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The place of the African Diaspora in the effort to develop the continent and lift its people out of the morass of poverty and avoidable diseases is again back to the front burner. This time, the World Bank is taking the initiative as part of the growing dialogue for constructive engagement and return of Africa's professionals and entrepreneurs.
The apex global financial body will later this month hold an open house meeting with Africa's top rate professionals and potential investors in the United States (U.S.) and Europe on ways they can contribute to the development of their countries. The programme known as "Mobilising the African Diaspora for Development" will be hosted by the World Bank on the behest of member-states of the Africa Union (AU) including Nigeria. The aim is to mobilise Africa's professionals and potential investors who are based in the United States (U.S.) and Europe on ways they can contribute to the development of their countries in line with a programme which the World Bank "designed to support the mobilisation of the African Diaspora in the U.S and Africa toward the development of their home countries."
Reports indicate that the planned session is seen as the launching of a dialogue between the Diaspora and the World Bank Group "on identifying areas of Diaspora interest, and understanding the capacity development needs of the Diaspora."
It is expected that the event slated for November 29 in the United States would feature many Nigerians as well as other African professionals in the Diaspora and would be guided by African helmsmen in the Bank, including the Nigerian duo of former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili, "both of whom belong to the group of Africans in the Diaspora."
The issues the participants would be discussing include; capacity-building, remuneration packages for returnees and enabling infrastructure conducive for both residence and business.
The bank explains that it is an initiative with which it intends "to add strong value to on-going Diaspora activities because the World Bank is a major development partner of Africa and has widespread coordinating and convening capability, as well as financing and fund management expertise."
In its latest economic outlook for Africa, the bank again notes that a fundamental change is occurring in Africa with the continent improving after a decade of growth of 5.4 percent which is not too far behind global rates. But it warns that more investments are needed to sustain long-term development on the continent. It is in line with this, that the bank is rallying illustrious sons and daughters of the continent outside its shores to take interest in driving the investment train.
Many African leaders have of late intensified the bid to reverse the trend of brain drain. While some do so through subtle methods of improving democratic and infrastructural standards at home, others embark on shuttle democracy, combing foreign capitals to meet and dialogue with their nationals abroad.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is one of such African leaders who deployed enormous energy in the bid to tap the potentials of the Diaspora resource. Through his efforts, the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO), an umbrella body of overseas based Nigerians was formed to track the country's professionals in other countries and explore the opportunities of their investment and return to the homeland.
Opinion is however divided on the gains of such approach but many Nigerians feel that the effort to attract Diaspora investment is already yielding fruits. Christopher Kolade, elderstatesman and Nigeria's former high commissioner to Britain told BusinessDay that good things already flow from the consciousness being created by NIDO, adding that the initiative is guiding many overseas based Nigerians towards either returning home or making good investment decisions.
Stressing that many Nigerians abroad had started forming investment groups, Kolade further revealed: "And a lot of that is happening and is beginning to yield fruits. I know this because for instance I know a medical person from the US who by himself came to Nigeria and initiated an investment that cost him personally a million dollars."
Until recently, Peter Nwangwu, world renowned professor of clinical pharmacology, used to live in the United States where he was treated like royalty. In an earlier tribute, this newspaper described him as a man of great accomplishment who ranks among the top ten pharmacists in the world. Part of his great achievement is the invention of two new techniques in pharmacology as well as the invention of seven new drugs patented in the United States. He is also the author of some world bestsellers in the areas of drug development.
The Anambra State-born professor and multiple award winner is now back in the country serving as the Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he is toiling with other committed hands in the bid to restore the glory of the nation's premier university.
Like him, many highly skilled Nigerians have been returning to the country in response to the clarion call from fatherland for the harmonization of efforts toward achieving integrated national development.
Nigeria is not the only African nation that is losing sleep on how to leverage its massive Diaspora energy towards economic growth and development. One of such other countries is Ethiopia which had in the last few decades recorded a mass exodus of skilled citizens in a trend known as the 'brain drain' phenomenon. According to the nation's Ministry of Education, the government of Ethiopia is currently mulling a programme to re-recruit emigrated Ethiopians as a way of saving the over US$ 5.3 million spent every year in hiring expatriates to address the shortage of qualified staff in the country.
Although analysts admit that some Nigerians and other Africans are increasingly rethinking their stay abroad, many of them are quick to point out that the rate of return and investment is still too low to constitute the required critical and positive mass that could give the economy a new lease of life, going by the experience of China and India. In the case of India, its booming economy today rests on the support provided by returnees in such key sectors as information technology, services and retail.
The experience of India is quite germane to this discourse. The country's economy in the early days, especially immediately after independence, was nothing to write home about. The harsh economic realities then were comparable to the experience of many African countries. Expectedly, the situation drove many Indians abroad in search of better opportunities. But while the exodus of the productive Indian population was going on, the home government concentrated on providing the necessary infrastructure for business and improving its education programme to world standards.
