Connecting with the African Diaspora
The AU has resolved to forge closer ties with its Diaspora across the world, yet there is still a lot of uncertainty about how the AU’s proposed ‘Legacy Projects’ will be implemented.
Liesl Louw-Vaudran, Associate Editor, ISS Pretoria
Heads of State of the African Union
(AU) gathered in Sandton, South Africa on Friday 25 May for the first Global
African Diaspora Summit. This meeting aspired to forge closer ties between ‘Africa and its offspring’, as one of the delegates at
the summit described it. The summit is the result of numerous AU resolutions,
dating back to 2003 when the idea of tapping into the resources of the Diaspora
was first mooted. One of the embryonic proposals was to include the Diaspora as
‘Africa’s sixth region’. Former South African
president Thabo Mbeki, who was one of the initiators of the event, was among a
number of former heads of state who attended the summit.
Many questions remain about the commitment
of African leaders and governments to this initiative, the modalities of
implementing the resolutions of the summit and how to define Africa’s Diaspora. Africa’s internal
divisions and the prevailing uncertainty about the choice of a chairperson of
the AU Commission (AUC) also tended to overshadow the summit.
Both the chair of the AUC, Jean Ping,
and his challenger, South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma,
were present at the summit. Yet none of the AU countries seemed to have changed
their positions on the voting. The two candidates are set to contest the
election of the AUC chairperson again during the 19th AU Summit in
July 2012.
Meanwhile, at the preparatory
ministerial meeting for the Global Summit, hosted by South Africa’s Minister of International
Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane earlier last week, a draft
resolution was drawn up, including a proposed set of ‘Legacy Projects’, meant to ‘anchor the implementation’ of the summit between Africa
and its Diaspora.
These are:
- The AU Diaspora Volunteer Programme, to ‘associate the Diaspora
directly and urgently with the development efforts on the continent and give
concrete meaning to [the] concept of one African family’
- An African Diaspora Development Fund and Remittances and
Financial Instruments
- The development of a skills database of Diaspora professionals
- The adoption and promotion of the Development Marketplace
for an African Diaspora model as a framework to facilitate innovation and
develop entrepreneurship to empower the youth of the continent and her Diaspora
- The establishment of the African Remittance Institute
This proposal is a recognition of the
longstanding role of the Diaspora in Africa’s history. Clearly those present at the summit and its
preceding events were inspired by the idea of the ‘Global African family’, though attendance at the 25
May event – coinciding
with Africa Day – was not
substantial. Of the dozens of heads of state and government announced, only a
handful turned up, including presidents Boni Yayi of Benin (the current chair
of the AU), Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Salva Kiir of South Sudan and Teodoro
Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, as well as King Mswati III of Swaziland.
Samuel Hinds, Prime Minister of Guyana, was one of the only high-level
representatives of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), while most countries in the
Americas were represented by local ambassadors.
Yet, the main outcome of this Summit
is the expectation of increased cooperation between African governments and
external actors. Some of the identified areas of renewed collaboration include
South-South issues, knowledge and skills transfers, and strengthening the role
of the Diaspora in the affairs of the AU. The summit also endorsed the
initiative to set up a permanent memorial
at the United Nations to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic
slave trade.
However, there are still several
unresolved issues and questions, such as: Who should be defined as a member of
the Diaspora? What is their commitment and what is being asked of them? Some
Africans are also uneasy about the notion that Africa is presented here as the ‘victim of underdevelopment’ asking for help from the ‘rich’ Diaspora. It is estimated
that up to $40 billion annually is sent back to Africa through remittances from
its Diaspora living outside the continent. Is this the financial resource the
AU wishes to tap into to contribute to Africa`s development?
The official AU definition of the
Diaspora in the context of the AU initiative is ‘peoples of African origin living outside the continent,
irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to
contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African
Union’.
Such a broad definition does not
capture the challenge and reality of the situation, in that many of the
millions of Africans living outside the continent have left their countries to
make a better life for themselves and are not inclined or able to contribute to
Africa’s development
on a grand scale. They can barely make enough money to send a regular
remittance back to their families. They certainly also define themselves as
being part of the Diaspora and some actively so. The problem is that these
members of the Diaspora are sometimes viewed with suspicion by African
governments as they are often seen to be supporting the opposition. It is
unlikely that these citizens are the ones encouraged to join AU structures.
In effect, the setting up of a
Remittance Institute and developing financial instruments to turn remittances
into viable projects will be a major challenge. Why would ordinary Africans
outside the continent prefer to send their hard-earned foreign currencies to an
AU Development Fund? Some at the Global Summit realised these constraints. ‘We are not talking here about
the young African immigrant struggling to send money home to his village. We’re not expecting that money to
be channeled through the AU,’ admitted an
African ambassador.
The main constituency targeted by
those attending the Global Summit was clearly African-American and Caribbean
citizens who have a strong desire to identify with their ‘roots’ and pour money and energy
into the continent’s
development. Throughout the summit, almost every speaker mentioned the slave
trade and the legacy of leaders and intellectuals like W.E.B. du Bois, Marcus
Garvey, Walter Rodney and others.
One could also argue that the notion
of the African Diaspora has, since 2003 and follow-up meetings in Senegal,
Jamaica and Brazil, been strengthened by a growing right-wing sentiment in
Europe following the economic downturn and the present Eurozone crisis. Racism
experienced by those in the Diaspora – regardless
of the number of generations separating them from the African continent – is still real. The AU should therefore adopt a more
flexible approach by reaching out to the broader constituencies of African
Diaspora willing to ‘reconnect’ with their continent. However,
the difficulty of implementing global instruments like those envisaged in the
resolutions of the Global Summit should not be underestimated. There should
also be no illusions about the obvious tension between those on the continent
and those far removed from it – the latter
often suffering from an idealised and romantic vision of the continent and of
what they can do for it.
