A.M.Eskandary
May 2013
******
May 2013
Globalisation and Skilled labour Migration
(The case of Afghan Diaspora)
Introduction
Migration is not a new phenomenon in the world history, but it
never been as extensive as it is today. Globalization of the labour market, as
well as modern communication technology has made it easier for people to know
about better life and opportunities abroad, and move towards such opportunity
accordingly. In fact, the modern world
seems like a “global village”. Modern technologies of transportation
make movement much easier; indeed, it is technically possible to get anywhere
in the world in a matter of days, if not hours.[1]
Migration is a broad subject, with multiple dimensions and has been
one of the controversial issues in the world's political arena. We hear, read
and watch every day in the media articles and discussions which focus on
various points of immigrants, asylum seekers and other migrants continuously.
Some experts see migrants as a threat and challenge to a society and social
life, but most believe migration brings opportunities, assets and development.[2]
Migration is the movement of people from one place or country of
origin to another place or country with the purpose to live, work or refuge. It
is not an invention of the twentieth century or modernity and capitalism. It
has been part of human history from the earliest time. However, economic
development, post- modern social and political transformation and the ending of
the cold war as well as the fragmentation of Soviet Union has seen a significant
increase of mass population movement around the globe. M.J. Miller has
identified that a staggering 13% of the world’s population are migrants.[3]
In this essay we shall examine first the theoretical aspects of
skilled and high-skilled migration in the international arena in the age of
globalisation, its positive and negative socioeconomic impacts, particularly in
developing countries, and finally, afghan Diaspora and the existing skill, or brain
drains and the effect of migration on the socio-economic state of Afghanistan
shall be discussed.
High-skilled labour migration
Migration
of workers from one country to another for pursuit of better employment
opportunities, higher pays or other socio-political reasons is not a new
phenomenon, yet particularly today, mobility of the workforce is a very
important aspect of our highly globalized world. Where such mobility is in
place, it allows workers to easily move towards there where his expertise and
skill is most needed, permitting greater international levels of economic
efficiency to be reached.
The focus of
migration policies has, however, changed much over time. Whereas during the
greatest part of the 19th century the key motivation for states to
attract and import foreign workers was simply to ensure that its low-skilled
vacant jobs such as mining, operating the market stalls and factories were
filled, since the 1990’s, focus has been mainly on adopting policies to attract
talented, or “high skilled” migrants
to do the more challenging jobs. As attracting the brightest and best foreign
workers is obviously very desirable for a country’s economic development, the
adoption of policies and regulations regarding such has been on high agenda in
many countries. Attraction of such workers is now great source of competition
between nations, predominantly the developed Western countries. Countries such
as the UK, the US and Australia have actively lowered their boarder barriers
strictly for high skilled migrants, by relaxing the rules for (temporary)
working visa’s. The US, for example, increased its capacity for visas for
skilled workers from 115,000 to 195,000 per year in 2001[4]. As A. Betts
has observed, “where once states competed
primarily at the level of military power, today a great powers compete
primarily in terms of their relative economic power and high-skilled labour”[5].
Though there is
no single universally adapted definition of the highly skilled, one description provides that they are workers who
have “education or specialized knowledge
that takes time to acquire, usually the equivalent of a four-year
post-secondary education”[6] such as
engineers, businessmen, teachers and doctors. The negative and potentially
harmful socioeconomic effects on the sending state, which statistics has proven
to be predominantly the developing
states[7], has been
highlight by academics for a long time.
The UN officially estimated that in 2002, 175 million international
migrants existed, of which 75% was from the developing world[8]. The negative
impact of high skilled migration can be studied by reference to the “brain drain” concept from the 1970
neoclassical economists. Based on an empirical evaluation of the impact of a
significant outflow of high skilled workers from one place, the theory suggests
that such outflow necessarily has a direct detrimental effect on the
socioeconomic state of a country, as it reduces the essential human resource
and capital necessary for growth and innovation; especially so in developing
countries[9]. This phenomena
is also called a “flight of human capital”,
and the distributive inequalities of the benefits of such migration is
therefore that it provides “winners and
losers”. The UNDP has highlighted that over half of African engineers and
scientists work in the US, and half of all doctors trained in Africa work
abroad[10]. The loss of
workers means that a country has to pay extra money to import the necessary
professionals from abroad. Therefore, as the UNDP pointed out, “brain drain has cost the African continent
over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually”[11].
