The African Diaspora
© Ade Daramy/www.manovision.com
According to the World Bank, in 2004 Kenyans abroad (the Kenyan diaspora) sent home $464 million in remittances. In the same year, net foreign direct investment was around $50 million. The country netted around $200 million in aid in 2004, according to Kenyan academics. So, Kenyan remittances were more than twice aid and nine times investment. We can say that Kenyans are their own biggest “aid donors” and investors. The same is true of Africans in general.
© Vanessa Wruble/ vanessawithoutborders.com
A trivial point? Maybe, until we realise that we generally think of Africa as overwhelmingly dependent upon Western benevolence in the form of aid and forget what Africans do for themselves through hard work. And while we know that a lot of official aid moves “sideways” to quote one British aid official, remittances frequently have what we might call their “Heineken moment” – they reach parts that other financial flows can’t. Remittances spread quite widely among households and help reduce poverty, enable people to invest in health and education. They also support local entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.
© Vanessa Wruble/ vanessawithoutborders.com
This is where the African Foundation for Development (AFFORD; www.afford-uk.org) comes in – to put Africans in the diaspora, counterparts in Africa and African entrepreneurs together to find ways of helping those entrepreneurs make the most of the small investments they do have and to attract more, all with the aim of creating more jobs for young people in African countries. We’re kicking off our “create-a-job-in-Africa” initiative with a trip to Sierra Leone with 15 people from the UK African diaspora (Sierra Leoneans and others too).
We have a diverse range of people travelling to Sierra Leone in March 2006. They include a finance manager at Transport for London involved with preparations for the London span of the 2007 Tour de France; a small-business advisor; a teacher; a fashion designer whose clothes have made it to Top Shop; and a nightclub owner.
Some of them will become 121 bloggers and you’ll hear more from them.
