Sudan’s brain gain:

The Japanese Journal of International Cooperation in Education published a paper that examines the drivers of brain gain by investigating the motivations of migrants who plan to return and contribute to their home country. It focuses on highly skilled Sudanese migrants in Japan, including a group of “plan-to-return” migrants (P-group), who intend to gain knowledge abroad that they will use to contribute to their homeland upon their return.

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, two million migrants left Sudan in 2019. Sudan is one of Africa’s low-income countries, and push factors for emigration include political repression, conflict ,lack of economic opportunities and lack of opportunities for training and professional development. Research by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2019 indicated that 88% of migrants have education beyond a bachelor’s degree. Although the UNDP report acknowledges that the survey approach was “eclectic, its statistics show that many educated Sudanese go abroad. This is an instance of the phenomenon known as the brain drain, i.e. the “international transfer of human resources in the form of human capital”, which flows principally from developing countries to developed ones.

In an interview, Fatima, a Sudanese graduate student studying information and communication technology (ICT) in Japan, remarked, “I think the situation is getting worse in Sudan. That makes me more motivated to take] action”. Fatima came to Japan to pursue a master’s degree in ICT, which she has studied since she was an undergraduate student in Khartoum. She aims to contribute to the development of Sudan through ICT, and this motivation developed before she came to Japan. Fatima is a member of the “plan-to-return” group (P-group), which encompasses people who go abroad with the intention of gaining knowledge and experience that they can apply in their home communities upon their return. Members of the P-group are specifically motivated to give back to the communities of their home country. The research examines that motivation, focusing on the experiences of Sudanese migrants in Japan.

Islamic norms and social connections in Sudan may affect the P-group’s aspirations and decision-making processes. As noted earlier, the P-group members spent most of their life in Sudan, and Sudanese culture emphasizes personal bonds. The culture is based on collectivism .In such society, interdependence and harmony are highly valued, and mutual obligations and expectations depend on status or rank. The study’s results suggest that the drive to contribute expressed by highly-skilled migrants could result from their home country’s cultural expectation of mutual aid.