one third of African professionals have
left the continent and this amounts to
about 10 million African mini dollars in
the past decade alone I will this this
information is actually from the
International Organization for Migration
there is an African statesman that spoke
about this issue and I will quote him
this was in 2015 and he said in Africa
we spend four billion dollars recruiting
expats to work on our projects on
projects that are funded by the financed
by foreign aid and we still spend in
Africa 3.6 billion educating people in a
total per year so the 3.6 billion is
very close to the 4 billion that we
spend and we spend three point six
billion educating people and we lose a
big percentage of them they leave so
something has to be done because when
you look at the numbers spending four
billion to hire roughly 150,000 expats
versus the ones that we actually lose it
is challenging I would put it this way
to avoid using the word worrying and
because it is the challenge and in
Africa we have reached a time where we
need to grab our challenges and we
actually need to face the realities
because the loss of African intellectual
property is actually a big challenge for
the development of our country so we
need to work on something that will
inspire people to actually think of
coming back and the good news for the
continent is that 70 percent of the
African professionals who work outside
the continent want to come back
70% of them actually want to come back
and work on the continent so this is a
great opportunity now this is a good
news that we need to actually work on
and we need to inspire them not only to
come back but we need to create the
conditions for them to come back and
speaking of that this is where I want to
say that when we look at how much we pay
we usually do pay a Western consultant a
thousand euros or sometimes even more
per day for him to come and support the
project implementations and I can assure
you that if only we had a way to take
that take that information and inform
the Diaspora about the terms of
references about the conditions that we
will you will be surprised how many
Africans highly qualified can actually
fulfill the needs of those resources so
basically I think that it is time that
we look at what needs to be done we need
to take advantage of this the technology
today supports this the technology helps
us we need to look at a different
business model the world is changing the
way we do business is changing we are
sometimes seen as arrogant invader
because we were exposed to foreign
cultures and foreign realities so yes we
do have a challenge with and we need to
get ourselves ready and prepared before
we come so I love to say this about
Africa there is a proverb in Africa that
says that when you go to a place a new
place first thing you must do is first
pay respect to the elders then you must
listen to the beat of the songs and how
the dance goes because you can’t go and
think that you’re going to
stop dancing immediately no you first
you listen then slowly you start getting
into it the African way okay because
it’s very important only then will you
create the conditions to be accepted to
be received you have to communicate in a
way that the communities can relate to
you you cannot come with all those very
sophisticated terminologies excuse
anymore no you will have to find a way
to communicate so that they can relate
to you and once you do that you will be
more accepted the transfer the knowledge
transfer has to be a mutual thing you
will actually end up learning because
every trip that I take in Africa I
learned every country I always learn
there is so much to be done and but to
also to be to be grabbed from their own
experience I’ll tell you a very quick
story when I what happened to me when I
was in Burkina Faso and I the network
expansion was what’s going on but then
we faced a delay a 60-day delay because
of a community resistance of the site
where they were going to actually put
the station the site and I could not
understand so I decided to pay a visit
to the the chief of that village and as
I got there I said to him papa
I came to pay respect to the elders
that’s what we came to do and you know
this site is going to bring meant much
benefits to the community you will be
able to speak to your children in the
country overseas and we cannot do this
without you and typical African the man
says aha my daughter my child thank you
at least you came you have respected us
that land is sacred land we need to
perform some ceremonies and we will take
care of it and then you will you will be
able to put the site basically only that
engaging directly with the communic with
the community resolve the issue but I
can assure you that
executive Western executive would have
gone to the government the government
would have come they would have actually
imposed by law that this site was
granted for telecoms development and it
will be here and you will then create a
perception and negative corporate
perception within that community and you
will be rejected by the community so yes
let us respect our elders these are the
communities that the dyes where I
supposedly coming in to support and
share knowledge but then we have to come
in also prepared it’s very important
that we come in prepared I would like to
say that this experience has been ever
since I’ve taken this proverb with me in
all the countries in Africa and this has
helped me in my success and and really
being able to communicate with that
aspera is you learn you listen you pay
your respect to the elders there is no
way that we can really start getting
fruits from the Brain Gain strategy that
we need to put together so that we can
all benefit from it those who are over
there they’re dying they’re willing to
come and those of us who are here we
need their support so it’s a win-win
situation let us take advantage of this
connect sound because this is connect
sound today so that we can leverage on
promoting the Brain Gain for Africa for
Cabo Verde we need to make sure that we
ensure that we capitalize on social
expertise on economic expertise on
cultural exchange because this is where
Africa is going to go this is what cape
verde needs and we need to capitalize on
the success of our country as well thank
you very much [Applause]