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0 By: Michael Fleshman “It is important to look strategically at the diaspora’s role in African development,” Obiagali Ezekwesili, the World Bank’s vice president for Africa, told African expatriates.
Photograph: World Bank / Arne Hoel
To understand the potential of Africans living outside Africa to contribute to their continent’s social and economic progress, one only had to attend the opening of an “African diaspora open house” held in the US capital. The 400-seat auditorium at World Bank headquarters was packed with doctors and lawyers, engineers and architects, scientists, professors and entrepreneurs who had left their home countries in search of better lives overseas. But they still wanted to explore how they could participate in building a prosperous and democratic Africa.
Obiagali Ezekwesili, the World Bank’s vice president for Africa, noted that remittances from the diaspora, estimated at some $32-40 bn annually, now exceeds official development assistance to the region. “Beyond wealth,” she added, Africans in the diaspora have “the skills and knowledge that would need to be mobilized” to promote the continent’s advancement. “It is therefore important to look strategically at the diaspora’s role in African development.” READ