The result of this endeavour became manifest the early 1990s. India eventually opened its doors to the world for business, it was with the confidence of having developed the fundamentals that gave its economy a competitive edge. Today, India's economy is booming with GDP capitalisation of well over $700 billion and an annual growth rate of about eight per cent in the last decade. Its large and fast growing economy already ranks among the top ten in terms of purchasing power parity just as it looks good to emerge the third largest, overtaking most western economies in a couple of decades. The trend is in deed supported by roaring manufacturing and services sectors, growing externalisation of the economy and strong macro-economic fundamentals, all driven essentially by the Indian Diaspora whose belief in the country boosted the confidence level of the international investors. Today, India's booming industry produces almost everything it needs ranging from cars to computers and buoyed by self-sufficiency in food production for its teeming population.
Sangeeta Gupta, vice president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies told Business Day in New Delhi that the Information technology sector alone employs over 1.5 million and contributes 25 per cent to the nation's GDP. According to her, future forecast looks even better with the sector expected to attain about $60 billion capitalisation and become India's largest export base by 2010.
Gupta attributed much of the economic success to the efforts of the Indian Diaspora who began to return to the country in their thousands with the required international experience and capital to invest in relevant areas of the economy, adding that the IT sector benefited substantially from the efforts of Indians abroad.
Gupta stressed that a good IT base plays a major role in economic development, adding that for every direct job created in the industry, there are well over six others created indirectly in allied sectors. India's improved educational system produces the highest number of engineers in the world ensuring the continuous flow of quality manpower for the ever growing IT and IT enabled services (ITES) in the country.
She feels that the retail section is also booming in India because massive employment in industry and IT sectors has enabled the growth of the middle class with enhanced purchasing power. "India has become a success story that other developing nations like Nigeria should leverage her experience."
As Africa yearns for the return of her high networth children from abroad to drive the development train, leaders in the continent should learn from the Indian experience which has shown that such success story do not come as a miracle but through careful and methodical planning. For instance, the foundation for today's success in IT started back in the 1970s with the Tata group entering the sector as a trail blazer, establishing the kind of resilience and leadership that paved the way for the mass return of Indian experts. Most of them who were formerly working in the Silicon Valley in the United states had to relocate to Bangalore to establish own IT firms.
"Our industrialisation started in the 1950s, following a planned economic strategy with so much focus on building industries and infrastructure," says Gupta Srivastava, Confederation of Indian industry's director and head of economic policy.
"What we did was to provide infrastructure, especially in the rural areas. With such facilities as good schools we were sure that the returning Diaspora would find the country conducive enough to live in".
The fact that the World Bank is organising a programme to recruit the African Diaspora to develop the continent shows that not many of them are yet showing interest in African affairs and this defines the imperative of encouraging more to think home.
"This is because Africa cannot attract foreigners if its own sons are resisting the call to return and explore the investment opportunities", says Wole Shonibare, a public-private partnership consultant who works with KPMG in United Arab Emirate. Many people attribute Africa's inability to bring home her people to the continent's failure to create the requisite friendly environment that would engender a higher rate of return and guarantee safety of such people and their investments.
Nick Idoko, a returnee who used to live in Germany, believes that the Diaspora needs more than a patriotic pull to be able to leave behind the comfort they are used to abroad. That missing link, according to him, is the enabling environment, a kind of template for the highly skilled ones.
Disagreeing slightly with this position, Ike Abugu, another returnee says that, "beyond whatever incentives the government would put in place, the main motivation for the Diaspora's return is their own interests."
Abugu who is the president of National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises(NASME) believes that it is a personal decision that normally comes from a patriotic zeal, the wish to come home to use the knowledge acquired abroad to develop one's country.
The entrepreneur who returned to establish own business after 15 years sojourn abroad however admitted that the government still needs to do more to to attract more people back to the country.
His words: "As a means of encouraging more Nigerians to return, the government should really work on a few things especially power and security to improve the business climate. Also, we have been advocating for what we call industrial park and incubator. These things are important in a country like Nigeria where infrastructure is poor.
"An incubator is a place where small businesses will grow just as you have incubators in poultry for smooth hatching of eggs. It is a special place where new ventures are nurtured. In such incubators, rates, utility bills and taxes are minimized because the government realizes the difficulty associated with starting a new business. We are advocating for a government policy in that area. By the time we leave the incubators, we go to a place called industrial park. That means that you are no more a toddler in an incubator; you can now survive in a park. A park is an agglomeration of industries. The idea is that you can network and share services and processes with a related company. Sometimes we call them clusters."
In Addis Ababa, as in many other African capitals, the feeling is the same on what African leaders need do, to ensure impressive return of those abroad. According to the conclusions of a recent workshop in Addis Ababa, "Ethiopia needs to provide such incentives as reduced import duties, foreign exchange accounts and stronger private ownership laws to promote investment, encourage professionals to stay in the country, and attract those abroad to return, invest and share their expertise."
The point therefore has to be made that there are no better ways of boosting and sustaining an established pattern of growth and the consequent return of the Diaspora, especially in this age of globalization, where human capital flows only to investment-friendly countries, than enhancing a country's global competitiveness in world trade.
Like the experience of India, this can be achieved by investing in cutting-edge technology, education and infrastructural development. Experts agree that many nations have exploited globalization to their advantage by improving education and the 'agglomeration of competitive activities' in their home countries. These are the attributes that have lifted India and China. As a reward for their enterprise, the challenge for these two Asian giants has gone beyond bringing back their best brains to that of coping with the heavy traffic of foreign investors jostling to enter their shores.