2023-11-02 22:49:00
The African diaspora constitutes the largest financier of the continent’s development. Since remittances are informal, often undeclared and more selective, they tend to be underestimated.
But their scale is substantial, maintained by the firm commitment of the African diaspora to improve the lot of family members of the communities they cherish. Official donors like me must not only learn from this, but also look for opportunities to cooperate with members of the diaspora to amplify the impact of their contribution.
In 2022, the 160 million Africans living outside the continent will transferred funds of more than 95 billion dollars. Of this amount, approximately $53 billion are headed to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe among the principales destinations. This compares favorably to the $30 billion in foreign direct investment and the more than 29 billion dollars in official aid for development of sub-Saharan Africa.
Foreign direct investment and aid notably declined last year, as critical global circumstances, such as rising inflation and the war in Ukraine, led donors to reduce or redirect their giving. On the other hand, remittances have increased for many of the same reasons. Africans in the diaspora knew their families and communities were struggling with food insecurity, as well as natural disasters like floods and severe droughts.
After ensuring the subsistence of families, remittances are mainly used to pay for medical expenses and studies. The reason is simple: investments in health and education are the best way to put people on the path to prosperity. Unfortunately, African countries still face a huge lack of financing for human capital development.
The lack of health funding in Africa amounts to at least 66 billion dollars. When it comes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of achieving universal education at preschool, primary and secondary levels by 2030, countries in sub-Saharan Africa are experiencing a lack of 70 billion dollars per year, on average. Remittances will not close these gaps, but they can have even greater impact.
Members of the African diaspora have often expressed to me their desire to increase their donations elsewhere than with their loved ones or their community. The problem, they explain, is that they don’t know which local organizations they can trust. This is why credible stakeholders should establish links between the diaspora and community organizations that need and deserve their support.
Like the diaspora, managers of community organizations in Africa are often motivated by the love they have for their communities and a commitment inspired by the deep conviction that they can act as a catalyst for lasting change. Largely due to their passion, they have often proven their skills in leveraging limited resources to achieve impressive results.
But with more funding, community organizations could do even more. At this stage, they often lack the know-how to engage in fundraising or reporting—a gap that greatly limits their ability to raise funds from structured philanthropic organizations. The new Masana wa Afrika Foundation — which I partly finance and of which I am a director — is committed to helping organizations whose mission is to fill these gaps, by providing them with modest grants and tailor-made assistance.
We need to increase this type of initiative. We know that the community organizations we support are trusted and committed to the most important tasks, from supporting children with disabilities in Lesotho to providing life-saving food to infants in Uganda. What would happen if — through Masana wa Afrika or a similar organization — members of the African diaspora could find such organizations and support them directly?
The benefits of this strategy could extend well beyond the directly targeted communities. If the diaspora increases its efforts to fund effective community projects, major donors and structured philanthropies can focus more on larger issues, such as eradicating little-known tropical diseases, reducing inequalities between men and women and strengthening food security.
Obviously, effective optimization of the impact of expatriate remittances requires data. The paucity of evidence on these inflows of funds and their impact partly explains why donations from the diaspora have been ignored. We have estimates of total funds sent to some countries. But we do not have an exhaustive picture of the volumes, preferred channels and frequency of transfers.
Fortunately, the World Bank is already working to complete the data on these inflows of funds. On the other hand, we must design more robust methods to monitor and quantify the benefits of fund transfers for communities. The difficulty lies in finding methods of capturing, compiling and disseminating the testimonies of those affected — of children pursuing school studies, of medicines administered and of crops sown thanks to donations from the diaspora — in a format that makes it easier to take decision.
African Diaspora giving may lack the structure and formality of traditional philanthropy, but it plays a central role in preventing people from becoming poorer and advancing community prosperity. Even more so, because of the personal reasons behind it, financial aid from the diaspora is support on which populations can count. If philanthropic organizations commit to amplifying its impact, we might be surprised by what we could accomplish.
Translated from English by Pierre Castegnier
Tsitsi Masiyiwa, President of Co-Impact and the END Fund, is Founder and President of the Higherlife Foundation and Delta Philanthropies.
© Project Syndicate 1995–2023
1698986741
#Africa #diaspora #funds