Skill development for manpower

A five-year long project to be funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for human skill development is a welcome move. The dearth of properly skilled manpower is one of the country's emerging problems for expediting the pace of its development activities. This is more so in the context of the needs of today's knowledge-driven globalised economy. In this context, the $1.0 billion project will hopefully meet the twin objectives of stopping drainage of the country's hard-earned foreign exchange and bridging the gap between the demand for, and supply of, skilled manpower both at home and abroad. The ministry of finance is implementing this project to generate skilled manpower both in private and public sectors. Skills so gathered will help the country's workforce to get better jobs and earn good salaries. Three separate allied organisations are also partners of the project.
The finance minister's disclosure at the launching of the project last Monday about foreign skilled workforce remitting abroad a whopping amount of US$4.0 billion annually serves here as a grim wake-up call for all concerned. It signals how non-availability of skills that the country needs very badly, is hitting its businesses and industries in running their operations. A substantial part of income earnings by the expatriate workforce is legally remitted to their home countries. This has a bearing on the overall balance of payments (BoP) situation of a low-income country like Bangladesh.
On the other side, brain drain through migration is not a major issue at this stage, because it has been observed that loss of their contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) may be offset more favourably by inward remittances and their multiple favourable effects on the domestic economy. But the outflow of remittances does tend to neutralise such benefits to a great extent, considering the large amount of funds that are now sent abroad by skilled foreign nationals. Had the domestic manpower of this largely populated country been able to fill up the positions that are now held by the foreign nationals, this problem could largely be addressed. In this context, it is of critical importance for the country to devise a strategy for developing its human resources suited to the needs of the time. There is also a strong potential for augmenting the level of inward remittances through a more focussed attention to exporting an appropriate mix of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled manpower to the overseas job market. A senior official hinted the other day at the government's plan to form a consultative group with civil society organisations for providing a set of recommendations on migration activities.
Remittance inflow has emerged as the country's second biggest source of foreign exchange earning after garment exports. In terms of net receipts, remittance earnings will even be higher than export receipts. The country has, to a great extent, been able to sustain the global shock of oil and food price hikes mostly because of robust inflow of remittances in recent years. Now to achieve the targeted $30 billion share of the worldwide remittance flows, it has to upgrade the skill of its workforce, explore new export destinations and encourage participation of women in the migration pool. There is no denying of some strong relationship between remittances and human resource development. That is why the planned programme, launched by the ministry of finance, for providing skills to the country's workforce will count provided the project is implemented effectively.