Caribbean countries can benefit from their high migration, UN regional body says

Caribbean countries, with one of the highest net-migration rates in the world, maybenefit from this movement by establishing “brain gain” networks for its diaspora and providing health and education services for foreigners, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says in a new report.

Since the late 1970s, some developing countries, especially in Asia, have been placing growing emphasis on considering expatriate skilled population a potential asset instead of a definite loss and setting up brain gain networks. The brain gain is implemented either by repatriating the skilled expatriates for various periods of time, or by associating them with development programmes, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The ECLAC report says more studies are also needed of the remittances sent by migrant workers overseas and the socioeconomic impact on the receiving country.

Caribbean countries have a long-standing history of emigration to Europe and Northern America and the figures released in 2003 by the UN Population Division indicate that the region has lost more than 5 million people over the last 50 years, it says.

While the small countries lose nurses and teachers to Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, the health and education sectors of these countries are suffering from worker shortages, it says.

Within the Caribbean area, the free movement of people presents both opportunities and obstacles, the report says. Many in the Caribbean see the benefits of free movement, but also see that given the multicultural nature of the subregion and its many different languages and cultures, the issue of multiculturalism needs to be further addressed.

The report, based on an expert group meeting held in Trinidad and Tobago in mid-September, will be presented at the next Ad Hoc Committee on Population and Development during the ECLAC meeting next April, as well as at the UN General Assembly’s high-level dialogue on international migration and development during its 61st session next fall.

Within the Caribbean region, available data indicate that one-third of Caribbean migrants reside in Trinidad and Tobago, about one-quarter in the US Virgin Islands and one in 10 in Barbados. The major sending countries include Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Guyana.

Some islands, especially those with growing tourist sectors, such as the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, along with Antigua and Barbuda, the Dutch dependencies of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, have resident populations in which one-third or more are foreign-born.

While some countries benefit from these migratory flows through remittances or the influx of skilled people, other nations have been suffering severe consequences from the brain drain, especially from their public health and education sectors.