Fall 2006, Volume 2
The estimated 120 million people of African descent who live outside of Africa are not a homogenous group, and mobilizing them around Africa is a considerable challenge. Historical dispersals and migrations have created global pockets of Africans in the Diaspora, some of whom consciously identify with the continent but many of whom are situated in new identities. There are at least three notable groups to consider: group one, consisting of first-generation skilled and unskilled migrants who work in Europe or America and remit parts of their earnings to families back home; group two, which includes second- and third-generation Afropolitans, young, well-educated, multicultural, and multidimensional descendants of African migrants who bring an African flavor and ethos to their identities and work in the West; and group three, which includes Americans, Caribbeans, and Europeans of African descent who have accumulated various degrees of prestige and wealth and some of whom may have cultural, intellectual, or political affinities for the causes of Africa. Despite this diversity, Africans in the Diaspora are some of the most creative, accomplished, enterprising, and capable individuals and a valuable prospective partner for Africa.
If the relationship between Africa and her Diaspora-based people is structured in a way that allows the latter to unleash their economic and intellectual potential for and in Africa, then both parties will be enriched in varied, substantive ways. Already each group of the Diaspora is playing its part. On average, African immigrant households in groups one and two remit $300 to $500 a month each and collectively sent home an estimated $32 billion of official remittances last year, a figure that would be higher if informally transferred remittances where counted. Besides improving the quality of lives for families back home, remittances from group one and two Diasporas are the engine of the slowly emerging small and medium-sized business sector in Africa.
The Afropolitans of group two, who have the privilege of elite education and more intellectual and creative careers then their technically minded parents and grandparents, are poised to be the intellectual vanguard of the global African experience. Group two is the best marketing tool for the vibrancy and innovative potential of both African and diasporic communities.
Group three Diaspora communities have often played the part of Africa’s advocates in the United States and Europe, and pan-African leaders from the Caribbean, America, and Europe have made Africa their political and intellectual cause. Although diasporic ideas for the continent have varied, all have been rooted in a variant of the principle of self-help, or the belief that efforts to assist Africa should lead to its people’s increased capacity to be politically and economically self-sufficient.
This has distinguished Diaspora advocates from other Africa enthusiasts who have tended to see Africa as a humanitarian cause á la Bob Geldof or American evangelists. Diaspora advocates of Africa identify their own self-esteem with the continent and are therefore more inclined to highlight its potentials and strengths, rather than its vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This third group, however, unlike groups one and two, does not have direct connections to Africa and has had limited economic relations with the continent.
Remittances are an important microeconomic factor in the development of Africa. Advocacy is an essential part of securing Africa’s interests in the West. Intellectual/cultural exchanges are a valuable means of satisfying the feelings of lost heritage predominant among African Americans, for example, and of reinforcing or rearticulating pan-African identities and connections.
But that is only one side of the deal; being proud of Africa and associating with Africa must mean putting our money where our sentiments are and — in the absence of our own money — encouraging others to do so. Only then, through practical working relationships between Africa-based and Diaspora-originating organizations and individuals, will the Diaspora become a substantive participant in Africa’s development. The Diaspora can bring hundreds of billions of our disposable dollars to Africa. If we invest it as social and environmental responsibility permits, then Africa will not only prosper economically and socially, but the Diaspora could boast an international class of happy investors whose capacities to serve as advocates for Africa would have been considerably substantiated.
What has been done to attract Africa’s dispersed lot and its capital back to the continent? Groups one and two are easier to mobilize because they can be organized on a country or even village basis. Diaspora investment conferences to determine how African immigrants and their children can more easily contribute to the economic development of their countries of origin have been held in London for the last two years under the sponsorship of such organizations as the African Business Round Table and Africa Recruit, an organization charged with placing young, Diaspora-educated Africans in employment in Africa.
AFFORD- UK, a British nonprofit working on involving UK-based Diaspora in Africa’s development, has set out a plan to pursue tax relief for social funds that target immigrants who originate from the same villages or region of African states. The argument for the effectiveness of the funds is based on the principle that, with the focused help of the Diaspora, Africa can become prosperous one village at a time.
The group three Diaspora is more complex because its historical connections to Africa are removed. The decision of the African Union (AU) to designate a sixth region for the participation of diasporic Africans in the politics of Africa is a good first step to mobilizing their various and potent resources. But the commitments of the AU Diaspora Initiative are vague, and efforts by organizations charged with mobilizing the Diaspora, such as the Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network, lack broad-based credibility in Diaspora communities.
Moreover, conversations about ways to formalize the relationship between Africa and group three Diasporas, such as dual citizenship, are held from time to time, but have not produced concrete results yet. Setting up a national or continent-wide dual citizenship system is a formidable challenge, and questions of whether both sides are ready for what dual citizenship may bring are prominent. Are Africa’s leaders and people ready for an influx of new citizens reared in Western democracies who may demand speedier economic and political reforms than are on offer? Are Diaspora Africans ready to engage a demystified Africa, a real Africa, which is as challenging as it is full of opportunity, and in which they may sometimes be treated as outsiders?
Until identity-based arguments for the Diaspora’s engagement with Africa are backed by practical incentives, Diaspora-based businesspeople will have to be encouraged to invest not only on the grounds of ideological or cultural affinity, but also on the grounds of good business sense. Despite Western coverage of Africa as a continent blighted by civil conflicts, draughts, and corruption, individual countries, even those with reputations as depressing as Sudan, are averaging unprecedented growth rates; according to “An Island Unto Itself,” a 3 August 2006 article in the Economist, this year Sudan has grown by 8 percent! Private equity funds are registering high rates of return, the telecom markets are still very strong, and real estate markets are increasingly identified as the new area of growth. As has been said before in many fora, Africa is “open for business.” So, did the Diaspora get the memo?
Some have. At the Leon H. Sullivan Summit VII, held in Abuja in July 2006, 1,800 participants from Africa and the Diaspora came together to promote the development of the private sector in Africa and to encourage Diaspora investment on the continent. There, twelve heads of state gave their verbal endorsement to promote the Global Sullivan Principles of Corporate Responsibility (GSP) and to the establishment of an Africa-based think tank that would target Diaspora investors. The establishment of such a think tank is critical because while there are organizations, consulting firms, and private equity funds around the world that promote investment in Africa, the diaspora has not been targeted as an audience of any such efforts.
If Diaspora capital is to make its way to Africa, Diaspora investors will have to be strategically marketed to and educated about the opportunities that await them. Efforts such as the Sullivan Summit have to be reinforced with follow-up events that match investors from the Diaspora with African businesspeople by sector. There is an opportunity to introduce the Diaspora and continent-based Africans to each other not only as brothers and sisters, but also as prospective business partners.
The challenge for the political and business leadership of Africa and the Diaspora is to move beyond passionate pan-African rhetoric and to lay the structural foundations for increased strategic cooperation. These structures should be created with long-term sustainability in mind and should be protected from appropriating self- interests. While Africa’s governments should invite and support our efforts, for those of us living outside of the continent, hard thinking and smart investing in Africa is the best way to demonstrate our respect for and commitment to the nations of Africa, to our families still on the continent, and ultimately to ourselves.
* Marianna B.A. Ofosu is the founding editor-in-chief of Leverage, an African Diaspora think tank magazine published by the Leon. H. Sullivan Foundation. She was a part of the Sullivan Summit VII presidential task force that generated the resolution endorsing Africa-Diaspora cooperation efforts through the “investment think tank.” Ofosu studied the classics at Howard University and then African development at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship.