Kenya’s Ruto: Labour Export to Germany is Not Brain Brain; There’s Enough Where Those Come From

Friday September 13 2024

Kenya's President William Ruto holds a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Germany on September 13, 2024. PCS

By AGGREY MUTAMBO

Kenya’s President William Ruto on Friday said a bilateral deal his country had signed with Germany would not erode the skills needed to help industrialise, but was instead an opportunity to address youth unemployment.

At a joint press briefing with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Dr Ruto fought back criticism that the deal could lead to brain drain as masses of educated Kenyan youth target better jobs in Germany. 

The deal known as Kenya-Germany Comprehensive Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement (some German dispatches labelled it an MoU for a pilot project on job placements) is meant to “formalise the cooperation on migration and labour mobility between both countries.”

According to a brochure shared with the media on Friday, it is expected to provide a framework for cooperation and information exchange on labour mobility, apprenticeship, student training, labour market needs, employment and welfare of workers, readmission, and return.

But the merging question is whether it could lead to more educated people fleeing Kenya, leaving the country’s industrialisation targets in limbo.

“I want to assure you that we have skills, we have developed a huge human capital. As you may be aware, Kenya is a young country,” Dr Ruto said.

“We have a huge young population that cannot only satisfy our industrialisation agenda in Kenya but also here in Germany. In fact, it will provide an avenue for us to tap the skills here,” he argued.

That agreement, he said, had been negotiated in the past year and focuses on all “skills sets” and would ensure Kenyan training centres raise their standards to be at per with Germany’s, including twinning syllabi and training Kenyans in German.

The deal is expected to provide opportunities for at least 250 professional, skilled and semi-skilled Kenyan nationals in fields such as information technology and engineering, to work in Germany, helping the European country meet its needs in the necessary sectors and address an ageing workforce problem.

In Nairobi, however, that has to be balanced with some of the policies Ruto’s government pledged before he was elected.

They had promised to raise industrialisation to at least 15 percent of GDP, up from seven percent.

Kenya traditionally has relied on agriculture and the service industry to sustain its economy, now expected to grow at 5.2 percent on average, according to the World Bank.

Yet he also promised to address the huge youth unemployment problem amid local scarcity of jobs, which may mean hunting for opportunities abroad. For that, Ruto’s government has taken flak for exporting labour, some even semi-skilled.

In Germany, however, the deal addresses a different political problem: Illegal migration. Part of the deal will ensure illegal Kenyans in Germany are returned to Nairobi and Kenya will ensure they don’t sneak back.

Germany has been one of the most accommodative Western Europeans to migrants but has struggled to tame the flow.

Some 92,119 individuals illegally entered Germany between January and September of 2023, according to official figures. Others entered legally but overstayed. 

Then there is a group that entered legally, then applied for asylum, which was denied, but then vanished into the country to avoid deportation.

Officially, this deal is to provide a “win-win” model for solving Germany’s labour conundrum occasioned by the retirement of the “baby boomer generation” while offering decent remote jobs to restive, but qualified, young Kenyan professionals, according to a dispatch.

“We are happy to export Kenyan expertise to support German industrialisation. There is also the opportunity that we can transfer some of your industries to Kenya so that we do not have to export the labour here,” President Ruto said. “This agreement gives us an opportunity to avoid illegal immigrants, because illegal immigrants give a problem to both Kenya and Germany.”

Chancellor Scholz, backing the deal, has had to convince local politicians to support it. At the joint press conference, he said Germany needs skilled workers from Europe and many other places in the world, legally.

The country has taken in six million workers, a figure he said has saved Germany from “a very difficult situation” of an ageing workforce. 

“Germany has the opportunity to evade that trap while benefiting both countries,” he said.

That will continue, he said, but Germany wants “a clear reduction of irregular migration and better border management…By using this openness we can use this agreement to return people when it becomes necessary.”