Keynote Speech: Dr. Awil Mohmoud, Executive Director African Diaspora Policy Center (ADPC) I actually have to make more than one apology, one for coming late, from home I took my bike and on the way, I got a flat tire. So, I have to wait for a bus which took a while before it reached the station. So this is the first apology to my friends and colleagues from HIRDA. The second apology to you is that I got e-mails and telephone calls in the past five days, while I was abroad, and I could not (respond) because I came last night in Holland. I am happy to be here, to celebrate with you the work that you have done in the past 10 years. I have been part of HIRDA - I know Mohammed Terai who set up the idea of organizing and also building up some kind of organization. So for me it is a joy - I am sure it is a joy for many diaspora organizations in Holland - because HIRDA is an example, a unique example, of an NGO set up by the diaspora to contribute to the development back home in a more sustainable manner. HIRDA has mobilized the huge resources among the diaspora in different countries. HIRDA works more in a transnational setting. (You) see the money is coming from different groups located almost everywhere. They have also managed to mobilize resources from the mainstream NGOs like Oxfam, among others. They have also done good work, for me, for my organization the African Diaspora Policy Centre. We use HIRDA as an example when I go to talk to mainstream development workers, whether they are in Novib, in Cordaid, or ICCO, to tell them: "See this is what the diaspora can do." So, I think HIRDA is a (necessary) organization - there are very few organizations in Holland. HIRDA is an example of a diaspora organization doing great work. I know that HIRDA is also ambitious. Because if you mobilize a lot of resources, you also need to spend it wisely. In that case, you need skills - you need to have what I would like to call "social capital." I am sure that Cindy mentioned social remittance, but I prefer social capital. Especially in the case of Somalia, in a country where most of the professionals left the country. Even if you have a lot of money, you cannot spend it without skills - you need people with skills. That means you need to mobilize skills. HIRDA has resources for now, and to make those resources much more productive, it is time to see how to mobilize highly educated Somalis who are abroad. After 10 years, then it is logical to really focus on how to mobilize social capital. For me, social capital is not only IT'ers. Cindy mentioned also ideas, things like these. But for me, it is much more concrete, it is much more education, much more about someone who came here --whether he is an engineer, medical doctor, or any kind of solid knowledge - and how you transform, how you return those knowledge back home. I think this is a huge task. Ms Gill'art, the MP from the labour party just mentioned circular migration, brain gain, how to make that circulate. But it is not easy, it is still an idea, and even when you talk about circular migration, we are not ready for mobilizing the diaspora. We are not focused on that knowledge because we do not know how to do it - we are just talking about it. And I think it is time for the diaspora to really organize themselves and put this on the agenda. What do we do we do with our highly educated African-Dutch diaspora in Europe, not only in Holland? They are here, most of them came here not just as refugees. They came here to study in the 1970s, in the late 1980s, and then they got stuck here. What will we do with these resources? How are we going to mobilize (them)? I think that it is we the diaspora who can put this on the agenda, and also to tell them how they should do it. I am part of a team -- I am also going to tell you my real color -- I am a member of the Dutch labour party and we are discussing with Chantal those issues about circular migration. But it is just too abstract, there is a lack of knowledge how to do it in practice. How you will make sure that people go back home and contribute to development, and also be part of what Cindy mentioned, the Western, the Dutch, Denmark -- the white mission. Because even the consultants, most of them are not Africans, not even African-Dutch. They have been here for 12 years but they are not part of that because there is that thing - they are good but not really good. There is always something (lacking) - they are good but not they are not sufficient to be good. So, I think that is the challenge. What do we do? I think HIRDA took this step and I hope we could maybe also try to collaborate with other diaspora organizations in Holland to see how we make sure, hopefully, in the coming ten years, that social capital should come on the agenda of different development donor organizations, whether it is Novib, among others, and even the Dutch Ministry. Now there are projects, I do not know if you are aware of, run by the Dutch ministry in collaboration with PSO which is trying to somehow send some of the diaspora organizations. It is a good example but only just beginning. That means people go back and transfer knowledge, and share resources. If you talk about social capital, then you ask (what it is). Okay, in one way, people come here, they study, acquire knowledge, but they also acquire other kind of things. You acquire not only knowledge, you acquire new ideas, you acquire a kind of new work ethic. So sometimes it is not bad to really transfer good things. I know there is always tension because if you try to transfer new ideas, there must be some kind of difficulty on the ground to accept it. But the values that people are transferring sometimes could bring a positive change. We do transfer ideas in different ways, sometimes it is a formal way - some go back home and try to invest in business or try to teach in university. But there is also the informal way and that is things you talk over the telephone, you always share new ideas. I will give you an example. In a Somali case, there were many kinds of meetings in Naroibi. For the Somalis who came back from Canada to help some of their groups there, they came up with other ideas because for them the world is much bigger than the ones on the ground. Because for those on the ground could not see beyond the limited horizon. I think an outside input, an outside vision, what I call a long distance diaspora world view, will have a positive effect on different