Leveraging the Africa Diaspora
Program
of events
Keynote
Speaker Presentations
The
Africa Day 2005 Program
On April 22, 2005,
the Africa Club at London Business School hosted the fourth
annual Africa Day Conference, an event that aimed to:
• Stimulate
debate and discussion around business issues relevant to Africa
• Provide
examples of successful entrepreneurship and management practices
in Africa
• Provide
a networking forum for African professionals in Europe
The London Business
School Africa Day has emerged as the pre-eminent annual business
school conference of its kind in Europe. The event draws attendees
from the global business and academic communities. Speakers
at past events have included: Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairman Johnnic
Holdings Ltd, South Africa; Ayisi Makatiani, Founder Africa
Online; Sam Jonah, Chairman Ashanti Goldfields, Ghana; Dr
Mohamed Ibrahim, Founder Celtel International; and Strive
Masiyiwa, Founder Econet Wireless.
Africa Day 2005
The theme at this year’s event is “Leveraging
the Africa Diaspora” and will feature discussions, panels
and keynote speakers covering recent developments and success
stories on:
• Brain Drain Vs Brain Push
“The common belief has been that thousands of African
professionals and graduates have been lured to work in Western
countries thanks to radically better professional prospects
and significantly higher standards of living. However, an
increasingly popular counter-argument is that poor/weak policy
implementation – the bane of most African Governments
- constitutes more of a push to their highly skilled (and
thus globally competitive) talent, thus motivating talks about
of a brain push by Africa itself as opposed to the popular
concept of brain drain.”
• Diaspora Remittances
There has been a lot of hype about the remittances sent to
Africa. It is estimated that the total annual amount of remittance
flows through formal and informal channels to the continent
increased from $ 5.8 billion in 1980 to $ 11.2 billion 2002.
Remittances are the second next important flows after Official
Development Aid but before net Foreign Direct Investments.
However, even though these remittances have been regular and
significant, they have so far contributed very little (if
at all) to the sustainable economic growth and development
in the continent. The panel discussants will seek to explore
ways to effectively leverage this potential opportunity.”
Speakers include
Mr Nkosana Moyo, Managing Partner, Actis; Mrs Ndioro Ndiaye,
Depuety Managing Director, International Organisation for
Migration; Mr Omari Issa, COO, Celtel International, Eric
Kakou, Manager, OTF Group, Mr Babatunde Soyoye, Managing Partner,
Helios Investment, Dr Banjoko, Director, Africa Recruit and
Mr Ben Zwinkels, Senior Investment Officer, FMO.
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