Export knowledge, not brains

Real opportunity is to keep brains in country, export skills via freelancing

GENEVA:

Brain drain is not a new challenge for Pakistan, rather it is perceived as an opportunity and workers’ remittances are an essential contributor towards balancing the current account deficit.

There is, however, a real opportunity to use such brains if they are kept in country and their knowledge or skills are exported, ie through freelancing. This would save part of earnings that the exported workforce has to spend in host countries, thus sending remittances less than the optimal level.

Freelancing should not be perceived only for small or one-off tasks, rather it goes beyond that, even substituting the corporate offshoring. Pakistanis are doing quite okay in the global freelancing market but limited to IT related and mostly one-off tasks.

It is said that freelancing can fetch up to $5 billion annually and this is certainly achievable, provided there is concerted focus and efforts towards realising this potential.

It is encouraging to note that public and private sectors have started focusing on promoting the freelancing opportunities and giving basic training to enter the market.

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications has put together a draft National Freelancing Facilitation Policy in 2021, and it is hoped to be finalised and promulgated soon.

The government of Punjab has established e-Rozgar centres in 36 districts of the province to provide training to budding freelancers and enhance their professional capabilities.

There are many private sector-led initiatives as well.

In order to consolidate these efforts and truly realise the potential in global freelancing market, it is proposed to establish Pakistan Freelancing Exports Development Authority (PFEDA). To start with, PFEDA may be housed within the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan.

PFEDA may be tasked with the following:

One – To develop a national framework and action plan to steer the professional and skilled Pakistanis towards opportunities in global freelancing markets, in particular the highly skilled and highly paid sectors such as finance, legal, medical and engineering.

Two – To develop the enabling infrastructure for freelancing exports. This infrastructure would include the IT-related facilities such as bandwidth and payment processing facilitation, which is a major issue in Pakistan. PFEDA may develop a payment processing mechanism in order to negotiate and process through platforms such as PayPal.

Three – To act as a regulator for the freelancing professionals. This function would include registration of freelancers in various professional areas and providing them accreditations and credibility though such registrations. At the second level, PFEDA should strive towards mutual recognition, in major target markets, for Pakistani professionals in fields such as medicine, engineering and other regulated professions.

At present, many of the freelancing opportunities are missed due to the lack of recognition of Pakistani professionals’ qualifications in developed markets.

Four – To seek out export markets through Pakistani trade and investment officers posted abroad, for big assignments that individual freelancers or small companies may not be able to capture. For example, PFEDA may negotiate with major US companies to provide them with IT and finance services through Pakistani freelancers.

This is similar to getting an order for offshoring but there is no need to put together a corporate structure in order to handle such assignments. It would be just a skeleton structure, to coordinate, in PFEDA to handle such orders.

Five – To develop institutional and individual capacities for harnessing the potential of global freelancing markets. This would include basic training such as in entrepreneurship and also managing some of the non-professional handlings by Pakistani freelancers that is negatively affecting other freelancers and the overall reputation.

This would also include subject-specific training for areas or skills that are in demand or forecast to be in demand in the near future.

There has been a gradual slowdown in hiring of Pakistani professionals in the global marketplace due to multiple factors, but mainly due to economic growth saturation and trend towards finding cheaper alternatives such as offshoring and freelancing for many of the services.

This is a golden opportunity for Pakistan to harness this potential, which may not be available for a long time as many of the countries are doing their best to pitch their knowledge and skill base for this marketplace. We, in Pakistan, need to do it collectively and institutionally and not too late.

We need to complement the individual efforts, of Pakistani freelancers, through institutional support such as the aforementioned PFEDA. We can easily export knowledge and skills with much better economic and social results than exporting brains.

The writer is an international economist

 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2022.

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