The assumption
that HSLM necessarily results in inequitable outcomes has been challenged by
the academic M. Ellerman[12]. She provides
that whilst for “nationalists” the
focus of socioeconomic analysis is the state,
“internationalists” on the other hand, focus on the global economy and
provide that where voluntary migration from poor to richer countries results in
greater earnings for the migrants, it leads to a growth in global economic welfare. This principle is therefore based on
international welfarist values, whereby the well-being of the global economy overshadows
that of individual states.
A more positive
revisionist school of thought emerged
from the 90’s, which recognized that migration of high skilled workers is not
always a permanent matter, especially so in our globalized labour market[13]. Therefore, “brain drain” was substitutable with “brain gain” and “brain circulation”, return migration being a channel of such gain.
The core of this view is the assumption that when migrants return to their
(poor) home country, as some will inevitably do, it can result in brain circulation when the workers can
apply their newly gained skills, experience and fresh taste of innovation from
working abroad. Especially today, many states appreciate the role of GATS in
facilitating bilateral high-skilled migration partnerships, whereby the host
state promises to aid the sending-state in one form or another form. The UNDP
shares the view that “brain drain” is reversible “by developing creative strategies for
collaborating with their diasporas, by promoting knowledge networks, market
access, facilitating direct investment and supporting return migration, this
process may be reversed”[14]
Additionally,
the possibility of migration provides a strong incentives for the nationals to
gain higher education (brain gain), and therefore become high skilled workers,
a significant number of whom will not migrate after all. The study of Barro and
Sala-I-Martin in 1995 showed that a mere one year increase in the average
education of a state’s labour force upsurges output per worker up to 15%[15].
Being based on
fully theoretical assumptions, the issue with this revisionist school has been
identified by Maxwell. He has rightfully
observed that even if high skilled
migration persuades the young to gain high skill credentials, there is no
guarantee that the subsequent rise in human resources is necessarily “appropriate” for the development of the
country’s economy[16]. The South
African experience is a prime example, where though upon abolishment of the
apartheid era a large number of doctors, scientists and engineers emigrated to
the USA, and subsequently more South Africans attended universities as a
result, these graduates went into the field of humanities rather than in those
fields where emigration depleted human capacity, and therefore foreign workers
still had to be imported to fill the crucial but vacant positions.
Formulation of the HSL migration regulation and policy
Unlike
issues concerning international trade, as well as environmental and refugee
protection, no formal UN institutions for global HSL migration governance
exist. There are, however, various international organisations which attempt to
facilitate HSL migration agreements and policies across the globe.
A. Betts[17] has identified
three existing levels of global migration regulation and governance. The
dominant characteristic of HSL migration governance is accepted as having
unilateralist suggestions. States have sovereignty in adopting HSL immigration
policies according to their need, and
because its governance represents a private
good, states have little incentive to engage in collective action. Betts
has reinforced this point by saying that “states
generally create international institutions when a problem goes beyond the
scope of their boundaries and two or more states are worse off dealing with the
problem alone that they would be cooperating”[18]. HSLM represents a private good because of its inherent
characteristics of rivalry between states for the benefit of a limited supply of highly skilled labour,
as well as exclusivity of benefit and cost, being confined to the sending and
receiving state, as well as the immigrant[19].
Only where
something is a genuine global public good, once can expect a formal
multilateral regime under which non-rivalry would exist between states, and the
benefit would accrue to all irrespective of participation. For this reason,
international governance of refugee protection has a strong multilateral legal
framework as, the benefits of such protection accrues to all nations in terms
of human rights and security.
In recent
years, a clear level of bilateralism has also proven to exist in HSL migration,
as a response to the increasing public policy concern of “brain drain” in sending states. Many developing states have
actively aimed to pursue mobility
partnerships with the developed states, a clear example being the Indian government
which has secured agreements with Poland, Belgium and France predominantly in
the IT field. The result of such bilateral cooperation is a fairer distribution
of the benefits of the migration, as the sending-state will secure privileged
access to the developing country’s labour, and in many agreements, the
host-state will agree to provide benefit of some sort to the migrant workers
such as provision of education to increase skill, partial payment of training
cost, or provide facilitation of remittances to the country of origin. The
theory of interdependence has been advanced by Betts[20] to explain the
existence of bilateral cooperation. He provides that where interdependency is symmetrical, i.e. where the benefit and
cost of partnership is evenly distributed, bilateral agreements are most likely
to result, as it produces a win-win situation for both parties. On the other
hand, where interdependence is asymmetrical,
it is said that unilateral
policy-making is the most natural result, as the benefit and especially the
cost of interaction are not equitably shared, being primarily on the
sending-states’ part.
