Bright Jamaicans are going home, which is good news for their country

Brain gain

KINGSTON

Like many of her contemporaries, Elea­nor Brown left Jamaica to be educated and work abroad. But unlike emigrants of previous generations - such as the family of Colin Powell, America's secretary of state - Ms Brown came home. At 31, she is now managing director of her own finan­cial-services company, and is on the board of five others. She is a good example of a growing trend, one which is already hav­ing an important economic and political impact across the Caribbean, and espe­cially in Jamaica: the returning "yuppie", making good in the land of her birth.

When Ms Brown left Jamaica, she be­came part of the island's diaspora of 2m-3m people - huge for a country with a population of just 2.6m. Many left because of the crime and instability that have blighted Jamaica over the past 30 years. Like many other emigrants, Ms Brown, who holds degrees from Brown, Yale and Oxford universities, was among the cream of the nation's talent. This brain-drain is one of the main reasons why Jamaica has struggled in recent decades.

Why are these young professionals re­turning now? Partly because of a modest recovery in the island's fortunes, particu­larly since the financial system collapsed in the mid-1990s. The downturn in Amer­ica has also helped to narrow the gap in opportunities between New York or Mi­ami and the Caribbean. Then there is a per­ception that returning exiles can assume higher levels of responsibility at home, and at a much younger age, than they could in Britain or America. Ms Brown thinks that she would have waited "an­other 20 years" for the openings that have come her way in Jamaica. Likewise, Kris­tine Gibbon, who left Trinidad to be edu­cated at Harvard Business School and else­where, says that she can make a bigger difference in her small native country. At 32, she is a vice-president at one of the larg­est regional financial companies.

Some of those who come back find they have lived for too long in the first world to cope with the power failures, bad roads, poor health-care and often conser­vative ways of the Caribbean. Jason Reid, for example, fled again to Wall Street after just a year in Jamaica, citing the "parochial attitude" of the region and an "unwilling­ness to embrace change". To sweeten the pill, some governments have for years run schemes to entice exiles back. But it is often the private sector that has taken the lead, vigorously recruiting on Wall Street.

The exiles themselves have done their bit too: noting the high proportion of Ca­ribbean-born students at America's top business schools, a group of them last year founded a network to connect this talent pool more closely with the islands. Such high-flyers can help even if they remain abroad, as the examples of other countries that have raised cash through "diaspora bonds" attest. Aubyn Hill, a former exile who now runs the National Commercial Bank, one of Jamaica's largest private banks, is trying to arrange a similar bond issue to restore a part of central Kingston, the capital. This is the kind of "business savvy" that Phillip Paulwell, Jamaica's minister for commerce and technology, is talking about when he describes the "tre­mendous impact" that the homecomers have had on sectors such as banking, busi­ness and telecommunications.

But it is in politics that their presence may yet be most keenly felt. This could be the generation that finally replaces the di­nosaurs who have run Jamaica's two main parties for the past three decades. Deika Morrison, for instance, was lured back by the ruling party last year to become a ju­nior minister of finance, while doing her fourth degree in the United States. At 30, she is the most prominent of many former exiles who are quietly transforming Ja­maica's politics.

Ms Morrison says one of her main ad­vantages is that she "does not have a his­tory", and so can transcend the often ster­ile, partisan pettiness that is one reason why turnout at Jamaican general elections has steadily declined. She sees herself as a "practical problem-solver" - a useful per­son in a place with plenty of problems.

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