Is the Brain Gain the solution to the Caribbean’ Brain Drain?

President Biden’s proclamation of Caribbean-American Heritage Month celebrates the achievements and contributions of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants living in the United States. Caribbean, food, literature, and music including—reggae, calypso, salsa, merengue, and rhumba—have gained worldwide notoriety. Beyond our culture moving in international orbits, so too are Caribbean people.

While The International Organization of Migrants, the United Nations, and other global entities have confirmed that humanity has been on the move for generations, the rate of emigration of highly educated people from the Caribbean is one of the highest in the world. This phenomenon has impacted the state of healthcare and overall national development throughout the entire region.

While most research on Caribbean migration commonly referred to as ‘the brain drain’ has been conducted by global entities, I am a participant in this phenomenon, being born in the Bahamas and leaving for undergraduate studies. While I live within the diaspora my passion for all things Bahamian and Caribbean and my desire to support these emerging economies fueled my study of “The Bahamian brain drain”.  

As I conducted my study, I was intrigued to learn that participants each charged with developing, implementing, and governing The Bahamas’  policies and programs were concerned about the possibility of national and regional development given the existing rate of brain drain. Citing the global crises of the day, the Right Honorable Mia Mottley Prime Minister of the Republic of Barbados and leader of The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) challenged leaders attending the IX Summit of the Americas to “engage and see how we can make a difference in a real way”.

Given the climate, economic, and other critical crises facing The Bahamas and Caribbean region, I wonder whether national and regional leaders are seeking to harness the brilliance of the diaspora as a mechanism to resolve or at the very least mitigate many of the issues and problems that exist.

The concept of encouraging citizens of the region to return or at the very least share their expertise is called ‘the brain gain’. Many naysayers contend that the brain gain narrative fits and feeds into a nationalist imagination that works in theory but generally loses steam with limited support. Since many researchers will contend that there is always a gap between theoretic narrative and reality, I wonder if harnessing the diaspora's brilliance is on the horizon, so that we can be apart of the solutions to the region's problems.

While the brain drain in The Bahamas and The Caribbean region is a complex one, I do know that many of us in the diaspora are proud of our culture, have gained global academic and professional experience, are passionate about national development, and are just a call or a click away!