Belgium is just poor. Its poverty has nothing to do with immigrants. I have now learnt that there is a lot of propaganda that all European countries are rich. This is a myth. Some Eastern European countries (in the EU) are basically dirt poor e.g. Romania and Bulgaria.

But to come back to Belgium, I guess they did not steal enough during the days of colonialism. This is the period when countries like Britain, France, Portugal and Spain became rich. Belgium had only Congo, Rwanda and Burundi (I stand to b corrected). And so now its too late for poor Belgium to catch up. There are no more colonies to steal from.

You are right about France. Ther immigrants just wait to get a French passport and then they travel to the UK, Germany and Scandinavia to work under the EU rules.

I have a senagalese friend who grew up in france, but moved to america and immediately began working on getting her U.S. citizenship. She basically said that france is the worst place to be if you are either african or arab. She said there’s no chance of upward mobility if you are not “white”.

Odesk sounds like elance and numerous other companies that allow you to hire freelance programmers. I’ve been using elance for 3 years now and they’ve been getting better and better in terms of making it easier for you (the customer) to outsource a variety of work to different programmers from around the world.

Noni:
Is it upto the government to market it or should the individual companies be going after these clients? I think this was the key to the success of the indian companies: they didn’t wait for the government. they instead went out and sought these american companies.

And at the end of the day, isn’t that the real job of any owner of a company? to go out and get the clients? the government can’t do that for you.

I saw it on BBC the other day and I was impressed.

You can basically bid for IT projects from home and also work from home. I was on their website too.

Are there Kenyans working from home who could bid for jobs on these kind of websites?

With the current global financial crisis, many large companies may be forced to cut costs to remain afloat and may take the option of outsourcing some of their jobs. Even governments will not stand in the way.

By the way France has been outsourcing a lot of their work to Morocco and Morocco is one the major hubs for outsourcing in Africa. In fact Morocco economy has been doing so well and mind you they don’t have those minerals such as oil for them its just services(BPOs, Tourism, Financials) and agriculture just like us. They also get alot of FDI from france.

@KE
Kenya ICT board has been working had to market Kenya as an ICT hub. I believe they are making inroads but still more work needs to be done. Also government and provate sector seem to investing in this area. There are plans to build a BPO park in Athi River. Also along Mombasa road, sameer business park is already being constructed and will be finished by end of next year. I also know 2 software companies in Kenya that are hiring many developers and their clients are based in Europe.

I am of course comparing Belgium to its Northern European neighbours i.e Germany, Netherlands, France, Luxemborg, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Denmark & Sweden.

Some neighbourboods in Belgiun are so rundown they look like river road in Nairobi. There is litter on the streets etc.

Southern Europe is generally poor as well i.e. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy.

You are wrong about the French. They would not outsource jobs because the government would immediately be thrown out. There would be riots on the streets. The French are the most socialist of all western European economies. They have been opposing the abolition of subsidies for EU farmers for decades (all the other countries have agreed). Their farmers would immediately go bankrupt if they were to face competition. The French run one of the most protected economies in Europe.

As for the Germans – they are really good at everything. They even clean their own streets, drive their buses and taxis, man their train stations etc. these are jobs that are normally done immigrants in other countries. They are not about to outsource any jobs.

I think I’ve found the link: http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/.....99s-crown/

That is a very good article and thanks for pointing it out.

I’m not surprised. I’ve been complaining about Indian customer service reps for years here.

However, let’s all remember, that you can have the best infrastructure in the world, but if you can’t get the clients, you won’t make any money. So, how, if you are thinking about starting a call center in Kenya, would you work to get the American companies to switch over? i.e to move from India to Kenya?