Each year, the money Africans abroad send home exceeds the public aid the continent receives. President Macky Sall, a candidate for UN Secretary-General, counts the diaspora among the forces of development.
A flow steadier than aid. Diaspora remittances reach households with no intermediary and no condition, and they hold up better in a crisis than volatile capital. They pay for schools, care and roofs, and seed businesses. What the continent receives from its expatriate children is its first external resource.
Africa's sixth region. The African Union recognises the diaspora as its sixth region, alongside the five on the continent. That recognition creates obligations: bringing the diaspora into decisions; easing its transfers; lowering the still-high cost of sending money, which the United Nations aim to bring below 3%.
Skills that circulate. The departure of a doctor or an engineer becomes a lasting loss when nothing returns. Connected to its country, a diaspora gives back over time more than the country spent to educate it, in shared training as in investment and transfers of knowledge. President Macky Sall argues for that circulation of skills.
A bridge between societies. Those who live between two countries know both, and they weave between those countries ties of business and culture on which trust is built. Recognised and heard, a diaspora becomes a maker of peace between the nations that host it and the one it comes from.
The African Union and the vision for the UN. These commitments to the diaspora rest on twelve years as head of state and on the 2022 chairmanship of the African Union, the very institution that made the diaspora its sixth region. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace and security conceived with development; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The World Bank data on migrant remittances are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net