A two-way street: Reversing brain drain in Somalia

So the crisis continues. And the brain drain intensifies.  

But what if there was a way to reverse brain drain? This is the question that the International Organization of Migration (IOM) has been asking about Somalia.

“There has been a lot of brain drain in Somalia. How do we bring back those skills that they have been able to achieve in their country of residence to their country of origin?” said Yvonne Jepkoech Chelmio, an IOM official focused on labour and migration in Africa.  

The IOM’s Migration in Africa for Development Programme (MIDA) selects members of the Somali diaspora who are experts in their chosen fields and places them in local hospitals, schools and national ministries in order to build Somalia’s self-sufficiency.

In the past 20 years, MIDA has sponsored the return of over 400 Somalis from 17 different countries. These returnees have worked in many fields — including education and health, as well as climate action, urban planning and the rule of law — all with the hope of advancing sustainable development in Somalia.

‘Drivers of change’

The Somali Civil War which began in 1991 provoked mass displacement, both internally and externally. More than 30 years later, the situation has improved but security continues to be an issue, which in turn is imperilling sustainable development.

“What happens in countries like Somalia is someone becomes skilled in a field, educated, they don’t want to stay here. So you lose talent, you lose skill,” said pedagogy expert, Shire Salad, a diaspora participant in the MIDA program who was placed in the Ministry of Education to work alongside their evaluation development team.  

With two million Somalis living abroad, the Somali diaspora has long played an integral role in the country’s economy. The money they send back as remittances sometimes outpaces direct foreign aid, totalling over $2 billion annually and contributing at least one-third of the national GDP.

But MIDA deviates from a solely economic understanding of the diaspora’s contributions, instead creating avenues for their return which emphasise their technical skills, expertise and international networks. 

“[The diaspora] serve as bridges, as ambassadors, as drivers of change and development actors,” said Nasra Sheikh Ahmed, one of the IOM officials in charge of the programme.

And according to Ms. Ahmed, who is a member of the Somali diaspora herself, one of the most remarkable things about the MIDA programme is that it seizes upon something which already exists — the Somali diaspora wants to return.  

“[The diaspora] still see it as their home. They’re not immigrants in another country. They still see themselves as Somalis. They see themselves as an extension, basically just living somewhere else.”  

Education at the core

While the MIDA programme has operated across many sectors  one of the main sectors on which the MIDA programme has focused is education.  

Mohamed Gure, a professor at Somali National University, participated in the MIDA programme as a local professional who worked alongside members of the diaspora to improve the curriculum for aspiring teachers.  

When Dr. Gure began his studies years ago, he said that there were no programmes in Somalia which offered a doctoral degree in education. So he, like many others, went abroad.

Today, he sees a new sort of problem — not enough Somalis want to become teachers, and those that do believe that they do not need a formal training.  

“Teachers in the classroom do not have training in being a teacher. This will affect the quality of education in Somalia in the long-term,” Dr. Gure said.  

Over the course of a few years, Dr. Gure worked alongside diaspora professionals to develop a new curriculum and create a lasting partnership with the University of Helsinki in Finland.  

For him, the benefits of this new curriculum are already clear — students are learning more, and the online collaborations with students in Helsinki are creating an international network of expertise.

“All this [training] is a resource for the country. All the curricula that were developed for the country will remain. It will be used by lecturers who can train other lecturers,” Dr. Gure said.  

A two-way street

Partnerships, like that which Dr. Gure experienced, are an essential part of the MIDA programme’s long-term impact, ensuring that even after the diaspora professional leave, their contributions remain.  

“We have not just provided skills transfer to two people, but these two people can now transfer to four people. So there’s more sustainability in terms of process,” Ms. Chelmio said.

But this skills transfer is not without challenges. Many of the diaspora who are returning to Somalia have been gone for years, sometimes decades. The Somalia to which they return is quite different from the one they left.  

“Although you may speak the language and you may understand that culture, they still see you as a foreigner,” said Dr. Salad, who left Somalia when he was quite young and “returned with grey hairs.” 

Adapting expertise to the Somali context is essential for sustainable development, and this is something that the local professionals are uniquely equipped to do, creating a two-way street with both parties acting as experts in their own right.

“[The diaspora] don’t understand the context, the dynamic of the country itself. The local expert is able to give the diaspora expert the perspective,” Ms. Chelmio said.  

A future in which Somalis stay

MIDA has, in small ways, reversed the brain drain of the past decades. It has brought back hundreds of diaspora members. And even if they have not stayed, their skills and expertise have.  

But, Somalis are still leaving the country, risking their lives on boats to the Gulf and to Europe out of pure hopelessness And many of them die.  

Dr. Salad hopes that one day for Somalia, there will be no brain drain to reverse.  

“If they had hope in this country, they would have stayed. If they believed this country was going to be a better country, they would have stayed. My hope is that younger generations will have that hope, that they will stay.”