What is the role of the young Africans from the Diaspora in the public debate in rethinking the EU-AU partnership?
Almost a year ago, I got the chance to meet Amina Zakhnouf and Ileana Santos on a conference as a speaker on the topic of impact investing in Africa, alongside Philippe Zaouati (CEO of Mirova), Morgane Kablan (Co-founder of Asilimia) and Camille Louis-Joseph (associate at Bird & Bird). It was extremely exciting to discuss with other Africans from the Diaspora about their work on the continent, about how they were committing to Africa. The ambition of Ileana and Amina was clear: provide a platform for young Africans in the Diaspora for them to be able to voice their ideas and proposals to political leaders both in Europe and Africa. I immediately fell in love with the idea, excited to finally have an institution that was focusing both on the Youth and on the biculturalism of the African Diaspora.
Very few people think about this, but for us, Diasporans, who are not fully European nor fully African, it is challenging to find institutions and organizations that can understand the specificities of our action both in Europe and in Africa and can give us the tools and platform to have a voice and propel our ideas.
Joining the organisation ‘Je m’engage pour l’Afrique — JMA’ (French for ‘I commit to Africa’) helped me join an ecosystem that could link me as an entrepreneur with public sector leaders from both continents. As I was explaining during my intervention on B-smart Ecosystem TV channel last year, it is crucial for me Diaspora entrepreneur to be part of a community that can give me the opportunity to explore collaborations with public institutions or propose improvements on local policies. There is a tendency to believe that private sector actors should focus on private matters and leave public matters to politicians. I tend to strongly disagree with this point of view. As a fintech entrepreneur in Kenya, I strongly care about financial regulations in the country, I am interested in understanding the frameworks that will be implemented by the government to spur economic growth, attract private investments or support local SMEs. On the other hand, as an entrepreneur with a base in Germany and France, I am also particularly focused on understanding the development aid framework of the German or the French government, I need to understand their agenda when it comes to migration and support of entrepreneurship back in migrants’ countries. All of those public sector’s actions are potential opportunities for our businesses, for instance, we collaborate a lot with the German development cooperation such as GIZ to achieve our mission on the ground in francophone and anglophone Africa through Melanin Kapital. But, we can do even more when we have a strong ecosystem partner providing us the bridge we need to access those leaders.
How did I engage in JMA?
As a Public Policy Incubator, JMA has one simple mission : promote recommendations from the public to African and European leaders. Their model is based according to 3 main solutions:
- Connecting the Youth from the African Diaspora, around key public policy topics, such as digitization or environmental transition
- Supporting and valuing the new talents in their opinions and projects
- Creating a safe space for exchanges and conversations between the Youth, the Media and political leaders.
Since January 2020, I have been engaging in JMA by writing articles on my opinion regarding how African governments could reduce their public debt by leveraging on impact investing to ultimately finance sustainable development. The public debt burden of African countries is a topic that has been analysed widely by the media and experienced industry professionals and public sector experts. However, the Youth is barely involved in this topic, even though they will be the ones baring the consequences of this debt. Through their book “Contresens” (i.e. ‘non-sense’ in English), JMA has gathered different perspectives from the Youth on potential alternatives to public debt to finance African development— from financial technologies, public budgeting to impact investing.
My proposals about developing more blended finance instruments to attract impact investors to finance development projects in Africa, have been carried by the organization and propelled towards the highest political levels of the French Government. Ultimately, I even had the opportunity be invited to the Presidential Palace in Paris to discuss with policy leaders like Her Excellency Ms. Marie Audouard and His Excellency Mr. Sylvain Itté.
As we continued to think about the issue of public debt of African countries, we kept working on the topic in partnership with the thinktank ‘A New Road’, where we had the opportunity to collaborate with more experienced industry leaders and senior government officials Nicolas Jean (Partner at Gide Norette Louel), Stanislas Zézé (CEO of Bloomfield Investment Corporation), His Excellency Mr. Romuald Wadagni (Minister of Economy and Finance of Benin), Pedro Novo (Executive Director in charge of Export at Bpifrance) or even Mr. Mario Pezzini (Director of the OCDE Development Centre). Together, we challenged the current status and explored an alternative financial paradigm for Africa, where public debt could co-exist with other financial instruments led by private-public collaborations from both continents.
Why is it important?
As much as entrepreneurship is about getting your product to the market and grow, I found my experience at JMA really enriching my perspective and opening opportunities of collaborations for Melanin Kapital with local and international political leaders. The political exercise for an entrepreneur is definitely challenging which is why the training and the support that JMA provides is a true value addition for us aspiring Young Leaders that are trying to grow in the market. And most of the time, we underestimate how much government and the private sector can be aligned in their objectives. A meeting with the Kenyan Ambassador to Germany, His Excellency Tom Amolo, led us to understanding his vision about the Kenyan Diaspora and about SMEs back home, we see how our vision can align with governments and how we can pull together the right resources and frameworks to built the futures we want for our countries.
What’s next?
While private and civil organization are pushing to create tangible impact in their communities both in the EU and the AU, it is actually a fantastic opportunity for the public sector to be open to further cross-border and cross-sector collaborations to develop further the African-European partnership in which the African Diaspora can play a major role. It is by supporting and engaging with organizations like Melanin Kapital and JMA that innovative ideas can emerge to support the next generation of leaders on both continent.
As a Public Policy Incubator, JMA is supporting the Youth of the Diaspora to be included in the public debate by voicing their recommendations and ideas to policy leaders. Their next steps is to expand their community and raise funds to be able to widen their actions on both continents. The organization is currently raising €8,000 through a crowdfunding campaign to be able to do institutionalize their organization, start recruitment and launch their own media. With all the impact JMA had on my growth as a Diasporan entrepreneur, without having any resources, I cannot wait to see what it can actually accomplish with a proper support to build a strong organization. It is thanks to empowered youth and empowered Diaspora that we can reinforce our institutions for our stay here in Europe and in Africa. Through the link below, you can take part in our journey and support JMA in making public policy everyone’s business!
Article written by: Mélanie Keïta Mariam
Article edited by: Ian Minjire Kibira
