Research Report
Forum: General Assembly 2nd Committee
Issue: Finding measures to reduce the brain drain phenomenon
in the refugees’ countries of origin
Student Officer: Fabiënne Baas
Position: Chair
Introduction
Over the years there have been many conflicts in the world. Often this meant that citizens had to
flee from their homes because the conditions they lived in were unbearable. The safest and
fastest way of fleeing requires affluence. This is why most of the well-educated people are, most
commonly, the first people to leave a country in unrest, or a dangerous area. Consequently, less
experts, doctors, technicians and teachers are left; this phenomenon is called human capital
flight, or brain drain. The effects of brain drainage are destructive. These people may not return
to their home countries if this place isn’t safe or secure enough yet, or if the ongoing conflict
hasn’t stopped. This means that there are no doctors to take care of the healthcare, no teachers
to give the children a future, no businesspeople to connect the world with the country in
question. In other words: the CO will lack the ability to sustain itself due to the loss of
professionals delivering critical services to the citizens. The GDP declines, the development
decreases and the hope for the future is gone. Is there a way to stop the brain drainage?
Definition of key terms
CO: An abbreviation of Country of Origin.
Expatriate: A person who temporarily (or permanently) lives in a country other than its native
country, mostly related to employment.
Retention: The act of keeping, or retaining something or someone. (In this case: preventing
people from leaving their CO.)
Brain drain: Brain drain, or human capital flight, is the phenomenon of the loss of the CO’s most
valuable, talented and educated workers due to a migration to another country. Mostly, this
happens because of decreased living conditions, political instability, low pay for work and a low
number of opportunities on the job market. Push and pull factors influence the choice of the
workers to migrate or not. This choice is very tough most of the time, because this individual has
to leave behind its family, friends and CO.
Brain circulation: The phenomenon of well-educated people being useful to their COs, putting
their CO on the map under international circumstances. With brain circulation, COs believe that
they are ‘’investing’’ rather than losing their experts.
Exodus: A (sudden) wave of people emigrating/fleeing from their CO.
General overview
Although every situation is different, the results are almost always the same: well-educated
people flee to other nations, the CO’s lose knowledge and potential. There are multiple conflicts
going on around the globe; consequently, brain drain is happening in many different places. The
most well-known situation at the moment is the refugee crisis in Syria. Not just Europe, but the
whole world is put up with the task to take care of these people. Many countries in the close
regions of Syria are hosting refugees, but countries as the U.A.E. are not taking any refugees in.
Another place where brain drain is happening, is Afghanistan. With violence on the rise again
due to the withdrawal of foreign armies, there is a lack of security, and a lot of unemployment.
Afghanistan itself has taken actions against the brain drain with social media campaigns and
flyers about the negative effects of leaving the countries and brain drain. To see what might
happen to these countries, we can take a look at countries, which are not dealing with refugees,
but brain drain migrants, like Russia and Greece. Russian citizens that didn’t agree with the rules
and do not feel they have a stable future, have fled (people are still fleeing because of this), and
in Greece, there was brain drain due to the financial crisis. There might be solutions or facts that
are useful to solve the current crisis of brain drain.
Syria
More than half of Syria’s population was forced to leave their homes. The Syrian refugee crisis is
called ‘’The Worst Humanitarian Crisis in the World Today’’. But how did this start? It began with
the protests of the Arab spring in 2011. Instead of being overthrown, the Syrian dictatorship, ran
by president Al-Assad, fought back with violent forces. 95% of the refugees caused by this
conflict now live in the neighbouring countries. The other refugees turn to Europe, where they
hope to find a better future. Europe has been hesitant to take in all the refugees, and struggling
with the amount of people to provide housing to.
There is one problem: this process takes a very long time. The refugees are not allowed to work,
and the process of finding a job is incredibly hard for a refugee, because they don’t speak the
language of the country they are placed in, and most of the employers are reluctant to give
these refugees a job. There is also the problem of education: the refugees are not provided with
(free) education. In this way, the refugees might not live up to their potential in an academic
way in the long run. At this moment, there is no clear solution to this problem. The Syrian
government, and even the IS group, are terrified of brain drain. To try to keep Syrians from
fleeing, IS has posted videos on social media, with footage of drowning people in the
Mediterranean sea, and idyllic scenes from Syria. Will this stop the brain drain?