Due to the
increased recognition of the benefits of bilateral cooperation and
partnerships, HSL migration regulation has also resulted in an emerging global
multilateralism dimension. Though no formal international institution solely
for the purpose of HSL migration control exists, international bodies such as
WTO, GATS and GFMD have a limited role of providing a forum for dialogue,
encourage cooperation by raising awareness of its benefits, and facilitate such
cooperation by proposing workable labour programmes and mechanisms to
facilitate returns where desired[21]. Smith has
described the role of these bodies as “facilitators
of bilateralism”, as they have a limited role of guidance only.
As a short
concluding remark for the theoretical aspects of HSL migration, it can be
questioned whether global governance of HSL migration ought to be more formal and multilateral, and whether there is any
basis for such proposition. Though multilateralism in this area is defendable
form an equity perspective in that it
would limit potential for “brain drain” to occur by allowing equal distribution
of benefits of HSL migration by preventing sending states to be mere passive “rule takers”, as well as from a basic
total economic efficiency viewpoint, such liberalization appears out of
question when bearing in mind that the matter is a private good, characterized by excludability and rivalry. A Smith
has rightfully observed that “full
liberalization, if it would happen, would lead to a parent optimal outcome, is
not the same as arguing that the governance of migration is inherently a global
public good”, and therefore such formal governance is unrealistic. Rather,
what ought to be developed is greater mechanisms which provide a dialogue and
facilitate bilateral cooperation, and have authority to overlook such
cooperation.
Afghan Diaspora
and Skilled Migrants
More than three
decades of war, internal conflicts and foreign intervention in Afghanistan
produced large numbers of refugees, whom settled in many different parts of the
world. Afghanistan has one of the largest refugee diasporas in the world, with
2.1 million registered refugees in Pakistan, 920 000 registered in Iran (Both
Pakistan and Iran host a further estimated one million irregular migrants
each), and nearly one million diaspora over all continents especially in
European countries, US, Canada and Australia. M. Saito has observed that at
least 4.8 million migrants have voluntarily moved back to Afghanistan after
2001.[22]
In this part of the essay we shall discuss in detail the history of
Afghan migrants, Afghan Migrants in neighbouring countries, as well as Europe
and the American continent. The migration of highly skilled Afghans and the
subsequent negative (skill drain) effect shall be discussed, as well as
the positive effects in terms of political stability and economic growth in
Afghanistan. Finally, “Brain Waste” of qualified Afghan migrants living in
western countries shall be examined, as well as and Afghan diaspora future.
History of
Migration in Afghanistan:
Although during
the history of Afghanistan people immigrated to other countries for economic
reasons, the main cause of has been the sociopolitical instability in the
country caused by authoritarian regimes and foreign interventions. To
understand the real cause emigrating from Afghanistan we have to study
Afghanistan characteristics, especially its ethnic composition and its
Strategic geographic location. Ethnic conflicts and ethnic cleansing, civil
war, interfering of the neighboring countries as well as the invasion of world
super powers brought insecurity
and instability to the country and at the end forced the people to immigrate.
During
Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, according to some statistics more than 1.5
million Afghans were either killed or wounded and round 6 million people left
the country. Either after 2001 and US military invasion to Afghanistan
thousands of people were killed, wounded or displaced from their homes or left
the country.
According
to the UNHCR, the intensification and spread of the
armed conflict in Afghanistan took a heavy toll on the civilian population in
2009 and continued to worsen through the first half of 2010. At least 5,978
civilians were reported killed and injured in 2009, the highest number of
civilian casualties3 recorded in one year since the fall of the Taliban in
2001. 3,268 casualties were recorded during the first six months of 2010,
representing a 31 percent increase over the same period in 2009.[23]
Living in such desperate situations, Afghans whom were able to
leave the country have had no chance but to do so, and take refuge mainly
outside the country. The first wave of migration from Afghanistan began
in 1973 when King Zahir Shah (1993-1973) was overthrown by his cousin Mohammad
Daoud Khan. Daoud khan changed the regime from Kingdom to Republic of
Afghanistan. His actions was opposed by hard line Islamist groups and resulted
on appraisal against president Daoud. It was the first time that some Afghan
especially the King’s family and the supporters of monarchy immigrated and took
refuge in Western countries and the Islamist radical group leaders and
activists fled to Pakistan and took refuge there.
