African Diaspora! A blessing or a Curse.

The African education systems have been transforming lives and increasing the continent's ability to cope with some of the challenges unique to Africa. Some of the Universities have already received global recognition for sharpening the skills of the many students who pass through them while furthering their studies abroad for their Master and Ph.D. studies. Although not having the historical class of the most globally distinguished universities in the league of Oxford (1096), Cambridge (1209), Glasgow (1451), Havard (1636), Yale (1702), Princetown (1747), Columbia (1754), Michigan (1817), McGill (1821), Duke (1838), Cornell (1865), Kyoto (1897), Zhejiang (1897), Peking (1898), Carnegie (1900), and Birmingham (1900) African universities continue to grow. Africa has among the oldest existing universities such as Ez-Zitouna (737) and Al-Azhar (970) which predominantly focused on Islam, Cape Town (1829) and Stellenbosch (1866) had mainly focused on the white minority in South Africa, while the newer Universities like Khartoum (1902), Algiers (1909), Makerere (1922), Ibadan (1948), Ghana (1961), Nairobi (1970), and Dare Salam (1970) could still be considered young universities, their impact is being recognized globally. The emergence of these new training grounds has increased the ability of the African academic growth to support the needed economic growth.

The connectivity of universities has continued to attract many African scholars to the foreign universities where many opt to work in the countries where they studied. This has increased the number of the African Diaspora who even gains citizenship in their host countries and becomes assimilated into the host countries. There is an increasing number of African scholars who also voluntarily seek better conditions elsewhere and get absorbed away from the huge potential in Africa. Athletics have shown the genetic superiority of the African descents in the diaspora and others present today in Africa presenting top talent in globally acclaimed football teams and other sporting disciplines. This African potential has continued to show commitment to the African dream of great performance and excellence in the future. Some of the African athletic prowess has made some course records that stay long before the history is rewritten while increasing their earnings to levels never thought possible before.

Harnessing this great potential has always eluded the African economic and political dream. The saddening stories of food insecurity, poor health, hygiene, disease, and poverty always grace the global media showing the dire situation in some African countries. Despite the challenges of the divide and rule that characterized the past decades, there is a new spirit of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AFCTA) connecting this huge pool of local and international talent that can’t change the history of the continent. In spite of some countries facing instability from warfare (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Chad, D.R Congo, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, there are still pockets of hope that the negative forces will be vanquished soon. The “resource curse” often labeled as the cause of war should be turned into a blessing through the establishment of equity and good governance systems that should empower the people.

The African Development Bank (AfDB), presents a unique chance to connect the Diaspora's economic potential into an African incentive through the establishment of development bonds that give good returns while focusing on projects that should emancipate the African continent from the present challenges. Some of the unique projects that the AfDB should focus on should be in Agriculture where viable irrigation projects with the production of the imported grains such as rice, corn/maize, wheat, barley, sunflower, and palm oil (cooking oil), should be fully funded with an economic model that ensures the loans from the AfDB are leveraged for profitable returns. Food processing ability should focus on the ability to ensure sustainably modern processing equipment is used to meet global standards while addressing the tariff and non-tariff barriers among the African countries to facilitate better trade.

Electricity generation with regional connectivity through the establishment of hydroelectric dams should be another important area of interest to increase manufacturing potential while the critical infrastructure projects should be considered in relation to increasing trade and connectivity among the countries. Fertilizer production is a key ingredient to the success of agricultural production and should be supported by the increasing number of explorations indicating the huge natural gas potential in the continent. Possibly, East, West, South, and North orientation should ensure that the established projects cover the entire spectrum of the African potential to support the food security goal.

Making the African diaspora participate in African development through well-developed projects vetted with the banks' professional approach, will greatly help in the realization of the great promising economic African potential through resource mobilization that the AfDB should focus on. Fire fighting in the current food and energy crisis should be turned into an opportunity of having an advisory group that should be giving ideas to the AFDB development agenda. One way would be to have a website with a portal, where new innovative ideas should be shared and high-profile selection criteria are established to analyze and evaluate the economic, social, and environmental viability of each proposal. Once the proposal achieves a certain set threshold, then the AfDB can source funds internally, through the diaspora, or even borrow from other multilateral agencies (World Bank, IMF, EDB, ADB, etc.) to ensure the projects are professional run to maximize on the opportunity.

Recently, Elon Musk, challenged the WFP to give a plan of action on how they could eradicate hunger in the continent. WFP bureaucratic system is global and could therefore not come up with a feasible answer to the challenge. The AfDB should connect with Elon Musk, to develop a competitive proposal development of viable and feasible projects to address the hunger and poverty challenges in Africa. The AFDB should screen the viable and potentially economically sound projects while giving some training to make these bankable ideas more realistic. The AFDB with its great potential should have a platform for presentation to the potential funders like Elon Musk and others to realize the African potential. AFDB's strategic partnership with the African Universities should be able to guide the university training programs on some of the areas of increased training through these projects that should develop the management and development potential of these ideas. Some of the universities are still focused on programs that despite having their own value, do not have the potential to transform the economic potential of the African continent. The AfDB should develop a quarterly communique on the potential of the incubation projects with the emerging areas that more university training should focus on to make them more realistic and meet the future needs of the continent. The partnership of the AfDB and the African Union should easily make this idea generation have a continental appeal and develop a system for stimulating problem-solving innovations that could potentially solve African unique problems.