Skilled professionals in Zimbabwe are finding opportunities abroad, with Mauritius snatching up veterinary specialists and Rwanda seeking more public sector workers, according to Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, July Moyo.
Moyo disclosed this while officiating at the launch of a Migrant Resource Centre in Bulawayo on Wednesday stating that orderly migration under a well-defined clear migration policy has benefits for both the receiving and sending country.
“The government of Zimbabwe launched the National Labour Migration Policy in 2021 to create an enabling environment for labour migration governance. The policy signifies the commitment by the government of Zimbabwe to promote safe, orderly and regular flow of people for socio-economic development of the nation,” Moyo said.
Moyo noted that because of the country’s National Labour Migration policy, his Permanent Secretary had led an inter-ministerial delegation to Rwanda to assess the orderly migration Zimbabwe had engaged in with the Rwandans.
“We have sent nurses, doctors, teachers to Rwanda and the Rwandan government is looking at opportunities to increase and diversify the number of people who can still be sent there. Some of the people who went to Rwanda are serving members of the public service. Some of them have been recruited specifically for that purpose and we are in discussion, for instance, with other governments,” he said.
The public service minister added: “I know that Mauritius wants veterinarian doctors to go and work and they believe the Zimbabwean veterinary doctors are the best that they have had.”
Moyo noted that in the past years, Mauritius used to send migrant teachers to Zimbabwe.
“One time I was walking in Mauritius on the beach and all of a sudden, a man and his Mauritian children came and started talking to me because we were speaking in Shona. The man also spoke Shona and on inquiry, I found out that he had been a teacher in Mutoko and that was migration coming to us,” said the minister.
“We have received many migrants through organised migration such as countries like Cuba when we used to receive doctors because we had shortages, particularly in the rural areas.”
The public service minister said if migration is properly organised, it could be beneficial both to the receiving country and to the sending country.
“For those of you who are listening to me, if you want to be a proper migrant, register with these migrant resource centres and tell us where you want to go, and what you want to do and you can be given protection,” Moyo said.
“Even if you go as an individual we also urge our people who are migrants in the Diaspora to liaise with our missions. When you go there by whatever means, however, you have been recruited, your first point of call when you are there is your government institution, which is our diplomatic mission in the country where you are, so that when disaster strikes on you, you know where to go.”
Moyo said labour migration is a key contributor to the 23rd Agenda and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is in line with the National Development Strategy (NDS)1 and the national vision of attaining an upper-middle-income status by the year 2030.