The second wave of
Afghans migration began after April 1978, when on 27th April 1978, PDPA, a
pro-soviet party, ceased power with a military coup, especially after soviet
military invasion on December 1979. In the period from April 1997 until the
collapse of soviet backed regime in April 1992, millions of Afghans left the
country and took refuge in neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran. Among
these Afghan immigrants were some highly educated people, but most were
villagers with very low level of education, if any at all.
The third wave of
the Afghan Diaspora began with the fall of soviet backed by the regime of Dr.
Najibullah and seizing power by the Mujahidin and later by the Taliban from
April 1992 to September 2001, when Taliban removed from power by international
forces.
When Mujahidin came in power, due to lack of experience in
governance, they practically dismantled all governmental institutions including
the Afghan armed forces. According to official statistics of the soviet backed
regime, the PDPA and their supporter parties and social organisations like:
Father-land National front, Youth organisation, Trade Unions, Democratic
organisation of Afghan women had more than half a million members. More than
one million people worked in governmental institutions and civil services, the
armed forces of Afghanistan which mostly fled from country.
As soon as the Mujahidin gained power, factional fighting began and
the Jihad turned into a civil war. If during the soviet invasion most the
villages were destroyed, during Mujahidin power most of the cities including
Kabul were ruined to the ground. According to the ICRC, human rights violations
including “executions, abduction, imprisonment, sexual violence and other
forms of torture”[24]
were committed by all factions. It was also estimated that 10,000
individuals were killed in 1993.[25]
From first day of the coming of the Mujahidin to Kabul, most Kabul
residents and mainly professionals and intellectuals that had worked with the
former government had no other choice than to leave the country and immigrate
to secure their family’s safety. These people mostly crossed the country’s borders
toward the Central Asian republics. Later through Russian Federation most of
these immigrants reached to Europe, US and Canada. Also between 1995- 2001
afghan immigrant families were transferred from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and
other central Asian republics including from Russia to US, Canada and some
northern Europe countries with UN and UNHCR help. In table 1 we can see the flow of Afghan
refugees from 1980 until 2001. Of course after 2001 and US invasion to
immigration from Afghanistan hadn’t stopped but it is not in the former scale
and dimension.
Tab.1, AFGHAN REFUGEES, 1980-2001
Year figure
1980
600’000
1983 3.9 million
1987 5.1 million
1988 5.9 million
1990 6.2 million
1992
6.0
million
1992- 97
2.7 million
1997- 2001
3-5 million
Source: UNHCR 2001, Afghanistan crises and the Migration –
Development Nexus: Afghanistan Case Study; by Leila Jazayery[26]
Afghan diaspora
in neighbouring countries (Iran and Pakistan):
From 1979
during the time of the Soviet occupation to 1992, an estimated 6 million people
left Afghanistan, mainly into the neighbouring countries of Iran and Pakistan.
From the fall of the Taliban in November 2001 to 2006, 4.5 million have
returned. From2002-2005 UNHCR facilitated the return of 2.7 million refugees
from Pakistan and nearly 900 000 from Iran; with a further 300 000 spontaneous
returns from Pakistan and 570 000 from Iran. Pakistan still continues to host
three million Afghans, 2.1 million of whom hold registration cards. Estimates
for Iran are around 2 million, 920000 of whom are registered with the Iranian
authorities.
