How developing countries finance developed countries through brain drain?

Contextualization: 

Brain Drain is the human capital flight of skilled labor emigrating from their home country to another country for a promise of greater living prospects. There are usually push factors in their own country and pull factors in the destination country that evolve around living quality, finding better career opportunities, governance, access to higher education, etc.

The Republic of Haiti experiences severe emigration that constitutes a crisis, as more than 80% of Haitian graduates move abroad. A workshop on migration and its adverse effects on the source country is vital for considerations of human capital development for the source country and its future prospects. We are organizing a two-day workshop that will address the impact of brain drain on Haiti’s growth and welfare as well as recognizing the interlinked dynamics of this phenomenon within our current unequal economic system.

Description: The workshop will take place in Okap, Haiti, March 30th and 31st 2024.  Okap is an historical and attractive town, which symbolized anti-imperialist resistance during colonial times. It is therefore a fitting monument to think about brain drain in neo colonial times. 

We will address the following questions:

• How do developing countries finance developed countries through brain drain?
• How is capitalism and its social division of labor related to brain drain?
• What impact does it have on the economic development of the Global South?
• In what ways can high-skilled workers who emigrated reinvest back home in knowledge and financially? 
• What do we know about the fiscal and production externalities of brain drain?

Preliminary Programme: 

Day 1:

Introduction of YSI
Presentation by senior scholar, followed by a discussion and work project
Participant presentations

Day 2: 
Presentation by senior scholar, followed by a discussion and work project
Film screening and debate