Stockholm and all over Europe. (And maybe Ghana! My comment.)

People who flee to Europe are often met with disbelief and suspicion. Many are directly deported at the borders, despite risking their lives. Others are held up in prison-like detention centres lacking basic human rights. Once inside Europe, people are subjected to lengthy and complex asylum processes, often without legal advice. The vast majority of asylum applications are rejected, forcing people to return to extreme dangers. In order to survive, many choose to live hidden without any legal rights.

At Tribunal 12, Europe will be held accountable for these failures.

Inspired by the International War Crimes Tribunal that was formed by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre in 1967, Tribunal 12 sets out to locate the moral, legal and political responsibilities as well as call for a change within the system.

Reading on, the practicalities of the tribunal is that it will all take place in one day, including the ruling of an expert jury. Four sessions (“border control, the asylum process, undocumented migrants, and detention & deportation”) will be held where a prosecutor presents evidence. Drama and art, personal stories and expert witnesses will all be part of the evidence. The program is backed by, among others, The Swedish Forum for Human Rights and Swedish National theatre, Riksteatern.

I find it very useful to question the current treatment of international migrants. And in such a creative way too. Here in Ghana, we often poke fun of what Ghanaian travelers will face at airports when traveling (“watch out for the rubber glove!”, “don’t forget to bring all your used passports for…well, for what really?!” etc). That is, traveling WITH THE CORRECT PAPERS. Not migrating. Not fleeing.

Also, it seems very cool (if I can use such a word in such a serious context) to do something with the inspiration of Russell and Sartre – read more on the Russell-tribunal here. I like!

So, watch this space as I will try and figure out where and how we can take this live event to Ghana. Comment below if you want to be a part of it!
Pic borrowed from Tribunal 12.

This post is a belated Monday Migration post.

 

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The EU Blue Card – What Will It Mean to African Professionals?

Today, I am researching The EU Blue Card, a directive passed by the EU in 2009 to simplify immigration for highly skilled workers from non-EU countries. The directive is to be fully implemented into legislation by member countries this year.

The EU Blue Card is modeled on the US Green Card and is hence a temporary work visa (1-4 years) and at the same time a one-stop-shop for applying for residency and work permit.

On the europa.eu website which collects, summarizes and explains EU legislation it is stated that the objective of this particular directive is to:

improve the European Union’s (EU) ability to attract highly qualified workers from third countries. The aim is not only to enhance competitiveness within the context of the Lisbon strategy, but also to limit brain drain. (my italics)

The Lisbon strategy or agenda was drafted in March 2000 and reviewed in 2005 and was the overarching direction for the union aiming to turn EU into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010”. I can see how the EU Blue Card is in alignment with this ambitious goal  and how it helps to attract highly qualified workers. However, I have a hard time understanding how it will limit brain-drain.

I am not the first to question this, migration and development have been discussed together for many years now and others before me have pointed this out for this particular directive. In 2007, African ministers of health viced their worry of that this scheme would increase the brain drain of health professionals from their countries. Also, Professor Kingsley Banya has also written a conference paper where he in the abstract suggests the EU Blue Card scheme is “poaching Africa’s talent” (I am yet to find the full paper).

The rationale behind the EU Blue Card is the fact that EU has a low level of highly-skilled foreigners in its workforce when comparing to the US and Canada. Levels of 4% and 7% of the total labor force for US and Canada respectively, comparing to 1,7% for the EU is brought forward by the Migration Information Source here.

To qualify for the EU Blue Card, one must have a college diploma or five years occupational training, already have landed a job (countries can choose if individual or companies hiring them should apply) as well as show that the job the worker is migrating to do pays more than 1,5 times the country’s average salary.

Despite above-mentioned critique against the directive, it is being implemented as we speak (although some say it is way too slow) with very little debate within Europe and in the countries that are likely to be affected by the policy change.

In my opinion, what needs to be discussed further (and very soon measured)  is how the EU Blue card is to affect African professionals and their migration desicions. It seems nobody yet knows.

Will it lead to increased migration and possibly brain-drain or could there be positive effects for developing countries like increased circular migration when opportunity for legal migration increases? As my research area – Ghanaian students’ migration aspirations- encompasses the migration environment,or legal frameworks for migration, I will be including this European development in my study and discussion.

I will try to write on migration issues every Monday from now on! Need to get back into the research game!