Afghan diaspora (excluding Pakistan and Iran)
Estimating the
size of the overseas Afghan diaspora vary greatly. Although official figures
for “refugees” exist in most countries these are not represents the actual
numbers. In Western countries, the term, “refugee” is narrowly interpreted as
those who have been granted asylum. The numbers of those who sought but were
not granted asylum are much higher. AISA (Afghanistan Investment Support
Agency) offers a high estimate of 500,000 Afghans in the US and Canada. See table no.2 below
Afghan Diaspora outside Pakistan and Iran
Country
|
Figure
|
Notes
|
United states
United States
and Canada
|
100 000 – 200
000
500 000
|
Hanifi; 2006
Jazayery
IISA
|
Europe
|
150 000 – 200
000
|
Germany 50
000-100 000
(Braakman;
2005)
UK 20 000
(IOM London
2006)
|
Cenetral Asia
and RuSSia
|
150 000 – 300
000
|
Jazayery;
2003
|
India
|
40 000 -
50 000
|
|
Australia
|
20 000 - 30
000
|
|
Japan
|
10 000 -
20 000
|
|
Gulf states
|
Unquantified
-
Low
10 000s
|
|
others
|
10 000
|
|
Estimate
total
|
800 000
- 1 000 000
|
*Source: Afghan Labour Migration and Human Resource Development,3rd
Regional Economic Cooperation Conference, Islamabad 2008[27]
Afghan return back home or
re-immigrate?
After the removal of the barbaric and
fanatic regime of Taliban by international forces and their Afghani alloys,
Afghans inside and outside the country were very optimist that after more than
three decades of war and destruction, finally peace would return to their
homeland. Relying on this optimism, millions of Afghan refugees returned home,
mostly from neighbouring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. However, because
of instability, recurring war, unemployment, housing and economic problems, a
high percentage of them re-immigrated back to foreign countries. According to
the UNHCR office in Kabul, more than 5.7 million refugees -- 4.6 million of
them with UNHCR assistance -- have returned to Afghanistan since 2002[28]. Even in 2010-2011, the official data’s of the Ministry of refugees
and repatriations of Afghanistan shows that 378,253 Afghan refugees returned to
the country, 134,528 of them having done so voluntarily, and 195200 being
forced returnees. See:
Table 3: Repatriation during the year 1389
(2010-2011)
NO
|
Number if Repatriated Persons
|
From Where (Country)
|
Remarks
|
1
|
110,370
|
Pakistan
|
Voluntarily
|
2
|
17283
|
Iran
|
Voluntarily
|
3
|
6850
|
other
countries
|
Voluntarily
|
4
|
243,750
|
Pakistan,
Iran and other countries
|
Forced
Return
|
5
|
378,253
|
This
number of people has been provided assistance by UNHCR. In this figure 5,622
of them who have voluntarily repatriated from European countries to Afghanistan
were assisted by IOM re-integration packages.
|
|
These figures show that every year hundreds of
thousands and in some years millions of afghan immigrants came back home
(nearly 5 millions) but we still have nearly six million refugees in the world
(estimate: 3 million in Pakistan and 2 million in Iran documented and
undocumented refugees, and round one million in in European, US, Canada,
Australia, Russia and other countries in the world). This means either these
officials figure are wrong or the majority of the returnees were re immigrated.
Afghan Diaspora
and skill drain:
Brain drain is widely understood as the loss
of skilled intellectuals, professionals and technical labours through the
movement of such labour to more favourable geographic, economic, or
professional environments.
The case of Afghan high skilled migration is completely different;
it is the result of forced migration. In this case, brain drain is not an
applicable argument because most of its skilled personnel fled during the
decades of conflict.
The skills drain from Afghanistan has been durable from 1980s to
1990s, the majority of Afghans who were able to migrate to Europe, North
America, or Australia were the urban elite, and were often educated and highly
skilled[30].
This group had the financial means to migrate further abroad. In 2000, the
World Bank cited the emigration rate of the tertiary education population to be
23.3 per cent. Thirty years of skills drain from Afghanistan has led to a
severe skill deficiency in the country. Today Afghanistan faces great
challenges in skills attraction and retention. After the fall of the Taliban in
2001, some highly skilled Afghans returned but then re-emigrated when the
security situation was worsened.
The second challenge to the socioeconomic development of the
country is a more than thirty-year-old education system. Due to the lack of
skilled individuals in the country, the quality of institutions especially in
universities today is worse than it was in the 1970s.[31]
“Brain Drain” or” Brain Waste”?
