Education can help alleviate 'brain drain' of African health workers

Jul 29 2011

In a post on the New York Time's "On the Ground" blog, Rwanda Works Director Josh Ruxin writes about two Rwandan cousins who are "fighting the international brain-drain trend that is dangerously affecting medicine in the developing world, and [have] committed themselves to building local medical capacity in their native country" by establishing a university and medical school, called the Kigali Medical University (KMU).

"[B]uilding educational institutions in this developing country has more benefits than meets the eye. Rwanda doesn't have much in natural resources. But it does have a great reserve of human capital: Citizens ready, willing and able to serve their country. Rwanda must develop that resource, and there is perhaps no better way to start than through education," Ruxin writes (7/27).