issues - on peace-building, on governance, on all those things. That is why I think, in Somalia, the problem we now have is that a lot of those who remain are not exposed to the realities outside. And those who could do something, are not there. So, you are in a kind of vicious circle. What HIRDA is doing, is good but (yet) a small thing. HIRDA is operating in a limited regional context, it is more a kind of welfare organization. But we need more than one HIRDA to really do something and also change the reality, because the reality in Somalia is a mess and it will remain so. Because when I was talking about why Somalia could not be taken as a selected country in Holland, even if you do it, the mess would still be the same because the people are not there. The people who could do something are not on the ground. More shared social capital is the best way to really make a change. And I am happy that HIRDA put itself on that ? Sorry, but I am sure there are two organizations. I am trying to say all the time HIRDA but it also goes for Doses of Hope. You know coming late, you could imagine. I arrived at one o'clock and had to travel early, rode my bike - so maybe all these contribute to this kind of confusion. What I would like to say is that what Cindy also mentioned, the research which has been done in the past and what must be done on social remittance. Because as a concept, it was not developed in Europe but in America. When we started to do research on this, I was asked by the Council of Europe in collaboration with the North-South Centre based in Lisbon, told me to use this document - it is called The Social Remittances of the African Diaspora in Europe. But at that time, no one was interested. Well the problem is that the focus still, when you are talking about migration & development, is on financial remittance. But financial remittance is only one aspect of the many things that the diaspora is transferring. And the transfer of social remittances, whether it is ideas, knowledge, experience, expertise is still not on the agenda. And I have been trying to discuss with my old friend who is here, Leila from Novib, that we need this to be on the agenda. But Leila said: You could not touch it, money you can see, something you could measure. Transferring money is not dangerous. How could we make this an issue ? I think there is another problem, because it seems everyone is trying to write, discuss, to produce different documents on financial remittance since the World Bank started (to focus on it). So the world is trying to recycle an issue. Yet focusing on social remittance would even last much longer. If you give money to Somalia, or even money from the Dutch government, to Liberia, or to Sierra Leone, and there is no capacity to make sure that the money becomes productive, then it will just be a waste of money. Really. I was in the States last year, I gave a talk at the World Bank, saying: We should invest in institutions who could make this financial contributions much more productive. And investing in institutions means trying to mobilize people with skills-(getting) a lot of Somali lawyers, just everyone in Canada, or wherever they are, just to make sure that institutions are built -up at the municipal level, at the district level. And I think that is still a problem because what do you do with money without capacity. And I am happy that financial remittances address that issue. We should place both on the agenda. I will stop my speech here, and say: Thank you very much. Question 1: My name is Hassan, and my question is knowing -- because I have done some research -- that the remittance going to Somalia is really huge, experts have different figures, but it is something between 1 Billion to 1,5 Billion. That is the financial (side) but the other thing that I have seen here in Europe, in different countries like here in Holland, there is social remittance, normative ways. And some people are trying to practice it - like Doses of Hope and HIRDA. How do we promote those kind of social remittance ? If you have ideas (on this), like I see HIRDA try to run their organization in Somalia, and here in Wibautstraat -- that is social remittance. Doses of Hope does a lot of things, for a lot of vulnerable people, and that people tend to forget it. Do you have any ideas on that. My second question is that most of the money that goes to Somalia goes to household use. How could it be promoted, from a researcher's perspective, that such money could be used for small industries and then the people could benefit from the employment opportunities generated ? Awil: Thank you very much. Maybe, I will start with the leaders (meeting) in Accra last year, Mamoud was there, and I am sure he visited some diaspora NGOs in Ghana summoned by the African Diaspora POWER (?). The idea was just to learn from their own experience, and they try also tried to conduct funding, so it was kind of collective project. And I think we could learn from such kind of experiences. And I am happy that Mohammed is there and he could tell us more about what he has learned from this mission to Ghana. Your first question, maybe has something to do with how to market an idea. I think that is very important. Financial remittances was an idea that the World Bank put on the agenda and everyone took it up. It became very important since World Bank mentioned it in 2003. Everybody said: "Wow, we have to recycle it." So I think what HIRDA can do is how you put the social capital aspect of migration & development on the agenda. How do you make it ? Marketing. And I think that is not easy but you need to develop different kinds of strategies. You also need to have, maybe, alliances - to link up with them, the Dutch Ministry, PSO, Oxfam Novib. Just to really make sure ( it is understood) that although we want to develop the location, a country, but then we also need human capital. And that human capital that also belongs to that (society) because the diaspora come from the homeland, they speak the language, they know the culture, they know the reality. So those kind of people with this kind of knowledge - knowledge here because they are also part of host society. They are Somali Dutch and so they know how the Dutch mind works but they also know the situation on the ground. So to mobilize this kind (of knowledge). The diaspora are very important strategic actors, and now they are one of the four development actors. I also realize that