Involving expatriate Bangladeshis in development

When Jalal Alamgir - an associate professor of Boston University – died in Thailand, the media in Bangladesh carried the news, headlining that “MK Alamgir’s son drowns in Thailand”. Almost all news organizations came up with the similar headlines. It seemed the focus was on Jalal’s father, not him. The reason is that the media didn’t know Jalal as a person. It was only after his death we came to know that he was a great scholar and a writer. He was on a yearlong sabbatical, teaching and doing research at BRAC University in Dhaka. If we knew him properly, the news headlines would have been different, may be: “Bangladeshi scholar drowns in Thailand”.

Well, when we talk about achievements of Bangladeshis aboard, Jalal wasn’t the only person. There are thousands of Bangladeshis who have been showing talents overseas. Bangladeshi researchers and teachers with outstanding merit are working at foreign universities and research organizations. Most of these scholars are silently putting their professional efforts at universities in the western world. We know only handful of them, who sometimes write articles for the local media. Otherwise, the whole lot is unknown to us, especially to the government.

Bangladeshi scientists and engineers have been working in top positions around the world. This writer personally knows a few Bangladeshi scientists with NASA and other organizations doing scientific research. There’s a Bangladeshi engineer who is one of three chief chassis designers for a US car named Hummer. A good number of expatriate people are in the top positions at foreign corporate offices.

Jalal has recently come to Bangladesh and providing his merit to us, but there’s a huge number of population who are totally unutilized. That these professionals could be a goldmine for the country is totally ignored both the public and private sectors in Bangladesh. Why did Jalal come? Because Brac University had identified him and invited him to do the research for them. Well, recently a few private universities have started doing the same thing; they have started to invite expatriate researchers to work for them for a short period of time.

No doubt these people had better education abroad to a great extent. And almost each and every one of them, at some time of their expatriate life or the other, has thought of coming back to the country for work. However, most of the time, the lack of application of their education has deterred them to stay there. Calling this a “brain drain” would be unfair. We on our part could never create any opportunity for them to be engaged in the country’s development.

It’s only recently a few Bangladesh doctors have started doing some short-term work in the healthcare sector. But no-one had ever though of inviting these highly qualified physicians and request them to, at least, train the local doctors. If we do some serious homework, we should be able to find out that Bangladeshi doctors are involved in many inventions as well.

Now what prevents us from taking some help from these Bangladeshis? There are perhaps two reasons: first, maybe we don’t want their help, and second, we don’t what they are doing and where they are.

We only talk about them when we talk about the remittance flowing into the country. Well, let’s have a look at the expatriate businessmen. There have been several occasions when Bangladeshis doing business abroad, in a big way, wanted t invest in their motherland. These businessmen were highly spirited industrialists with lots of money who wanted to help Bangladesh by setting up industries. However, the bureaucratic obstacles and extortions have always blown of their spirits every time a Bangladeshi investor wanted to come here. Just imagine the expatriate industrialists had set up ten factories across the country! We’re always telling the would-be foreign investors that Bangladesh would be a great destination of their investment, but we’re failing to attract our own people in doing the same.

Businessmen are easy to find out because we have chambers of commerce in every developed country where our businessmen doing business. On the other hand, finding out the professionals is quite tough, as these people perform their duties without making any noise. They are quite happy as they are always recognized by their employers. On the other hand, we never knew where they are! There are many instances that the developing countries invited their expatriate population and sought their help in building the country.

But our first task would be to know their whereabouts. We must have database of talents working abroad. The government may consider funding a project to locate these talents who would be great resources for the country. It won’t cost much. We may even assign a local think-tank to shoulder this job. After locating them, we can start a series of consultations with them as to how they can contribute to national development.

Jalal was just a tip of the iceberg; there are thousands out there – ready to help Bangladesh without any shred of hesitation. Let’s not just keep them bracketed in being mere “remittance-senders”, but let’s benefit from their experience and intellect. They’d a great value-addition to national development.