In the case of
Afghan skilled migrants the term “Brain waste” is more applicable than “Brain
Drain”, because Afghans had not immigrated to western countries to find better
job or working opportunities, but were forced to immigrate. Now in the western
countries, most migrated Afghans (especially the older generation) are either
unemployed or working lower skilled jobs. According to the International Labour
Organisation findings, highly skilled Afghans in the USA have been recorded as
working in much lower-skilled jobs after migration. For example, of the three
individuals who identified themselves as medical doctors in Afghanistan, only
one is practising in the US. Furthermore, none of the six individuals who were
teachers in Afghanistan are practising that trade in the US.[32] The situation in
Europe is more or less the same. For example in Germany, 78.4% of Afghan
qualified refugees are unemployed or doing lower skilled jobs.[33]
Recently I
contacted more than 20 Afghans (including myself) living in Germany, Holland,
UK, Sweden and Norway which all of them have BS or master degrees and in one
case PHD and by profession they were physician, pharmacist, engineer and
teachers ( among them four women). From these 20 people, five of them (25%) are
unemployed and living in social benefit, two of them (10%) have a job which
relatively matched to their profession, 13 (65%) of them doing unskilled jobs
like cleaning, leaflet distributing, pizza delivery, shopkeeper and small
businesses, driving taxi or working in factories. Each of these people lived
more than ten years in these countries, have permanent residential documents
and learned the country’s language as well. The main reason for their
unemployment or low skill employment lays either on their age or in the exclusion
policies of the host societies. From
here, one can come to this conclusion that in the case of Afghan skilled
diaspora this is obviously a “brain waste”.
Qualified
Afghan returnees and their role in reconstruction and state Building:
On the base of the
enormous need for qualified Afghans to return and to participate in the efforts
of rebuilding Afghanistan, IOM runs a number of schemes under its Return of
Qualified Afghans (RQA) Programme. The candidates are selected from all over
the world, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America. At the
same time the Dutch government founded a project of TRQN (The Temporary Return
of Qualified Nationals) to encourage Afghan educated migrants living in
Netherland to return to Afghanistan for a period from 3 to 6 month. Since 2002,
845 highly skilled Afghans have returned from 29 countries to Afghanistan, to
assist in its development[34].
As we mentioned before, according to the World Bank, the emigration
rate of the tertiary educated people from Afghanistan was 23.3% in 2000. If we
compare drain percentage and return of qualified Afghans back home, it is
really disappointing. There are certainly some factors limiting the willingness
of diaspora members to (temporarily) return to Afghanistan: (1) the fact that
many have a secure and relatively good life in the host country and are not
willing to risk this hardly gained security, (2) they have commitments such as
children or jobs, (3) they expect higher jobs and salaries in Afghanistan then
probable, (4) they might be afraid to not be able to return to their host
country after leaving it. (5) Relations between returnees and the Afghans who
stayed in the country during the years of violent conflict are not also necessarily
easy.[35]
Despite the above mentioned figures and facts, Afghan Diaspora had
played and is still playing very important role in reconstruction,
rehabilitation and rebuilding of Afghanistan. First of all, the Afghan Diaspora
played a significant political role in organizing a peaceful transition after
the NATO military intervention in 2001/2002. Diaspora members played an
important role during the Petersberg Talks, Bonn process of political
transition, and as connectors between the international community, the national
administrations, international civil society and the private sector. Secondly
Afghan Diasporas had a major and crucial role in forming Afghan government from
2001 up to now. Not only did the head of the current government, President
Hamid Karzai, had lived in the US, but diaspora members were and are still in
key positions of Afghan administration. In the current government of
Afghanistan, from 32 ministers, 22 of them are from afghan diaspora. It includes
very key positions like ministry of Defence, security forces, and ministries of
foreign affairs, finance, trade, agriculture, higher education, mining,
construction, health etc. If we count the advisers of the president, the deputy
ministers and head of professional departments, we can come to the conclusion
that more than 70% of the current government is selected from Afghan Diaspora.
Beside these social remittances another positive impact of Afghan Diaspora
is their contribution in Material Remittances to Afghanistan: The
Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (2004) offers a high estimate of 500,000
Afghans in the US and Canada and claims an average remittance of $1,500 per
person or a total of approximately $75 million per year to Afghanistan, most of
which is transferred via hawaladars.[36]
Hawala is traditional way of sending money not through the banks
but through private person and hawaladar means the person that transfers this
money from the origin to the destination. This way of transferring money played
very important role in livelihood and economic survival of most Afghan families
inside the country up to 2001 when the Taliban were in power. If we accept the
figure of one million Afghan in western countries and assume average 1000
dollars they are sending to their relatives in Afghanistan, it means Afghan
Diaspora make every year one billion US dollars contribution to Afghan economy.