Pic borrowed from The Swap Blog.

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Work 4 Hours a Week, Live a Dream – Deal?

As I was doing my “after lunch surf”, (compare with “nap”) I stumbled through Marlena Batist’s (Swedish) blog onto an imperium hietherto unknown to me, The Four Hour Work Week (4HWW).

It is a book, a blog and the tagline is “Escape 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich” (from a migration perspective I found the term “new rich” interesting; the new rich have time and mobility in abundance. Anyhoo…). The 4 Hour Work Week is an international best-seller and a concept that many seem to love, although it still seems a bit blurry to me. I guess I have to read the book.

However, as this was not an option for me this afternoon, I think the best free resources out there were the 4HWW author Tim Ferriss’s Schedule a regular day, the posts that had examples or case studies of people living the 4HWW and an interview with Ferriss on the key concept of “mini-retirements” on the blog Get Rich Slowly.

Personally, I really sympathize with living simply and having time and money to do what you want, especially when looking at the horrid stats from the US: (of course conveniently provided by the 4HWW crew)

Only 14% of Americans take two weeks or more at a time for vacation [4]. The average American therefore spends more time in the bathroom than on vacation.

61% of Americans check email while on vacation [5].

Average Annual Vacation Days

  • Italy 42
  • France 37
  • Germany 35
  • Brazil 34
  • Britain 28
  • Canada 26
  • Japan 25
  • USA 13

However I hate the terms “outsource your life” and “mini-retirements” and I also love working! I do not want to escape the 9-5 life! I guess if you have a job you enjoy, you can live a dream without the book, the website, the blog and the hype?

What do you think?

Pic courtesy of Marlena Batist.

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This Week: Finland

So this week will be a bit different.

I will go to Finland for a conference, Nordic Africa Days 2010 (you might remember I wrote on this conference here) . And you will feel lonely and come here for new updates from me and who knows if there will be any?

Since, I will be a bit busy with:

1. Presenting a paper on Student Mobility and Migration Industry.

2. Listening to African Studies high shots like Mahmood Mamdani and Paul Nugent as well as film director  Dani Koyaté and Ford Foundation’s Program Officer for East Africa, Joyce Nyairo.

3. Participating in a panel with the theme: “Mobility and Relocation as Strategies of  Youthful Resistance” led by Cultural Anthropologist and former University of Sierra Leone lecturer Mats Utas and political scientist and West and Central Africa expert Morten Bøås. Excited about this part!

4. Eating Cheese and bread!

5. Visiting five Finnish friends (although one is technically Brazilian!)

However, who knows, I might get time to spare and I am guessing free broadband is all over the country that recently decided to make broadband a human right

Pic of the Finnish flag borrowed from www.tgdaily.com

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“Unsustainable” Student Migration or a Gold Mine?

Yesterday’s news of UK immigration minister Damian Green talking of student immigration being “unsustainable” and suggesting changes to the visa laws interested me. Why?

  1. My research is on student emigration out of Ghana and many Ghanaian students end up in the UK. I know personally that many of them stay on (21% according to the Home Office).
  2. Green’s speech was based  on interesting numbers showing, among other things,  that the number of student visas issued increased the last years  to 362 000 in 2009. Meanwhile, the official story has been that because of terrorism it is harder to get a student visa today compared to 10 years ago.
  3. The “unsustainability” according to Green is in the UK! A country which has a 12,5 billion pound education industry,  according to the National Union of Students in the same article.

Other voices from the blogosphere includes Sara Mulley/leftfootforward.org who writes:

It seems that we must ask: what is the Government worried about?  There seem to be two main concerns. The first is entirely legitimate – it seems likely that some abuse of the student visa regime continues, despite the measures taken by the previous government. This may be a particular issue with visas issued for courses below degree level (which account for up to half the total), and with visas issued to smaller colleges and institutions.[…]

Their other concern is about total net immigration to the UK.  Rising student numbers is one of a number of factors making it harder for the Home Office to meet its target of reducing net immigration to ‘tens, rather than hundreds, of thousands’ a year.  […]

Although rising foreign student numbers increase net migration figures in the short term, most student migration is temporary, so it’s not clear what the impact is in the longer term.

I have seen some evidence in Ghana that to apply for  a visa as a student it is a strategy (mainly because all other routes have closed). I think it supports my theory that courses below degree level account for a big chunk of these visas.

