The Horn Of Africa States: The Region’s Global Diaspora (Part II) – OpEd
About eight months ago, on December 16th, 2023, I wrote on the subject matter in an article published on Eurasiareview.com and noted that the Horn African Diaspora in their millions can contribute to their homelands a minimum of some US$ 3.6 billion on annual basis taking into consideration a global 3 million Horn African diaspora remitting minimum US$100 per month per individual to their homelands to support their families.
The story of how a diaspora can help the homeland does not end with small remittances to support one’s parents and siblings or kins. A diaspora is usually seen as a potential source of social and economic development in both the host countries and the original homelands.
In a host country, it increases the population both working and the offspring they would bring forth in the future, i.e. future working population and hence a new taxpayer population. They contribute to increasing the ingenuity and new blood not only into the sciences, academia and intellectual development but also the health, social fabric and human resources of the host country, which is seen and read by the source countries as a loss to themselves. Note many have been educated and cared for by their original countries and have arrived at their final destinations ready to produce if well deployed in the proper places where they could contribute.
Many host countries see them as an additional nuisance or people who have come to take jobs without truly looking truthfully at the contribution new immigrants bring into their new abodes. Home countries similarly look at them as a loss, after spending time, efforts, and money on educating them and preparing them for life only to seem them disappear into the ether.
In the language of today a diaspora is generally known as the immigrant population in host countries and only as a diaspora in their original homelands. They both fail to see the usefulness of these nomad populations who have left their original homelands to settle in new countries.
Many host countries develop new policies on how to deal with the influx of large populations arriving at their doorsteps, which creates fear and reluctance of accepting them, not knowing that those populations have most probably left countries that were ruined by actions of many countries, including probably the host country of the new arrivals. It is one of the sad stories of humanity!
Many immigrants or diaspora for the home countries fill in labor shortages in the host countries across all kinds of skill levels, which could threaten not only economic development in the host countries but also social services and hence social cohesion.
Reverting to the original story of the Horn African Diaspora, many indeed left the region through desperate moments and were probably traumatized. They would probably have never left if the politics at home were anything different. Many Horn Africans have relations with their homelands which probably include distrust, ethnic hatred and other palettes of sentiments.
Many, however, although physically leaving their home countries, have never really left with their minds and are emotionally tied to the homelands. Many Horn Africans include themselves in this category and hence contribute to the development of their home countries. Without the Horn African Diaspora, even though they are small compared to the large population of the region, have been effective in transforming the region with the knowledge, skills and new ways of doing things, which they have acquired abroad.
The monthly remittances back home is only one element of the connection between the Horn African diaspora and their home countries. The economic contribution of the Horn African diaspora goes well beyond the remittances. One should go to Addis Ababa or Mogadishu, Djibouti, or Asmara and compare them to how they were some four decades ago or even two decades ago, and one notes the difference, which is glaring and factual.
The development of the urban centers, the educational institutions, the investments and trade the Horn African diaspora have developed in their home countries stand out. Note the countries of the region were, in the past, socialist-oriented with little of private enterprise in the region. They are currently mostly run through private enterprise and entrepreneurship.
The Horn African migrant was in the past mostly driven out of their countries by the politics of their countries. They have given rise to a new offspring in the host countries who are an equally large population but with little connection with the homelands. It is, perhaps, time the home countries put some thoughts into how to develop relations with the youthful migrant offspring outside the homeland.
Many of them are educated, with skills better than their parents, and have decades of work life ahead of them. It is perhaps time the diaspora parents and the home countries worked together on how to harness this new source to help in the development, both economic and otherwise, of the home countries in the region.
Capitalizing on this unique asset would be good for the home countries. Unfortunately, like anything Horn African, many issues seem to being addressed on ethnic prisms, which does not help the countries. It is time the region recoiled from this attention to ethnicity and put emphasis on the country and all the component parts of the populations as equal citizens under the law.
There are certainly no statistics on the size of the wealth of the Horn African diaspora, but they are certainly better off than many in the home lands. Their contributions to the economic development of the region would certainly be welcomed and it is on the onus of the governments of the region to try to attract as much as they can of that wealth.
It is most distressing to note that many of Somalia’s diaspora invest not in their country but in other African countries like Kenya, Uganda, or Tanzania. They know their country needs them but through guise and meticulous planning many have been cheated that it is better to invest in those countries than home. There is nothing better than home!