Please Introduce yourself

My name is Eiman Kheir and I work with the African Union (AU). 

So, who is the African Diaspora?

The diaspora is officially defined as people of African origin living outside the continent and who, irrespective of their current citizenship or nationality, are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union.

A consensus on the definition was reached in 2005 by the AU. However, it’s not just that you need to be African by blood or of the soil. You need to be willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the AU to qualify as an “African Diaspora”. 

Interesting. And is this how CIDO was born?  

Right. When they said that they realised that they needed to have a department that speaks about non-state actors; civil societies, faith groups, trade unions and diaspora CIDO was created.

So CIDO was created with two divisions; The civil society division that deals with everyone inside the continent and the Diaspora division that deals with everyone outside the continent.

I work with the Diaspora Division.

So, in short what is CIDO's Mandate?

The overall goal of CIDO is to ensure the people are close to the AU and the AU is close to the people, so we try to involve all African people in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation. This is important because the AU is a policy making body. Implementation is not something we do.

The AU writes policies and these policies go to member states that should apply them up to the last person. So we try to create this relationship. Before, this relationship was only linked to monitoring and evaluation and that is why you hear non-state actors are like watch dogs and it’s a term I dislike because it creates this hostility and animosity between them and governments. Of course, they do play that part but it’s also important that they are partners in the process so that they can better understand what the challenges are, what is happening and what they can do.

So, with the Diaspora file, I try to show how the diaspora can contribute to everything; be it peace & security, skills, resources etc. We are also working to make sure that as this happens something goes back to the diaspora as well. it is a two-way street. 

What are some of the model countries when it comes to engaging the diaspora 

We have model examples of countries that support or engage the diaspora well. For example, countries that apply dual nationality. Some countries still don’t apply dual nationality because they are afraid of backlash from the people within the country and they create other schemes e.g an alien card. A card that gives you specific rights in the country and you don’t need a visa but you need to renew it and it. Other countries have done very well with knowledge transfer. You see professionals such as doctors especially come and do operations and teach medical students across Africa. Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana does this. 

Morocco applied this concept very well with their renewable sector. They made sure they targeted scientists abroad, brought them back and paid them well. They invested in them so they didn’t have to come mainly for patriotic reasons or charity. Morocco now has one of the largest solar and renewable energy plants. People even go to study how they did that.

Rwanda is another example. It made it very clear and visible to citizens in terms of how they can benefit from the diaspora. They partnered with the diaspora for the one-dollar campaign. They made sure this program changed a whole village from thatch housing to proper housing.

What are some of the events that have shaped the diaspora narrative

With the AU something that really helped change the idea of diaspora and its member states’ idea of diaspora is Ebola. Ebola happened and it was a crisis,an actual emergency. No one wanted to declare it an emergency even though we saw the growing numbers in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea but it’s because of the diaspora and diaspora individual celebrities like Samuel Etoo, the AU made sure, with the private union, that they had a campaign, “Africans against Ebola”. This saved lives. 

It is because of this message that it was declared an emergency. It was because of this message that people poured a lot of money into a fund for Africans Against Ebola. There was a campaign known as lunchbox initiative where people cooked food that Sierra Leoneans ate and provided it to clinics.

Small initiatives like these require people who understand the context of their countries and these are the diasporas. They see what is happening abroad, they know how to connect this with solutions that can work back home. After that Sierra Leone and Liberia immediately came to the AU and said they wanted to open up to the diaspora because they had always had poor relations with them.

From your various engagements, what has been the most disturbing fact that you’ve encountered in the diaspora scene 

There is still limited involvement of women and youth in diaspora programming. You rarely see women or young people. This means we are still far from being inclusive. That for me has always been disturbing. We are trying to facilitate increased involvement of women or youth in the networks. It is important that half are youth and half of them are women.

Tell us about the decade for people of African descent and how the AU is involved?

The decade for people of African descent is a decade that was initiated by the UN, the office of the high Commissioner of human rights from 2015 to 2025. They want to focus on the fact that people of African descent across the world seem to be facing many challenges. It has three pillars: Justice, recognition and development. We had the first meeting to relaunch the event with the UN officially at the AU in the first half of the year (2018), then in September we had the first event with the UN in Accra, Ghana. We brought different groups to raise awareness about what this decade is about and what member states can do. It was also very good that it happened in Ghana because Ghana and Ethiopia last year conferred citizenship or nationality to people of African descent. With Ethiopia they did that with the Rastafarian community. Ethiopia realized that these people have so much love and are putting back resources into the country.

This interview originally appeared on The African Perspective Magazine online. The full interview can be accessed here