The African Diaspora’s Role on The Continent
On March 4, 2020, the second edition of the IE Africa Center’s “African Solutions, Global Challenges” forum, took place at London’s Chatham House. SOAS University of London, MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, The African Foundation for Development and the Royal African Society focused on the ways in which Africa’s diaspora is playing a leading role in defining the future of the continent. A highlight of the event was the two roundtable discussions that focused on generating new solutions and ideas to support African innovation across the diaspora through finance and entrepreneurship.
Below are recaps of the two roundtables discussions with many different insights on the role of the African diaspora on the continent.
Roundtable Session One: The African Diaspora and Global Finance
Moderator: Yinka Adegoke, Editor Quartz Africa
The first session of the roundtable talks focused on specific ways that the diaspora can add value to the continent.
A key takeaway from the discussion is that the perception of who and what is African is changing. The African Union’s current definition for what is considered the diaspora consists of people of African origin within and outside of Africa who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union. With the prevalence of technology today, the African diaspora now has many different channels to help transform their countries within the continent. One way they can do this is through social media which easily allows people within the diaspora to not only have access to people within the continent but also have access to information pertaining to what is happening within their countries.
Overall, the African diaspora supports the continent in many different ways. Onyekachi Wambu, from AFFORD, shared that his organization defines the ways that the diaspora supports their continent as through financial capital, intellectual capital, political capital, social capital, cultural capital, and time. Most of the diaspora’s focus when investing in the continent is on consumption. However, a heavier focus on the production factors within the continent is very much needed. This is mostly due to the fact that increasing production within the continent will aid greatly in helping countries within the continent develop robust economies.
Another key takeaway from the roundtable is that there is a lack of understanding of how risk is perceived which is connected to barriers of investing in the continent. The diaspora can help how risk is perceived on the continent by actively using tools like social media to change how the continent is perceived. Another issue that inhibits more investment in the continent is the investment gap that is present when investing in the continent. People who are interested in investing in the continent are not privy to important information that can aid in their decision to invest or not. Building a system that makes this information more readily accessible is very much needed in order to increase investment in the continent not just from the diaspora but from everybody else who might hold an interest in investing in the continent.
The lack of access to funding resources that female entrepreneurs have was also an important issue discussed at this roundtable. Female entrepreneurs outnumber male entrepreneurs within the continent yet they don’t have as much access to funding. This is an issue that needs great attention. One reason why this issue continues to persist has to do with the fact that the people who make the decisions in regards to who gets funding seem to be more partial towards male entrepreneurs over female entrepreneurs. Changing the decision-makers who are in charge of who gets funding or not is important in solving this issue.
Lack of good economic policies from African governments was also another issue discussed at the roundtable. African governments have to put in place good economic policies in order to attract investment within their countries. Not only that but they also have put in place policies and initiatives that will attract their diaspora to invest in their respective countries. One such initiative that was discussed during this roundtable discussion was Ghana’s Year of Return initiative. This initiative was put in place by the Ghanaian government to increase tourism within their country and that’s exactly what the initiative did. The number of foreigners visiting the country increased and the initiative attracted a lot of media attention to the country.
Roundtable Session Two: Harnessing Diaspora Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Moderator: Dina Sherif, Executive Director at MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development
The second roundtable focused on how diaspora entrepreneurship offers great potential for harnessing innovation to grow their own business and to have a multiplier effect in African economies.
A key takeaway from this discussion is that entrepreneurship from the African diaspora can be used as a tool for development within the continent. Entrepreneurship can bring many great positives to the continent. One of these positives is that it creates more jobs which is very much needed for the youthful continent which needs tens of millions of new jobs to maintain existing economic and development gains and achieve future growth and development targets. Diaspora investment within the continent can also aid in creating job growth which is very much needed within the continent.
Investing in social entrepreneurship within the continent and also creating such companies within the continent is also another way for the diaspora to help African economies achieve structural transformation. This is due to the fact that this will not only create more jobs but social entrepreneurship also provides goods that governments within the continent usually should provide but they do not. An example of such a company within the continent is Easy Solar which is a company in Sierra Leone that provides pay-as-you-go solar-powered lighting and charging systems to people with no electricity. Another example is Tobi and Timi Oludayomis’ Studio 14 which is a digital learning platform that helps train people within the continent.
Last but not least, the ways that institutions like SOAS, IE, AND MIT can support the diaspora in their attempt to build Africa in regards to innovation and entrepreneurship was also another key takeaway from this roundtable. These institutions can better support the diaspora by posting the events and opportunities that they have within African universities. Another thing they can do is to help entrepreneurs who are interested in the continent attain access to the capital, mentorship, and community needed to make their ventures successful. They also need to help these entrepreneurs gain knowledge on how to be leaders that can scale impact so that their business can ultimately achieve success.