Blogger  Mark Hillary suggests that

The UK is an attractive place to study. English is the language used for study and daily life, and even though the universities charge non-EU students a lot more than Europeans, a British education remains good value compared to American colleges.

Mark’s comment reminds me of something I once read about the intangible value of the use of English to the UK which manifests in sales in dictionaries, literature and education.

The migration might be unsustainable. But much more likely, student migration is a gold mine for Britain (and its effects highly complex for developing countries, if now anyone cares about that).

Photo credit to the Guardian.

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Back in Ghana or When I Met Kofi Annan

So my Swedish summer is over and I am back in Ghana with all that it entails. So far:

1. A Ghanaian wedding in which a vuvuzela played an important role.

“Do you take this… VUUUU! VUUUU!”

2. Getting the updates on our backyard farm from my husband.

“…And here we have tomatoes, watermelon, two kinds of plantain, cassava, paw-paw and there ginger. Don’t step on the pepper!”

3. A visit to the drivers licensing office, DVLA. I was there for an hour and did of course not get my license. I did however read an article about the corruption at the DVLA while I waited.

4. Returning to work where E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y greeted me whith a heartily:

“Akwaaba! How was your trip?”

5. A function at the University of Ghana where I, to my surprise, got the chance to pitch my research idea to Former Secretary General of UN  Kofi Annan.

“I am interested in why Ghanaian students leave this…” Kofi Annan interrupts me excitedly:

“…WONDERFUL COUNTRY?”.

“Yes, exactly, this wonderful country”. When he found out I was married here in Ghana to a Ghanaian he and his Swedish wife Nane Annan smiled and said a warm “congratulations!”

Yes, I am back in Ghana! This wonderful country!

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BBC Program on Africans Returning Home

In the BBC production An African Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby, the story about Africans returning back to their continent is unveiled, according to a recent BBC article.

This Africans returning home business is nothing new, but I think the story needs to be told many times to counteract the strong emigration narrative “everybody is leaving for the UK/US…”.

Personally, I like the more modern approach to migration, suggesting you can stay both here and there, creating the true cosmopolitan or should I say AFROPOLITAN citizen. Here a short excerpt about Ghanaian fashion designer Kofi Ansah I think says exactly that:

Mr Ansah still travels the world, and could live anywhere, but his business is growing, his family are settled and he feels like he’s making a difference in Accra. “I came to help try to develop the clothing textile industry. And I thought, if we could do it right, it could help our employment situation.

Unfortunately, the program (first episode covering Mali, Ghana and Nigeria) is not available to watch here in Ghana, but maybe our brothers and sisters will watch it in the UK and tell us about it…

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Ninety-Nine-Year-Old Graduate and More

Recently a World War II veteran and former teacher reached headline news in Ghana (and the world through CNN) as he graduated from business school at the ripe age of ninety-nine!

I wrote an article about this very special ninety-nine year old graduate and the discussion that his achievement gave rise to for University World News(UWN). Here is an excerpt:

In February 99-year-old World War II veteran and former teacher, Akasease Kofi Boakye Yiadom, graduated from the Presbyterian University College Business School in Abetifi, Ghana.

The elderly graduate was featured on CNN’s Inside Africa programme, and he took the opportunity to call on fellow graduates to be loyal and not join the brain drain.

“If it is a scant pay you have to accept it, because it is the government’s money that has been used to educate you,” he said. “If you have finished school and passed your degree, you have to stay in Ghana and serve Ghana.”

I thought it was interesting he entered into the “brain-drain” debate and did something with his 15 minutes of fame. Read the rest of the article about Akasease Yiadom and the “brain-drain” discussion by yours truly.

In the same issue of UWN, Linda Nordling wrote an interesting feature directed to African universities on diversifying funding. She compared the recent consequences of the Icelandic volcano ash on African export industry to the current situation in African academe where African universities are very dependent on student fees and government funding. What if an “ash cloud” or more likely an economical crisis would reduce fees and government funding?

There needs to be a lateral, more diversified strategy for funding of the African universities. Looking overseas for funding instruments, reducing the administrative burden through capacity building and turning to local industry to offer consultancies are the main points offered as a solution, by Nordling. Read the whole insightful article Lateral Thinking for Research Funding.

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Aid the West: Design for the First World

white african I thought I’d promote this lovely competition, Design for the First World – in short, Dx1W, because it is witty, spot on and relevant. By addressing First World problems and speaking to professionals in developing countries, it is directly opposite to so much else I see. The more traditional approach, like the 10 ideas for Africa I wrote about the other week is so much more common.

So this is exciting! I know I’d spend too much time explaining it, so let me just give you the information in original:

“Dx1W has proclaimed 2010 International Year of the First World in Need, and has defined four main areas to address:
– Food Production and Eating Disorders,
– Aging Population and Low Birth rate,
– Immigration and Integration to Society,
– Sustainability and Overconsumption.

Furthermore, one of the major aims of the Year will be to demonstrate the beneficial effects of cultural diversity. We want to recognize the importance of transfers and exchanges between cultures through implicit or explicit dialogue that underlines how cultures and civilizations are interlinked and contribute to the progress of humankind.”

Yes, Food and eating…They have a point here. Population has been deemed the next big crisis for Europe, so good problem to attack. Immigration and integration issues gain attention by the day, but maybe my favorite is the issue of sustainability. If everybody shopped like the West, we’d need more earths!

Ok, some good topics and progress of humankind. Sounds good! Then the organizers of Dx1W go on on a little rant on “solutions” from the west which I think is well deserved, although I feel “pay back” might be taking it one step too far – aid or solutions most often has a good intention behind it (?). Similarily, I think this competition should be done with a helpful attitude and not as a frantic “pay back” attack.

“Our fellows in the first world often come to visit and give us their well intentioned but often very problematic “solutions”. We thought, why don’t we pay back? Dx1W is a competition for designers, artists, scientists, makers and thinkers in developing countries to provide solutions for First World problems.

Deadline May 30st, 2010 11:59 p.m. EST”

All this is just the beginning. For more inspiration, read the Dx1W Blog.

What do you think? Is this just the first initiative, of many to come, to help the First World? A silly prank? An idea that has your full support?

Pic borrowed from Swedish fashion company H&M’s spring collection 2009. Where they had borrowed their inspiration from was not too clear.

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World Bank Does Good: Opens Free Data Website

On April the 20th 2010, the World Bank announced they would be making their statistics on development available on the Internet, free of charge. Before you needed to pay to have access to these data sets or buy a CD-ROM. At the same time a new website was opened to easily disseminate the information – data.worldbank.org (see pic).

The Swedish organization Gapminder has been working for some time now with making it happen and. In 2006, was lucky to work with one of their board members, Gun-Britt Andersson and was by her introduced to Gapminder’s mission of “unveiling the beauty of statistics for a facts based world view”. Since then, I have seen Director of Gapminder Hans Rosling’s TED speeches many times and played around with the data on their website.

Now even more data is available. Gapminder commented on the World Bank releasing some of its development data on its website calling it a “bold and long awaited step”.

Free statistics, what does it mean?

Well, to start out with, information is now available all over the world. All decision makers can now afford to inform themselves. Researchers and students can find more data to test theses and critique current data collection, indicators and methods. Developers can play around with the data and make it even more accessible. An app-competition is to be organized soon.

Read Owen’s blog and Privat Sector Development Blog for more info on its uses.

Faced with this statistical opportunity,  what did I do?

I first checked out the country page for Ghana. It was easy to overview, but unfortunately the additional indicators took a while to load. Still most recent information on GDP, GNI, Poverty, Literacy, Debt, Education, Infrastructure and Unemployment lay in front of me in seconds.

Second, I looked at topics. I was looking for migration, but as I couldn’t find it, I chose Education as I also have a research interest in Higher Education. As the page loaded, my first feeling was confusion. How can total enrollment be 106% for primary school?

After thinking about it for a while and realizing primary enrollment has dramatically increased over the last years , I can only think of one explanation. Is it because now also older students get a chance to catch up?

What else did I find?

For higher education I found two interesting indicators – enrollment on tertiary level and public expenditure on tertiary students per student as percentage of GDP per capita. For the first one, Ghana has 6,2% of an age group that officially corresponds to tertiary level enrolled in tertiary education. Sweden has 74,5%. Public expenditure on education, especially higher education is an interesting number, so why not give it to us in a more comparable format?The data can with a click be seen as a map instead of a table. The sets can also be saved or shared.

All in all, I recommend visiting this website. The data being released is long overdue – imagine the “open market” supporters clinging on to their own data! Actually, this information raises more questions than it answers which is a pretty awesome outcome.

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