Diaspora Unit
Many years after they left the country for a variety of reasons, and settled in other places around the globe, the diaspora that Guyanese became is now a focus of the Guyana Government. A diaspora in its simplest interpretation refers to people who originate from one country and live in another country or another part of the world. The Guyana Diaspora therefore is about Guyanese and their descendants living abroad. Like other countries, Guyana has moved now to embrace its diaspora formally with the announcement of the setting up of a Diaspora Unit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is not clear what the immediate focus of the Diaspora Unit will be, but one hopeful consequence of this decision is that the current administration would move beyond the select pockets of overseas Guyanese that it has favoured over the years. Thus, it is possible to envisage that sometime soon the work of the Diaspora Unit could lead to diaspora concerns appearing as an endogenous variable in public policy. The model for such a unit exists in over 30 countries already, and it would be interesting to see what Guyana does in its attempt to take advantage of its diaspora.
The strategy for reaching across the ocean into Guyana’s diaspora as a collective would have many things to consider, but it would be interesting to see if this policy includes the active encouragement of migration, considering the many benefits that can be derived from it. Equally interesting would be whether or not thorny issues of corruption and respect for the rule of law, factors that might have helped to fuel the expansion of the Guyana Diaspora, could also be important features of public policy on diaspora. This article seeks to examine what the attempt at a formal integration of the diaspora in the development calculus of Guyana could mean for the country and its global competitive position. Because of space limitations, this article will be published in parts over successive weeks.
Strategic Alliance
Forming a strategic alliance with the Guyana Diaspora now makes Guyana part of a well-documented trend on co-operation between the diaspora of different nationalities and their home countries. The dialogue on the diaspora input in development has acquired such importance that it is part of an expanding international effort to deal with the impact on poverty from migration and globalization. In addition to the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development of the United Nations (UN), there is also the Global Forum on Migration and Development initiated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The loss of intellectual capital or the brain drain is not new nor is it limited to developing countries, though they are disproportionately affected by it. In Guyana’s case, its capital flight is huge. Guyana’s migrant population was estimated at 417,000 as at 2005. This figure is more than 50 percent of the current national population and represents a large pool from which critical intellectual capital could be drawn. If descendants born abroad were included in the count and one could figure out how to capture those living illegally in host countries, the reported figure would no doubt be much higher.
In a report to the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Secretary-General observed that over half of the doctors born in Guyana were working in countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). They are most prevalent in North America and Europe where, according to the 2009 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 88 percent of expatriate Guyanese could be found. The same report indicates that eight percent could be found in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Free Education
The creation and expansion of the diaspora result from migration, the movement and accumulation of people from the home country, in this case Guyana, to the host country, a country in any part of the world. Migration represents both a threat and an opportunity for development. Guyana gained its independence from Great Britain in May 1966, and started off its development push of taking advantage of its natural resource and agricultural endowment with a deficit of professional skills in many fields of endeavour. One strategy to overcome that human resource deficit was the introduction in 1976 of free education from “cradle to the grave” as a means of extending access to educational opportunities for all Guyanese. That investment achieved its goal of educating a vast number of Guyanese in a diverse set of professions including law, medicine, public health, engineering, science and technology, agriculture, veterinary medicine, food technology, architecture, actuarial science, aviation, economics and banking among others. The investment yielded little economic benefits in the period that it was needed since most of the intellectual capital that resulted from that investment became available either for a very short period of time or not at all. It is a period that coincides with a rapid expansion of the Guyana Diaspora. The full impact of the flight of intellectual capital during this period is still to be fully measured, but given the economic and social challenges that emerged, the negative effects could be deemed substantial.
Net Exporter
Guyana continues to believe and invest in education. However, the challenge for Guyana to hold on to its intellectual capital has not changed since it adjusted its economic policies and abandoned its totally free education programme in 1990. An IMF study prepared by Prachi Mishra, and released in 2006, revealed that, at least up to that time, Guyana had lost about 89 percent of its tertiary-educated labour force. The brain drain or loss of persons with skills to produce the goods and services that the country needs is clearly a problem that successive administrations have not been able to remedy. Despite the existence of a free-market economy and changes to the country’s trade laws that also allowed for the free movement of capital and goods, Guyana continues to struggle to consolidate the gains of its investment in education. The UNDP Human Development Report of 2009 reveals that Guyana is a net exporter of human resources, losing an average of 8,000 more persons than it gains. The constant outflow of professionals remains one of the most enduring threats to Guyana’s development. The loss of its skilled workers is visibly obvious and its negative effects are felt almost immediately. Intellectual capital is required by both the private and public sectors and therefore its swift and sudden loss cuts deeply into the productive capacity of the country.
Recklessness and Decadence
The adverse effects of the involuntary creation and expansion of the Guyana Diaspora were not only economic, they were social too. Armed mainly with anecdotal evidence, often times based on personal experience, many Guyanese also blamed migration for the decay in social behaviour and the replacement of family values with a “minibus” culture of recklessness and decadence. They see the absence of one or both parents as major contributors to the collapse of discipline among many young adults and children. It is a difficulty that many feel shows up in classrooms and in the increase in violence in and out of the schoolyards. It makes it harder for the country to cultivate the skills required to meet its development needs. Whether true or not, similar claims of destabilization of communities and the disappearance of traditional community values as a result of migration have been made about other countries in studies published in the Migration Policy Practice Journal. With the numerous reports of violence in the home, even skeptics might find it possible to agree that Guyana needs to fix more than its production system. It also has to address its social problems as it tries to get ahead. (To be continued)