The future of
Afghan Diaspora:
It is more
likely that Afghan Diaspora in neighbouring countries especially in Iran and
Pakistan, sooner or later will return back to Afghanistan. This is because
despite the fact that Afghani people have religious, linguistic, and cultural
similarities with the people of these countries, Afghan immigrants are still
considered as alien and strangers, and none have received citizenship status in
the countries of residence, and are encouraged to return back to their
homeland, especially so when the economic situation of the host states itself
is not too good. The case with afghan Diaspora in other part of the world
(Europe, US, Canada, Australia) is different. Mostly Afghans settled down and
enjoy the substantive rights of citizenship and social welfare of the country
of residence. Of course, the first generation of Afghani immigrants have been
suffering from unemployment and have nostalgia and a desire to return back
home, but most cannot do so, especially due to their commitments to their
children. These children, the second generation of Afghan migrants, whom
were either very small when they arrived in the Western countries, or were born
there, have generally no desire to return. They properly integrated in the host
societies and can make full use and enjoyment from their higher education and
university degrees by finding proper employment to match their abilities. It
seems that contrary to other Diasporas in history which provides that retention
of cultural values and identities is very likely, with afghan diaspora, at
third generation, is most likely to not be the case, as the second generation
right now know very little about their tradition and culture. They may speak
their native languages, but most are unable to read and write it; the third and
fourth generation may be able to keep just the family names. This more than anything else is a result of
ethnic conflict and lack of unified nation in the country which has been
inherited by afghan communities outside the country.
Conclusion:
In this paper
we discussed the theoretical and practical, impacts of HSL migration. It is
obvious that in our globalized world, the old context of absolute “brain
drain” doesn’t apply any more. Today in scientific research circles,” brain
exchange” and “skill transfer” is in discussions. Whereas half a century ago
the capitalist world tried to transfer the skilled labour to their countries
and benefitted exclusively from such, now they generally aim to transfer a part
of their capital (especially in production and services) to the developing
world to use the cheaper labour force of under developed and developing
countries to make more profit; this is one of the case that both developed and
developing countries benefit from.
During the last three to four decades, as a result of internal
conflict, civil wars and military intervention of super powers, millions of
people including the skilled professionals from the third world (from African
and Asian countries like Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Iraq, Afghanistan… etc.) left
their countries and took refuge in western world which brought a
catastrophically skill drain to those countries.
In the field of health workers (doctors, nurses, and pharmacists)
and communication technology the concept of “brain drain” is still applicable.
Every year thousands health professionals from Africa and south Asia leave
their countries toward developed western countries, although there are a
critical shortage of skilled professionals in their own countries. Mills et al.
(2008) take the extraordinary step of recommending that international
recruiters of health professionals from developing countries should be tried
for crimes against humanity[37].
One can say that the HSLM is more in the favour of developed world rather to
the developing countries. Michael A. Clemens, the chairman of the British
Medical Association, has in fact described encouraging health professional
emigration from poor to rich countries as “the rape of the poorest countries”.[38]
Maybe one main positive aspect in HSL migration is the material remittances
that the skilled migrants send to their family and relatives in their home
country; but in long term this one also has its negative effect. Firstly it
stimulates the culture of dependency and idleness and secondly, a country
cannot progress with merely being sent monetary aid. It requires the necessary
sources of modern technology, education, and production and at last the brains
to organise them.
