Time for a Diaspora-Africa Economic Partnership

By Gregory Simpkins

A century ago, Jamaican Diaspora leader Marcus Garvey established what he hoped would be a global economic partnership between the Africa Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere and Africa, which at the time largely consisted of colonized countries. Garvey chose one of the uncolonized countries on the continent: Liberia.

He underestimated the opposition, though, not only of the colonial powers and the United States government interested in not stirring up the colonized, but also the indigenous Liberians who had seen freedmen from the United States take over what became the Republic of Liberia. The skilled people, along with the money and equipment he sent, were not applied to joint ventures, and Garvey’s dream of economic unity failed as his envoys were expelled.

Over the past century, there has been much discussion about Diaspora-Africa unity, but no one since Garvey has attempted a purely economic collaboration.

Garvey was following Booker T. Washington’s economic game plan of creating black businesses to create economic strength. Washington believed that if black people would have their own enterprises, they could deal with whites and others on an equal footing and not as supplicants. Garvey felt such black enterprises could collaborate with counterparts in Africa.

When I worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO), an African Union (AU) agency aimed at outreach to the Diaspora, came to my agency in 2018 and discussed with me working together to create linkages with the Diaspora business community. Unfortunately, they declined to attend a Diaspora conference co-sponsored by the AU Mission in Washington and USAID later that year including the one the mission and my agency co-sponsored in 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. We were supposed to arrange discussions between CIDO and the Diaspora business community that year, but COVID-19 shut down travel and borders.

I had hoped CIDO would renew their outreach efforts once the pandemic restrictions were lifted, but that was not to be. This agency, much like the AU itself, has focused on the many challenges being faced on the continent – from conflict to food security. That is certainly justifiable, but meanwhile, the economic difficulties Africa faces might just be better addressed if the century-old effort to blend Diaspora and Africa economic efforts could be taken up once more. It wouldn’t be a matter of the Diaspora coming to the “rescue” of Africa; it would be a mutually beneficial partnership in which both sides have much value to contribute to this venture.

A South African Alliance

This is why I was so excited to attend a recent outreach discussion at the South African embassy in Washington organized by a delegation from the South African government and CyberAlliance, a member of the National Business League (NBL), which was created by Booker T. Washington a century ago. Larry Yon, Co-Founder of CyberAlliance, recruited two dozen leading Diaspora entrepreneurs and representatives of business associations to meet with the South African delegation that consisted of officials from the South Africa Department of Trade, Industry and Competition; the Department of International Relations and Cooperation; Massmart (the South African collaboration with America’s Walmart), Anglo-American (one of the largest mining companies in the world) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

To continue to build this working ecosystem of Diasporan businesses and organizations and South Africa’s businesses and government agencies, the discussion touched mutual participation in a number of upcoming events, including the 123rd Annual Black Business Conference in Atlanta in August convened by NBL, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the World Conference of Mayors, as well as the 1st Annual South African-Diasporan Investment Summit & Exhibition in October, organized by CyberAlliance and the South African embassy in Washington, DC, and the scheduled November African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in South Africa.

Several of the participants in the discussion had long histories of involvement with South Africa, including protesting against apartheid in the 1980s. CyberAlliance, a US Department of Commerce Export Achievement Award recipient, is one of the Diaspora companies that already has business operations in South Africa with more in the planning stage.

The South African delegation considers the Diaspora business associations as representing their communities, which can cement relations to a much greater extent than has been reached thus far. In fact, it is the Diaspora that can establish the kind of relationships with governments and entrepreneurs in Africa that make us the vanguard for expanded US-Africa trade.

I have witnessed firsthand the contentious relationship that the South African and U.S. governments have had regarding AGOA, and the South Africans are eager to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship prior to the November forum in South Africa. An engaged Diaspora will enhance South Africa’s position in discussions with the U.S. government. Additionally, the Diaspora is seen as a key to expanding the impact of AGOA for South Africa from its current level of 2 percent. The South African relationship with the Diaspora will be critical in repairing U.S. South African trade relations, damaged recently by international accusations that South Africa has not been neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

At the meeting at the South African embassy, I suggested that must be further examination of the critical minerals that exist in South Africa and other African nations in abundance: platinum, cobalt, lithium, chromium and 3TG (tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold), in addition to others such as the rare earth minerals. These substances are critical not only to today’s electronic and transportation equipment but there will be even more vital uses for these minerals as the world transitions to a proposed carbon-neutral status over the next couple of decades.

Resource processing in Africa

African resources, though abundant, have not been processed on the continent to the extent that they should be. Countries such as the European colonial powers and China have swooped in to take on the role of processor, and Africans must purchase the refined products from their own resources back. This situation has begun to be remedied in agriculture, for example the refinement of cocoa into chocolate. However, continuing the domination of foreign off-takers of African raw minerals makes increasingly less sense as the value of such products is not being realized for the benefit of Africans. It really doesn’t have to be that way.

When I wrote the first government paper in 2018 on what the Prosper Africa initiative could look like, I stated the estimate that by 2021, the Diaspora in the United States alone was expected to have in excess of US$1.2 trillion in investible funds. Of course, that was all thrown off by COVID, but what Prosper Africa officials were considering was that there was no guiding hand to direct such funds in any effective way. Previous efforts, such as the late Rev. Leon Sullivan’s People’s Investment Fund for Africa had no vetting mechanism to inform investment project.

Homestrings, a Diaspora mechanism to channel investment initially was seen mostly as aimed at helping African emigres to send money home more efficiently for family and business projects. There are larger investment groups on the scene now, such as the Institutional Investors Network, and along with partnerships with Africa-based investors and African Development Finance Institutions that vet projects for which they seek additional investment funding, there could be an organized process to encourage and facilitate significant investments by large and small Diaspora and other investment entities.

The project I suggested would involve a mechanism, for example, for establishing such a Diaspora-African investment partnership to fund the mining and processing of critical African minerals such that Africa and its Diaspora can benefit from the brave new technical world we have entered. I am not saying that non-Diaspora or African investment is unwanted, but why should Africa and its Diaspora not reap benefits from the abundant resources on the continent that become ever more valuable each day? Such a major project would benefit all concerned, especially African citizens who would see greater revenue to governments that would now have increased funding for infrastructure and social programming and high-value jobs that would bring more Africans into the middle-class. Within the Diaspora, such a project would create opportunities to reap greater return on investment in an increasingly unstable global financial environment.

Several years ago, the previous government in Zimbabwe had tried to wrangle South African platinum interests in that country for a Chinese company. However, South Africa was deft enough to fend off that effort. South African delegation members acknowledged their experience in safeguarding their mineral mining projects in other African countries and discussions on how and why their neighbors should do more to benefit from their natural resources. South Africa has long been seen as an economic anomaly on the continent due to the manner in which it was created. So, other mineral-rich nations might balk at their leadership on such an international investment project, but somehow this project should at least be explored, along with other major infrastructure and agricultural projects that require investment.

A century later, perhaps the time has finally come for Garvey’s dream of Diaspora-Africa economic collaboration to come true.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He also serves as Managing Director for the Morganthau Stirling consulting firm, where he oversees program development and implementation. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.