The September 2003 edition of the electronic journal of governance and innovation contains an excellent overview of recent efforts to effectively mobilise the African diaspora for the benefit of Africa’s development.

Repression by the government and an ongoing economic crisis have caused an exodus from the troubled nation.

With more than 5 million African refugees and internally displaced people preparing to return home, the United Nations refugee agency announced plans to hold a ministerial-level meeting next month on comprehensive regional approaches to repatriation and sustainable reintegration on the continent.

The Conference is to be held April 12-14, 2004 at the Washington Hilton Hotel, 1919 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC. More than 2,000 delegates anticipated globally.
Topics include:
· The Critical Role of Local Governments in National Development Political
· Small Enterprise Investments and Entrepreneurship Economic
· Formation of strong Linkages-The Status of the African-American Male Social
· Caribbean Agriculture in the 21st Century Economic
· The Caribbean culture and its role in the Inter-Caribbean Movement Economic
· Investment opportunities through Remittance Socio- Economic
· Iwokrama and Biodiversity for Sustainability Environmental/Economic
· AGOA and the Caribbean Partnership Economic
· Brief Description: Expanding the definition of a Free Trade and the benefits to the Caribbean peoples
· FAATIS - Economic Revitalization through Tourism Economic/Political
· The Role of Nonprofits in Community Development.

There is considerable optimism among Ugandans living abroad following the release of the Sempebwa Report, which recommends dual citizenship for those holding citizenship in another country. Currently only South Africa, Ghana and Egypt have the provision for dual citizenship written in their constitutions. In the amended Citizenship Act (Act 88 of 1995), a South African is allowed to retain his or her South African citizenship when becoming the citizen of another country. Meanwhile, with an estimated 1.5 million Ghanaians living abroad and contributing as much as $400 million to the national coffers annually, Ghana officially launched the Dual Citizenship Regulation Act on July 3, 2002. The only other African countries that informally allow dual citizenship are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Nigeria and Morocco.

afrikafé, TransAfrica Forum and Visions Cinema will present the first-annual "New African Films Festival," featuring 13 African films from eastern, western, central, northern and southern Africa. Award-winning actor and human rights activist, Mr. Danny Glover, who is featured in one of the films, will be our special guest on opening night.

The African Caribbean and Asian Society (ACAS), Sussex University, presents: A Public Meeting with speaker Explo Nani-Kofi of the African Liberation Support Campaign Network (ALISC), Thursday 19 February 2004, 6pm - 9pm Lecture Hall A1, Sussex University, Falmer, near Brighton Train from Victoria to Falmer, changing at Brighton. Sussex University is very near Falmer station Further info: [email protected] [email protected]

It happens every February. People who are passionate about the black experience are pressed into a whirlwind schedule that ends as quickly as it begins, some 28 days later. Welcome, we are told, to Black History Month. But isn't it time Black History Month (BHM) continued its evolution into a year-round celebration to ensure that any indifferent citizens can begin to understand that what we teach, preach, lecture, and conjecture about is really American history?

AFFORD, the African Foundation for Development (http://www.afford-uk.org), will be partnering Pambazuka News in producing News from the Diaspora. If you would like to contribute information to this section, email your news to [email protected].

“Africa and its people living outside the continent are united through blood ties, cultural affinity and shared history, and to some extent, a common destiny. Since the forced migration of millions of young and able bodied men, women and children of Africa to work in plantations and other early economic activities of the emerging Western frontier in the Western Hemisphere, the quest to establish strong partnerships and linkages between the same people separated by hundreds of years, oceans or environmental circumstances, have remained unabated, although with minimal degrees of success.”

Taking a close look at remittances flowing into Latin America from US-based migrants, this report’s main recommendation to all governments in the region is to “do no harm”: “To begin with, governments (and nongovernmental organizations as well) need to recognize that these resources are private. They belong to the individuals who earned them, and who have every right to transfer them freely to other family members. No one else has a claim on them. And these resources are certainly being put to good use. Remittances are providing enormous benefits to recipients, their families, and their communities.”