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Alexander
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Alexander Betts, Global Migration Governance, edn, Oxford
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Barro,
R. J., and X. Sala-i-Martin (1995) Economic Growth, edn, New York: McGraw-Hill
Bimal Gosh, Managing Migration: Time for
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“Brain Drain is
Not Irreversible: Turning Drain to Gain Through Incentives, United Nations
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[1] Warren F. Schwartz,
Justice in Immigration (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law), edn,
Cambridge University Press (September 29, 1995), page 1
[2] Elspeth Guild, Joanne Van Selm, International Migration And
Security: Opportunities and Challenges, Volume 18 of Routledge Research in Transnationalism Series, Psychology Press, 2005, page 87
[3] Castles, S. and Miller,
M.J. (1998). The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the
Modern World. Second edition. London: Macmillan, page 34
[4] Bradly J. Condon, Tapen Sinha, Drawing Lines in Sand and Snow: Border Security and
North American Economic Integration, edn , M.E. Sharpe,
2003, page 2
[6] Alexander Betts, Global
Migration Governance, edn, Oxford University Press, 2011, page 60
[8] UN Press Release
POP/844, NUMBER OF WORLD'S
MIGRANTS REACHES 175 MILLION MARK, 2002, available at:
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ittmig2002/press-release-eng.htm
[9] Brain Drain is
Not Irreversible: Turning Drain to Gain Through Incentives, United Nations
Development Programme, Human Development Viewpoint, Published on 01 March 2004, available at:
[10] Brain Drain is
Not Irreversible: Turning Drain to Gain Through Incentives, United Nations
Development Programme, Human Development Viewpoint, Published on 01 March 2004, available at:
[12] Ellerman, D. (2006) The dynamics of migration of the
highly-skilled: a survey of the literature, in Kuznetsov, Y. (ed.) Diaspora
Networks and the International Migration of Skills. How Countries can draw on
their Talent Abroad. Washington DC: World Bank, 21-57
[13] RETURN MIGRATION
AS A CHANNEL OF BRAIN GAIN, Karin Mayr, Giovanni Peri, Working Paper 14039,
available at:
[14] “Brain Drain is
Not Irreversible: Turning Drain to Gain Through Incentives, United Nations
Development Programme, Human Development Viewpoint, Published on 01 March 2004, available at:
[16] Philip L. Martin, Sharing
the Benefits, International Labour Organization (International Institute
for Labour Studies), 2003, p5
[17] Global Migration
Governance– the Emergence of a New Debate, By Alexander Betts (November 2010),
available at http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/Betts_Global-Migration-Governance_Brochure.pdf (page2)
[18] Global Migration
Governance– the Emergence of a New Debate, By Alexander Betts (November 2010),
available at http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/Betts_Global-Migration-Governance_Brochure.pdf (page 2)
[19] Alexander Betts, Global
Migration Governance, edn, Oxford University Press, 2011, page 69
[20] Ibid, page 67
[21] Bid, page 66-67
[22] Mamiko Saito, Second Generation Afghans in Neighbouring
Countries, From Mohajer to Hamwatan; AREU; Dec 2007
Available online at:
www.areu.org.af%2FUploads%2FEditionPdfs%2F724E-From%2520Mohajer%2520to%2520Hamwatan-CS-web.pdf
[23] UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Annual Report on
Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, Mid Year Report 2010, August
2010, available online at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4c6120382.html
[24] A. Jakson, The Cost of War: Afghan Experiences of Conflict, Oxfam International (2009), available online
at:
[25] Ibid
[26] Jazayery, Leila. (2002). “The Migration-Development Nexus:
Afghanistan Case Study.” International Migration (40). pp. 231-254,
available online at:
[27] Source: Afghan Labour Migration and Human Resource
Development,3rd Regional Economic Cooperation Conference, Islamabad 2008[27],
available online at:
[29] Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations, Resettlement and
Reintegration, available online at:
[30] A. Monsutti, Afghan Migratory Strategies and the Three Solutions
to the Refugee Problem, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2008, 27:1
[31] Source: Katie Kuschminder, The Role of the Diaspora in Knowledge
Transfer and Capacity Building in Post-Conflict Settings: The Temporary Return
of Qualified Nationals to Afghanistan, IS Academy Migration Policy Report No. 1
2011, available online at:
[32] Source: Shah Mahmoud Hanifi,
Material and Social Remittances to Afghanistan, available online at: http://www.jmu.edu/mecm/files/ChapterIV.pdf )
[33] Source: Florin-Petru Vadean, Skills and Remittances: The Case of
Afghan, Egyptian and Serbian Immigrants in Germany, Asia Research Institute, WP
92, 2007, available online:
[34] Katie Kuschminder, Highly skilled Afghan diaspora contributes
to innovation and change, United Nations University, 2012, available online
at: http://unu.edu/articles/science-technology-society/highly-skilled-afghan-diaspora-contributes-to-innovation-and-change
[35] L. Jazayery, The migration-development nexus: Afghanistan case
study. International Migration,(2003), 40(5), 231-254
[36] Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Material and Social Remittances to
Afghanistan, available online at;
[37] Michael A. Clemens (Research Fellow at the centre for Global
Development), Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker
Mobility and Development, Working Paper 180, August 2009, available at:
[38] Michael A. Clemens (Research Fellow at the centre for Global
Development), Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker
Mobility and Development, Working Paper 180, August 2009, available at:
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