The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with Ronald Skeldon and Ibrahima Amadou Dia on:
From Brain Drain to Brain Gain?
Sending Country Perspectives on Skilled Migration and Development
Monday, 2 March 2009, 15.00-17.00
Danish Institute for International Studies
Main Auditorium
Strandgade 71, ground floor, 1401 Copenhagen K
Background
Highly skilled migration from developing to Western countries is often conceptualised as brain drain and as detrimental for development. However, recent research and policy development challenges mainstream assumptions of brain drain, insisting that skilled migration is a more complex phenomenon. Firstly, there is evidence that brain drain is occurring as much within developing countries as from these countries. Secondly, the mobility of highly skilled migrants cannot be seen in isolation from other types of migration. Rather, skilled migration reflects various scenarios which can be conflicting or complementary: temporary migration, permanent settlement, diaspora, loss, waste, gain, or circulation.
This DIIS migration seminar takes stock on recent practices and policies on highly skilled migration, addressing a range of questions: How can skilled migration and its possible development effects be conceptualized? What are the causes, forms and effects from the perspective of sending countries in Asia and Africa? And, finally, what are the concerns and hopes?
Ronald Skeldon is Professorial Fellow in Geography at Sussex University, UK, and Honorary Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He is a distinguished scholar on international migration and has also worked as a consultant to international organisations, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Skeldon has published a range of articles on skilled migration as well as the book Migration and Development: A global perspective (Longman, 1997).
Ibrahima Amadou Dia is Researcher at the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and is finalizing his PhD on international migration of highly skilled workers. Dia has worked as a consultant to international organisations, including the International Labour Organization (ILO), IOM, and UNAIDS, on various aspects of international highly skilled migration and has published widely on the subject.
Programme
15.00-15.10 Introduction
Nauja Kleist, Project Researcher, DIIS
15.10-15.40 Skilled Migrations in a Global System: Consequences for
Development
Ronald Skeldon, Professorial Fellow, University of Sussex, UK
15.40-16.10 Highly Skilled Migration and the Development of the
Homeland in Sub-Saharan Africa: Perceptions, Practices
and Concerns
Ibrahima Amadou Dia, Researcher, University of Geneva,
Switzerland
16.10-16.20 Coffee Break
16.20-17.00 Discussion
Chair: Nauja Kleist, Project Researcher, DIIS
This is the first of three seminars in the 2009 Migration Seminar Spring Series. The series critically explores visions and practices concerning migration and development. This relates not only to remittances but also to how migration and its effects are attempted to be governed – for instance in relation to highly skilled migration, diaspora organizations, sending-state policies, and conflict. Based on cutting-edge research and ongoing policy involvement, the seminars present current policy development as well as migrant responses and practices, questioning common sense assumptions and presenting new perspectives.
Practical Information
The seminar will be held in English.
Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Registration was closed Friday 27 February at 12.00 noon. |
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