Africa Specializing in Capital Exodus?

Léonce Ndikumana


A recent study by Canadian scholars estimates that South Africa alone may have lost up to $1.4 billion due to the export of medical doctors to Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.[1] In turn, the UK may have gained up to $2.7 billion from the services of doctors from the nine sub-Saharan countries surveyed in the study.[2] Some observers argue that the remittances sent home by migrant doctors are a form of returns to investment in their education; some even claim that the sending African countries receive official development aid from the host countries that contributes to financing the training of doctors, among other things. However, these inflows fade in comparison to the losses due to migration of skilled health care professionals. The same holds for other professional areas beside the medical field. In general, there is a net transfer from Africa, making the continent a ‘net financier’ of the rest of the world.




Stemming capital flight could substantially bridge the financing gaps faced by African countries. Doing so could allow African countries to achieve manifold increases in school enrollment. The annual illicit outflows of capital could allow an increase in primary school enrollment by a multiple of 19 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 9 in the Republic of Congo, 6 in Angola, and 5 in Nigeria and Gabon.[3] These are all very rich countries in natural resources that have failed to take advantage of this natural-resource bonanza to achieve high standards in social development.


In the meantime, African countries will gain from establishing mechanisms to leverage the investment capital and technical expertise of their Diasporas. Indeed, it is estimated that African governments can mobilize billions of dollars annually by selling bonds to their migrant nationals, banking on the latter’s ‘patriotic bond’.

[1] Mills, E.J. et al (2011) “The financial cost of doctors emigrating from sub-Saharan Africa: human capital analysis.” British Medical Journal, 24 November 2011.

[2] The study surveyed the following countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

[3] These estimates are obtained using the public expenditure per student (% of GDP per capita) and GDP per capita data from the World Bank Development Indicators (complemented by the UNESCO database for some countries), and the data on capital flight from Ndikumana and Boyce (2011), Africa Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent. London, Zed Books.


5 Responses to “Africa Specializing in Capital Exodus?”

  1. […] Africa Specializing in Capital Exodus? Triple Crisis […]

  2. Charlie Bronson says:

    Maybe those stats are true, but if you revisit them ex-SA, the figures are less dim. SA has had a brain-drain due to BEE, much less of an issue in other SSA countries.

  3. […] is from Léonce Ndikumana: Africa Specializing in Capital Exodus?, by Léonce Ndikumana: Even as Africa faces severe shortages of skilled labor at home, it experiences large and […]

  4. i have heard this before but can’t recall where i did, still interesting though,

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