Topic: “The growing relationship between Africa and its Global Diaspora, and why this moment matter”
1. Distinguished guests, leaders of industry, members of the African diaspora, ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply honoured to join you for this Africa Rising symposium convened by EMY Africa.
2. We gather under a theme – “the growing relationship between Africa and its Global Diaspora, and why this moment matters”. This is a theme that is both timely and historic. It’s a theme that matters because Africa’s rise can no longer be treated as a slogan, a conference theme, or a headline written from elsewhere. Africa’s rise must become a lived reality for Africans on the continent and across the world.
3. Our task, then, is not simply to celebrate the growing relationship between Africa and its diaspora. It is to convert that relationship into a productive force: capital that builds, institutions that endure, and ownership that keeps more African value in African hands.
4. Africa is rising in population, in ambition, in enterprise, and in global strategic importance. But the defining question is this; who will own Africa’s rise? Will Africa rise as a supplier of raw materials, cheap labour, and consumer markets for others? Or will Africa rise as a continent of producers, innovators, owners, financiers, and builders?
5. In answering these pertinent questions, we can’t help but come to the realisation that the African diaspora matters. The Global African Diaspora is not a sentimental extension of Africa. It is one of Africa’s most powerful and strategic assets: a reservoir of expertise, skills, technology, capital, networks, credibility, influence, and lived experience in systems that Africa must now master for itself.
6. Ladies and gentlemen, the future of our continent is young. The Mastercard Foundation’s Africa Youth Employment Outlook 2026 estimates that Africa is home to about 532 million young people aged 15 to 35, and that the continent’s youth population will continue rising through the 2070s. If we harness the potential of this youthful population, Africa becomes the world’s next great engine of productivity and creativity. If we fail them, then what ought to be a demographic advantage may well become a demographic crisis, expressed through high unemployment, migration without dignity, social unrest, and the loss of confidence in the African promise.
7. The tragedy today is that too many young Africans lack pathways to productive work and capital. Too many are trained for economies that have not expanded fast enough. Too many find themselves in societies where capital, mentorship and opportunity are scarce. But the African youth does not need pity. The African youth needs access; access to skills, financing, credit, markets, technology, mentorship, and institutions that reward effort. The diaspora can help unlock all of these.
8. For decades, the diaspora has stood by Africa through remittances. Families have been educated, medical bills paid, homes built, and communities sustained because sons and daughters abroad did not forget home. And we must respect that contribution. But this moment demands more than remittances. It demands investment. Remittances are lifelines but investment builds self-sustaining engines. Remittances help households survive but investment helps economies transform. Remittances can pay school fees but diaspora-driven enterprise can create the companies that employ those graduates after school.
9. The diaspora must therefore move from being an emergency support system to becoming strategic co-architects of Africa’s transformation. We need diaspora capital in manufacturing, commercial farming, agribusiness, logistics, IT, green energy, education, healthcare, value addition, creative industries, and infrastructure. We need diaspora professionals not only to visit Africa, but to mentor, invest, partner, govern, build, and transfer expertise.
10. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, the challenge before us is therefore not whether the African global diaspora loves Africa. The challenge is whether that love can be organised into institutions, funds, businesses, standards, partnerships, platforms, and long-term commitments that outlive emotion.
11. When we speak of diaspora investment, we must not limit ourselves to money. Skill is capital. Reputation is capital. Networks are capital. Governance experience is capital. Exposure to efficient systems is capital. A Ghanaian engineer in Birmingham, a Nigerian banker in New York, a Kenyan software architect in Berlin, a Senegalese logistics expert in Paris, a Moroccan researcher in Toronto – all carry Knowledge and capabilities that Africa needs.
12. My appeal to the global African diaspora therefore is this: do not only send money home; send systems home. Do not only build houses; build enterprises. Do not only sponsor ceremonies; sponsor apprenticeships and entrepreneurship. Do not only remember where you come from; help redesign where we are going.
