Worldwide distribution via the APC networks. Kanyugo says Africa does not offer him, and others out there, much hope. Kanyugo, who is a naturalised U.S. citizen, has lived in America for 17 years. She says Africa bears the cost of raising and educating its professionals in their unproductive years before the latter seek greener pastures abroad. Although the civil wars, abject poverty, and massive unemployment that made the Africans to relocate still stand, RQAN says it is committed to encouraging and facilitating the return of trained and experienced professionals back to Africa.
Expatriates get a hefty package compared to their local counterparts.
This, in turn, forces the African who is equally qualified to divert his or her interests abroad. Most Africans, the IOM says, remain abroad because of inadequate knowledge of job opportunities back home, which might be attractive enough, or because of an inability to foot the relocation bill. To attract the migrants, IOM has launched a major campaign to reclaim the lost talent, through advertisements in local papers, urging firms and businesses interested in various key professionals to contact IOM for potential overseas-based experts. Every year, more than 7,000 persons, most of them refugees from neighbouring countries, are resettled to various industrialised countries from Kenya alone. Since 1983, only 1,500 qualified Africans have been assisted to return to take up jobs in their respective countries.