Diaspora talent attraction and skills transfer in Malaysia
Since 2010, Malaysia has been increasingly investing in diaspora engagement in terms of talent attraction and skills transfer to address both its “brain drain” concerns and skills gaps in critical sectors. In 2011, Malaysia established TalentCorp to lead the country’s work to attract, nurture and retain talent. TalentCorp has since developed a number of programmes to engage the diaspora, including through its MyHeart platform and Returning Expert Programme.
With support from EUDiF, TalentCorp enhanced its diaspora engagement and talent attraction activities. The CDL project, supported TalentCorp to learn from international and regional practices in the triumvirate of diaspora engagement, talent attraction and skills transfer.
Through benchmarking TalentCorp’s work against international best practices, fostering dialogue with peer institutions from Asia, and developing a monitoring framework, the project aided TalentCorp to make evidence-based strategic and programmatic improvements, whilst also enhancing regional cooperation.
Programme of activities
The project conducted a comprehensive analysis of Malaysia's talent attraction and skills transfer programme, namely the Return Expatriate Programme, benchmarking it against international best practices. The exercise assessed Malaysia's programming via two intersecting frameworks: the diaspora engagement ecosystem, and the engagement funnel. It combined desk research with key informant interviews with government and diaspora stakeholders.
The resulting report serves as a resource for programme implementation and strategic planning to enhance Malaysian diaspora engagement, including REP optimisation.
To support Malaysia to apply the report's recommendations, EUDiF facilitated a prioritisation workshop during which TalentCorp identified its priorities and assigned responsibility for recommendations under three of the clusters. TalentCorp received the prioritisation tool to complete afterwards as an internal exercise.
An in-person peer exchange in Kuala Lumpur brought representatives from Armenia, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines to facilitate peer learning on diaspora engagement frameworks, with a specific focus on talent attraction and skills transfer schemes.
EUDiF facilitated an additional exchange at interregional level when TalentCorp joined the 2025 Future Forum and a dedicated side-event for institutions from partner countries. This allowed Malaysia to connect with countries from outside its region.
Observation of online and in-person consultations run by TalentCorp before working with the two experts and TalentCorp to co-design a comprehensive Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.
Combining the results of the benchmarking and consultation observations, the team of experts and EUDiF guided TalentCorp through an assessment of the existing monitoring, evaluation and learning capacities and tools for the institution's diaspora consultation and outreach activities. Together, the group co-designed a MEL framework adapted to TalentCorp's resources and institutional objectives.
Institutional impact
As a result of the project, TalentCorp strengthened its ability to leverage diaspora talent for national development through benchmarking, peer learning and institutional MEL tool development. Evidence based recommendations support the optimisation of the Returning Expert Programme, with several recommendations already adopted, particularly those related to data collection and monitoring. TalentCorp staff improved their competencies in MEL methodologies and tools, enabling more systematic data collection, programme monitoring, performance measurement and evidence-based decision-making. An informal regional peer-learning network was also established, facilitating ongoing knowledge exchange, collaboration and the sharing of effective approaches to talent attraction and diaspora engagement. Finally, the project created momentum for TalentCorp and the Ministry of Human Resources to map the Malaysian diaspora and work towards a national strategy or policy on diaspora engagement