The round table of the Paris Diaspora Forum (# FDDA2018, co-organized by @Ipemed and @ClasseExport), Friday, June 22, was a moment of synthesis and reflection on the financial and technological innovations of the diaspora.
Among the information announced on the sidelines of this forum that held the bet of wealth and diversity, the creation of Efficiency Africa Fund (EAF) by Club Efficience chaired by Elie Nkamgueu. This is a general fund intended to support SMEs and which will be active next September provided they obtain the visa of the French Financial Market Constable (AMF), which is essential to enable the structure to proceed a public offering. The management of this vehicle will be entrusted to I & P Jean Michel Severino.
Other information, but kept in the circle of insiders, the project of recovery of a West African bank by a consortium including a headhunter and a star reporter, both members of the visible diaspora.
In the meantime, the Afrikwity crowdfunding platform created in 2017 by the French-Tunisian Thameur Hemdane has just celebrated its first closing of 400,000 euros in favor of the start-up Isahit, the first socially responsible French platform to offer odd jobs (“jobbing”). “) In Africa.
Symbol of the diaspora 2.0 (others speak of the diaspora 4.0), Afrikwity, like most of the projects and initiatives of the Africans of the world, is oriented towards Africa with, as far as the African diaspora of France, a fascination of the English language visible in the name and posture of young entrepreneurs. For example, the incubator Bond’innov, which accompanies start-ups from start-up to the loan of honor in partnership with the Institute for Research for Development (IRD) and its more than 2,000 employees.
In the same section of coaching and coaching, the firm Empower T & C of the Franco-Ivorian Fanta Traoré who assists the diaspora in his project of return. A vein also cultivated by Isabelle Berrier, Founder of Welcoming Diasporas and Africa is Calling you, who had to accompany many Togolese and Africans in their projects of return in Africa and not necessarily in their countries of origin, like she told Financial Afrik on the sidelines of the 2017 edition of the Bamako Forum.
The internet, which weakens particularities and community barriers, facilitates exchanges, recalls Leokadie Ekabissé, founder of Talent’s Awake, a company that supports business leaders in the key phases of their development. It must be said that various platforms have emerged to influence European and African public policies in general to “facilitate the return of talent”.
Thus, the platform of organizations Adyfe (African Diaspora Youth Forum in Europe) for the action aimed at the institutions and the international, represented at the forum by the Belgian-Burundian Karena Kenza, member of the board, argues for policies intercontinental public. To both facilitate the return of diasporas in Africa and, in the other direction, to accommodate Africans in the North in search of expertise.
If Africa is a land of opportunity, France also offers solutions like Paris Region Enterprises (PRE), the Economic Development Agency created by the Regional Council of Île-de-France. For Cyril Akpama, business manager within this structure in the Île-de-France region, there are opportunities for a French company targeting the continent:
“You know, in the West African market, a French company signature offers definite advantages. From the outset, it will be more credible, because held by more principles of governance than an African company, and also less exposed to the current corruption “. Formwork stock which expresses no less a reality and a tendency still heavy.
Overall, “community investment works quite well, which is not the case for investment that seeks to involve diaspora elites,” says Rolland Portella, president of the “4th generation” of the CADE (Coordination of Africa of tomorrow), an essential “do tank” in the reflections around the theme “diaspora and development”.
On the attraction side, the star is undoubtedly Amélia Lakhrafi, MP for the Xth French constituency abroad, in her synthesis of the opening forum of this forum: “I am convinced that our diaspora is a real wealth for France, country historically built from successive waves of immigration. This wealth, it is also true for the African continent with which we have all kept, or will do, strong links making each of us a real bridge between continents.
In conclusion of this meeting, one can be inspired by the words of Liévin Feliho, president of the Humanist Circle of Commitment and Reflection on the Future of Africa. “We need to create a financial tool that is almost entirely dedicated to the diasporas and that targets a limited scope of priority sectors – for example, health, education, the environment – for which it is more difficult to involve the commercial banks. I am particularly attached to this idea, not only because it would be revolutionary in many ways, but also because it is part of the logic of Africa helping Africa. ” To meditate.
