Oct. 31--EL PASO -- This area's brain drain is hurting the regional economy, and colleges and universities in El Paso, Juarez and Las Cruces need to band together to foster entrepreneurship and grow the regional economy.

That's the message sent Friday to area business and educational leaders by the head of an international economic development organization's research team studying how colleges and universities on both sides of the border can help grow the regional economy.

"The fact you are exporting talent is a serious threat to the economic development and also the (economic) sustainability," Jaana Puukka, of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, or OECD, told a breakfast meeting of the Paso del Norte Group, an El Paso business group that brought the Paris organization here for the study.

Colleges and universities in this area have been "very, very successful in inviting access (to students), and what also is remarkable here is that students complete (college)," Puukka said. "And this is a message I will take to other regions that are struggling with this."

But graduating students from local colleges isn't enough, Puukka said.

"I would encourage the higher education institutions and the civic society to take the next step and move into entrepreneurship. And this is something that has to be built up on a very broad front -- starting from (secondary) schools and moving to higher education institutions; putting incentives into place, taking

very seriously that this region can build on what it has here -- human capital."

Puukka also said Juarez's manufacturing strengths are important to this region, and if this area can come together, despite the problems created by the drug war in Juarez, "I think this region can be a winner."

Puukka is on a team of six researchers who spent this week meeting with leaders in higher education and economic development in El Paso, Las Cruces, and Juarez as part of its study of higher education in regional development.

This area is one of 15 regions in 11 countries that OECD is reviewing as part of its years-long effort to help mobilize higher education institutions for economic, social and cultural development of cities and regions.

OECD's regional studies have found "education is a key driver of economic growth in countries," Puukka said.