Countries such as Sri Lanka should concentrate on creating opportunities and incentives for skilled workers rather than trying to stop them leaving, a senior World Bank official has said, arguing that outward migration should not be read only as “brain drain”.
Cem Mete, the World Bank’s South Asia Regional Director for People, was responding to a question from NewsFirst about the effect of brain drain on Sri Lanka and other South Asian countries recovering from economic crises and climate pressures, the broadcaster reported on Tuesday.
Mete said the institution has not carried out significant work specifically on brain drain in the region. He pointed instead to understanding what drives people to leave, and addressing those causes through policy and incentives rather than restrictions.
”Pros and cons”, not pure loss
Preventing people from making decisions they believe are best for themselves and their families is neither easy nor necessarily wise, Mete said. Governments should instead create conditions that keep talented citizens connected to their home countries and make returning attractive.
Migrants contribute while living abroad through knowledge transfer, investment and professional networks as well as remittances, he said, and many may choose to return if the right economic and social conditions exist. He described South Asia as a region people stay deeply attached to.
“There is a point there, but I would look at it much more as a pros and cons type of situation,” Mete said, adding that policy should aim at maximising migration’s benefits while addressing its costs.
Social assistance reform
Mete said the World Bank worked with the government after Sri Lanka’s economic crisis to reform a social assistance system that had become largely static and had stopped updating its beneficiary base effectively. It was redesigned so recipients could enter and leave programmes as their circumstances changed, alongside new economic empowerment measures.
Economic crises are devastating, he said, but can expose weaknesses in existing systems and open the way to reform.
His remarks accompany a World Bank report finding that Sri Lanka is closer to becoming an aged society than any other country in South Asia. Departures have been a running concern across the economy, including a shortage of psychiatrists attributed partly to migration, while an earlier UNFPA study counted about 650,000 Sri Lankans in temporary migration.