the diaspora are not mobilizing themselves, they are not empowered. They have the power but they do not know how to mobilize that power and come (up) with a very strong constituency. Chantal was just saying, " the mainstream NGOs are not working with the diaspora." You have to knock on the door. You say in Dutch: "Jij moet voor jijzelf opkomen." You have to fight for your own rights, you have to say you are here and I am a development actor, and I want to be part of the this development circle. But then to put things on the table, and say I want to fight for my rights. That requires a lot of courage, that also requires a lot of friends, colleagues. You have to play the rules of the game, and it is with those rules of the game that you could achieve much. Fadumo Alin: It is actually not a question, I just want to agree with the last point you said. And I would like to respond to my colleague's last question. What he asked was: "Could these remittances, which now usually goes to the household, be turned into an employment opportunity. Well, what I want to tell him is that for instance now, in terms of small scale industries, the microfinance unit of Doses of Hope has now been transformed into a microfinance institution. That means, before the transformation, the needs of the most beneficiaries has changed from what they used to be. For instance, it was to first to put food on the table, but now the needs are greater. What the microfinance loans provide are loans for small scale industry, so that it generates not only employment for the borrower but it addresses the high unemployment rate in the country. What these organizations - what you call diaspora or migrants-are really addressing is the problems at the large scale. But you mention that they are on the periphery, the margins here. And that is due to the lack of necessary capital or funds. So, I mean by raising the awareness, what these diaspora organizations are doing, you could attract partnership or more financial resources. Question 2: I listened to the presentation of Cindy, I was impressed by the way she presented remittance and how powerful it could be. My question actually is on the concluding remarks you made, you said social remittance could make (more impact) by creating employment opportunities and decision making. And I did not find any wider explanation for these two concepts. Would you elaborate a little bit how remittance would play a role in decision making, especially, and secondly the promotion of employment. I forgot, my name is Resa Abadrash. Thank you. Cindy: I would just take the Norwegian example. About a week ago, I was at a meeting where the minister of development cooperation was stressing the 3 points they want to focus on in development cooperation in Norway, and diaspora engagement was number one. At the same while we were talking and many diaspora organizations were present, one of them was asking: So alright how many people with a migrant background are actually working in your ministry, because that would be a start of this kind of engagement. And he had to admit that there were none. So that they were all Norwegian people working at the ministry. So that is what I am saying that if you really want to engage people with a background from the different countries that you are working in, especially in development cooperation, then giving (them) power into these mainstream initiatives in European countries is a start. That is largely in Europe, maybe in the US it is better now. That is when it comes to decision making and of course employment opportunities like Awil was also mentioning, hiring consultants that come from the region, etcetera. In Norway, this is a discussion and I know there are many issues and problems there, but there should be attempts made. That was the point, I was trying to make. Question 3: One of your studies, the result was that the donors, mainly white organizations, are not using the value, the asset of the diaspora, their skills - which is something we all know. As Mahmoud was talking about, social remittance is not only money but skills. I remember in 1999, I was sent by HIRDA to Somalia and a Norwegian organization was operating in that region I went to. They were doing school rehabilitation, and they did it for more than 50,000 dollars. And Novib - yes they changed their name -- gave us the money, it was (also) 50,000, and we rehabilitated a school and built a new school. Then the Norwegian organization asked me, "How do you do these." (I answered that) You have to employ the people in your service. Do you think that the European donor organizations are in a position to take those skilled people on board, with their extra value in terms of knowledge and skills. Is this (the thing) you are talking about ? Are we in that stage? Cindy: So you are asking me, if it is possible. I know it is possible, but will the idea (of social remittance) inspire them that now is the right time that they have to do that ? Cindy: That is a very difficult question to answer. I think if it is linked to the second point I am making that in order to make social remittance really valuable, you have to have social transformation on both sides. So you have to talk about a willingness to think differently about what development means, how to do development, etcetera. I think it would be possible if there is a willingness among European partners to think differently about the issues that are taken for granted, to be willing to take in new ideas about development. This is all about diversity, and to be willing to be more diverse, in operations, etcetera. And that requires ( a lot of adjustment). It is easier to work with people who have similar ideas, similar background, and who knows where we are going with this project. If you increase the diversity in your organization, you have to face (questions like ) why do we do it this way. From my background, I have a different experience, and I see things differently. Why don't we do it like this. If an openness is there, then it would be possible. It is a long process that requires openness, and also a willingness to acknowledge that this different kind of experience and knowledge is actually as valuable. Because, it is also about what Awil was talking about - Yes you are good but just not good enough. Who decides what is good and what is quality, what is experience, these things. I hope that answers your questions without saying those other things.