According to IADB, total remittances are due to surpass foreign direct investment as a source of capital for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2003. The total aggregate of remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean during this decade is conservatively projected to reach more than $450 billion. In order to better understand these developments at the micro level, this paper presents findings of research into remittance sending and receiving from some 12,000 individuals in the United States and Latin America.

The African Cup of Nations kicks off in Tunisia, with 16 nations taking part - and all eyes on the continent are looking north. Seen from space, Africa is one huge and undivided landmass. But for some on the continent, however, the widely-held perception is of two very different regions; Africa south of the Sahara desert, or sub-Saharan Africa, and north Africa. This article on the website of the BBC questions the nature of African identity and is followed by comments on the subject from around the world.

AFFORD, the African Foundation for Development (http://www.afford-uk.org), will be partnering Pambazuka News in producing News from the Diaspora. If you would like to contribute information to this section, email your news to [email protected].

AFFORD, the African Foundation for Development (http://www.afford-uk.org), will be partnering Pambazuka News in producing News from the Diaspora. If you would like to contribute information to this section, email your news to [email protected].

Open source is smashing the paradigm of how information and communications technology (ICT) benefits are delivered to Africans. In the past 40 years, ICT has made minimal impact on the lives of 90% of the people living in Africa because they didn't fit the Western models of how benefits should be delivered to them. It failed to adapt to support the way of life it found, seeking rather to hope that Africa would 'catch up' to the rest of the world.

The point of departure for the 9th conference of SSIA is the dispersal of Somali speaking people beyond the boundaries of the Republic of Somalia that collapsed as a state in 1991. Somali people have always lived beyond the territory of the Republic of Somalia, especially in the neighbouring states of Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Additionally, the Ogaden war (1977-1979), and the Civil Wars from 1988 and up till today caused millions of Somalis to flee and migrate throughout the region of the Horn of Africa - and further abroad to Europe, North America and other destinations. This dispersal of Somalis and the migrations of people originating from the former Republic of Somalia have been intimately linked to the still ongoing conflicts in the Horn of Africa, and are related to the complex processes of reconciliation and state formation. The scope of the Conference will therefore include all of the Horn of Africa as well as Somalis in the wider Diaspora. It will encourage papers that, from various perspectives, approach cross-cutting issues, relate to the linkages between migration, development and processes of state-formation and identity, and which take a regional (Horn of Africa) view on the emergence of transboundary political formations. Complete program and registration information will be available April 2004. The event organiser can be contacted by e-mail: [email protected]

The London-based CBCAfricaRecruit has published results of an online survey it conducted into the African diaspora’s resources and skills.

Recent and more detailed analysis of the 2001 British Census data has thrown up a few surprises. Perhaps most striking of all has been the rise of the number of “Black African” (a term used by the Census) people living in London. Currently, at 378,933 people, “Black Africans” make up some 5% of the London population (and have now overtaken “Black Caribbean” people to take position behind Indians as the second largest ethnic minority group in London). The “Black African” group is set to be the fastest growing minority group in London, almost doubling in size between 1991 and 2011. In at least four districts of London, Africans make up more than 10% of the local population. The Greater London Authority (the pan-London body with responsibility for the capital) has noted the significance of these developments and has made moves to explore how it can engage more effectively with African communities in the city.

Ten million Africans now constitute an invisible nation that resides outside Africa. Although invisible, it is a nation as populous as Angola, Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe. If it were to be a nation with distinct borders, it would have an income roughly equivalent to Africa's gross domestic product. Although the African Union does not recognize the African Diaspora as a nation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acknowledges its economic importance. The IMF estimates the African Diaspora now constitutes the biggest group of foreign investors in Africa. What few realize is that Africans who immigrate to the United States contribute 40 times more wealth to the American than to the African economy. According to the United Nations, an African professional working in the United States contributes about $150,000 per year to the U.S. economy. Can the “brain drain” be reversed? This is the question posed in a keynote speech to the Pan African Conference on the Brain Drain held in Elsah, Illinois in October 2003. "My answer is: yes. But in order for it to happen, we must try something different," says Philip Emeagwali, who won the Gordon Bell Prize for inventing a formula that allows computers to perform their fastest computations - a discovery that inspired the reinvention of supercomputers. Debate the African Diaspora by reading this speech and sending your opinions to [email protected] for publication in Pambazuka News.