13. In Ghana, President John Mahama is leading a charge to reset the way we lead, serve, and structure our economy. He is redefining the story of Africa by resetting Ghana. At the heart of this reset, is a simple but powerful principle: Africans must own the commanding heights of the sectors that are shaping our future, while welcoming foreign investment that strengthens local capacity for mutual benefits.
14. As Chief Executive Officer of the GoldBod, I speak from a sector that captures Africa’s paradox. Africa is rich in minerals, yet too often poor in the value created from them. We export what nature gave us and import what human ingenuity made of it. We celebrate production and surrender processing, financing, invention and pricing power.
15. The GoldBod is an important part of Ghana’s answer to this age-long problem. It is a success story because it demonstrates what becomes possible when the state acts not merely as a regulator, but as a strategic architect of national value.
16. Through GoldBod, Ghana is building a well organized, transparent, and value-focused gold ecosystem; one that strengthens local participation, improves accountability, supports responsible trading, promotes value addition and positions gold not simply as a commodity we extract, but as a platform for national economic stability, industrialization, job creation and national development.
17. Since its inception, GoldBod has helped address gold smuggling, formalized the gold trade supply chain, strengthened foreign exchange generation and created stronger opportunities for investment in gold production, responsible sourcing and value addition in Ghana. Just in case you are yet to hear, we will soon be rolling out our gold-backed tokenisation investment assets which will open the way for more Africans to own the mineral wealth of Africa.
18. My brothers and sisters, Africa’s rise must not mean African resources rising into foreign balance sheets while the African youth remain unemployed. Africa’s rise must mean African resources creating African industries, African jobs, African brands, African wealth, African reserves, and African dignity.
19. If GoldBod offers one lesson, it is this: transformation requires structures. Sentiment is not enough. Speeches are not enough. Even capital is not enough unless it is organised into vehicles that can endure, govern, scale-up and deliver.
20. What then should this new relationship between Africa and its diaspora look like? I have four (4) humble suggestions for the consideration of the global African diaspora:
* Let African diaspora capital finance African enterprises that produce, process, export, employ, and scale-up.
* Let your engagement with Africa be based on mutual respect, bankable ideas, shared risk, and shared reward.
* Let the African diaspora invest in productive sectors, build mentorship platforms and diaspora investment vehicles.
* Let the African diaspora help Africa keep more value from what Africa produces through value addition and value retention.
21. But for these to be a reality, African governments must create the conditions for diaspora investment to thrive. And by this I mean, policy stability, respect for the sanctity of contracts, strong and transparent institutions, and respect for citizens and investors alike.
22. Distinguished guests, there is a version of Africa’s rise that is comfortable for the world: Africa as a market, Africa as a mineral source, Africa as a young labour pool, Africa as a story of opportunity narrated by others. But as Africans, both home and abroad, there is another version of Africa’s rise that we must fight for: Africa as owner, Africa as innovator, Africa as producer, Africa as a market-maker and Africa as a dignified partner in the world. This will require African governments that are serious, African businesses that are ambitious, African youth that are equipped, and an African diaspora that sees itself not as distant relatives of the continent, but as stakeholders in its destiny.
23. So the question before us is not whether Africa will matter in this century. For Africa will surely matter. The question is whether Africa will matter on terms shaped by Africans. So today, from London, I make a humble appeal to every African in the diaspora and every friend of Africa: Let us move beyond remittances into investment. Let us move beyond speeches into action. Let us move beyond asking what Africa can become and start building what Africa must become.
24. Africa’s youth are waiting for opportunity, not charity. Africa’s resources are waiting for African ownership, not discovery. We are done with predicting Africa’s future. The time to build that future is now. If we build it together, continent and diaspora, youth and elders, public sector and private enterprise, capital and conscience, then Africa’s rise will not be a performance staged for others. It will be a transformation owned by Africans.
25. Let this be the generation that ensures that the wealth beneath Africa’s soil becomes dignity in African homes, skills in African hands, equity on African balance sheets, and hope in African youth.
My fellow Africans, Africa is rising. Let Africans rise with her. Thank you for your attention and may God continue to bless Africa.
