By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary-General

This week I participated in a conference entitled Immigration Futures, organised by the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements. The panel that I was part of was called the ethics of cherry picking. This panel focused on outward migration which looks at the “brain drain” problem that is facing many predominantly poor countries since some of their most skilled citizens choose to live and work in predominantly rich countries. Manchester in England, UK for example, has more Malawian doctors than the entire Malawian health system!!! For this week’s column I have not used developing and developed or first and third world; these and other distinctions all have their problems; as does the formulation of rich and poor countries. Instead, I have used an equally cumbersome description of “predominantly poor” and “predominantly rich” countries. The reason for this is simple. During the last seven years that I have been with CIVICUS, I have been taken aback by the appalling levels of poverty in some of the richest countries in the world; equally I have been overcome by the excesses of wealth in some of the poorest countries in the world.

To read more, log at www.civicus.org/new/content/deskofthesecretarygeneral32.htm

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