Q Mr. President, my name is Bai Best (phonetic) from Liberia. The late Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller was the first black -- the first black psychiatrist（精神病学家） in America and probably in the world. In my country in Liberia, where there are a lot of great people who make landmark accomplishments both in their nation and in the world, many of them are not recognized for their accomplishments. Today, Dr. Fuller’s name is etched（蚀刻） where there is a medical -- there is a psychiatric center named in his honor at a place in Boston. There are many other young African and young Liberian talented people who have great ideas and who want to come back home and contribute to their countries, to the development of their peoples. But many times, their efforts -- their patriotic（爱国的） efforts -- are stifled by corrupt or sometimes jealous officials in government and in other sectors. It’s an age-old problem. Many times, they want to seek -- that basically leads them to seek greener pastures and better appreciation abroad instead of coming back home. What are your thoughts on this?THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, this is a problem that’s not unique to Africa. Given different stages of development around the world, one of the problems that poorer countries often have is that the best educated and the most talented have opportunities elsewhere. And so there’s what’s called the “brain drain（人才外流） ” -- people saying, I can make 10 times as much money if I’m a doctor in London as I can if I’m a doctor back home.And so this is a historic problem. Here is the interesting moment that we’re in, though -- if you look at where the greatest opportunities are, they're actually now in emerging markets. There are countries in Africa that are growing 7, 8, 9 percent a year. So if you’re an entrepreneur now with an idea, you may be able to grow faster and achieve more back home that you could here.Now, it entails greater risk, so it may be safer to emigrate. But it may be that you can actually achieve more, more quickly back home. And so the question is for young leaders like yourselves, where do you want to have the most impact? And you’re probably going to have more impact at home whether you’re a businessman or woman, or you are a doctor or you are an attorney, or you are an organizer. That's probably going to be the place where you can make the biggest change.Now, you’re absolutely right, though, that the conditions back home have to be right where you can achieve these things. So if you want to go back home and start a business, and it turns out that you have to pay too many bribes to just get the business started, at some point you may just give up.And that's why one of the things that we’re trying to do -- working with my team -- when we emphasize development, good governance is at the center of development. It’s not separate. Sometimes people think, well, that's a political issue and then there’s an economic issue. No. If you have a situation where you can’t start a business or people don't want to invest because there’s not a clear sense of rule of law, that is going to stifle development.If farmers have so many middlemen（中间商，经纪商） to get their crops to market that they're making pennies when ultimately their crops are being sold for $10, over time that stifles agricultural development in a country. So what we want to do is make sure that in our interactions with your governments, we are constantly emphasizing this issue of good governance because I have confidence that you’ll be able to figure out what changes need to be made in your country.I’ve always said the destiny of Africa is going to be determined by Africans. It’s not going to be determined by me. It’s not going to be determined by people outside of the continent. It’s going to be determined by you. All we can do is make sure that your voices are heard and you’re able to rise up and take hold of these opportunities. If you do that, I think that there are going to be a lot of people who -- even if they're educated abroad -- want to come home to make their mark.All right. Let’s see, I’m going to call on this young lady right here.
|
|