Afghanistan
With the withdrawal of the NATO troops from Afghanistan, the citizens are afraid that the
situation in their country will start to get worse. With a rise of refugees starting up, the Afghan
government is afraid the exodus of brain drain to happen. The government is trying to avoid
brain drain by spreading messages onto social media, but it isn’t helping its people from the
terrorising violence of the Taliban. The people working as journalists, professionals, or the
workers that are hit by the economic crisis try to flee the country as quick as possible. They live
in constant fear for being thrown into jail for their progressive (according to the government)
actions. The country’s fragile economy suffers more and more to the lack of professionals.
This politician is trying to tell the Afghan
citizens not to leave. This campaign is mostly
aimed at students and well-educated citizens.
Iran
After the Iran-Iraq war, Iran was destroyed. The living standard was very low, and not only the
highly educated individuals left the country, but also the poorer citizens. In 2006, the president
of Iran had tried to eradicate all university professors, which were ‘’liberal and secular’’. This
lead to a decrease in education opportunities for students.
With such a drain of people, little well-educated people are left. One other reason for the brain
drain, is the impoverished job market. Due to the sanctions on Iran from Europe, Iran has had
difficulties with creating jobs and helping its citizens to have an income. For the highly educated
individuals, this has been a big issue, because the job they studied for, might not even exist.
Because of this, they migrate to other countries, where it is possible to work. With Iran claimed
to be ranked the highest in the list of countries suffering from brain drain, the country is
desperate about solving this problem. It is trying to reverse the trend by introducing new rules
about education and by establishing new foundations, especially for science and technology. Iran
is suffering the most from scientists and technologists leaving the country.
Russia
More and more people leave Russia to live in one of the western countries. The reason for this,
is that the educational system is not good enough, people feel threatened by the government,
and the fact that some people do not believe Russia will have a stable academic and economical
future. There is little to no technological development, the place in the world’s economy isn’t
stable at all, and Russia is very competitive compared to the western countries. Mostly the youth
has the urge to flee. Some study abroad, or participate in internships, but most have to return.
There is a vicious circle which continues, due to the leaving of the citizens. Less citizens lead to
less people that can improve the country, and with a decreasing quality of the country’s
situation, more and more people will leave.
Greece
Due to the financial debt crisis, Greece has been struggling with low pay (mainly for highly
educated people) and a lack of employment opportunities. Youngsters that do not believe they
have an academic future in Greece, leave for countries such as Germany and the UK. In these
countries, life is, according to the migrants, Greece is the country with the highest level of brain
drain of advanced western economies in modern times.
Countries involved
Syria
U.A.E.
Iran
Afghanistan
All of the European countries
What has already been done
COs have been coping with brain drain with great difficulty. Some countries have tried to halt the
brain drain by founding new education programmes, creating more opportunities in the job
market and spreading messages about the importance of highly educated individuals to the
countries themselves. To create these programmes, campaigns, or to completely improve the
living standard, increase the pays for the jobs and create jobs, a lot of money is necessary. In
poor countries, which are struggling with refugees at the moment, this is a very tough job. They
do not have the means or the capital to improve the situation, and this will only get worse if the
brain drain continues.
The UN member states in the general assembly 2 of ScalaMUN need to find a solution to this
problem. Examples of solutions could be a brain-drain task force, an international fund that
subsidises the pay of local professionals, or help local governments with campaigns like
mentioned before. Some causes of the brain drain are the conflicts and bad living conditions in
the COs, it is possible that the solution to the root of this problem can be found there.
"The irony of international migration today is that many of the people who migrate legally from
poor to richer lands are the very ones that Third World countries can least afford to lose: the
highly educated and skilled. Since the great majority of these migrants move on a permanent
basis, this perverse brain drain not only represents a loss of valuable human resources but could
prove to be a serious constraint on the future economic progress of Third World nations" . This
quote by Micheal Todaro signifies the difficulty of dealing with brain drain, especially for third
world countries, and the countries with refugees leaving their countries. Brain drain is a major
problem that resonates all over the world, and together with all the countries in this committee,
a solution has to be found.
Important documents
http://www.lse.ac.uk/businessAndConsultancy/LSEEnterprise/pdf/Brain-Drain-(English).pdf
http://www.ukessays.com/essays/economics/causes-and-effects-of-brain-drain-in-developingeconomics-essay.php
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home
http://www.unhcr.org/cgibin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=4ad334a46&query=iran%20brain%20drain
http://blog.euromonitor.com/2013/11/special-report-brain-drain-a-global-problem.html