Creating an environment for intellectual capital remittance

African diaspora scholars – individuals born, raised and educated in Africa and who now work in foreign universities – have for years established links and worked with institutions in their mother countries as a way of ‘giving back’.

These links, which manifested in periodic visits for sabbatical leave, grant writing, academic publishing, curriculum development and the mentoring of graduate students, among others, emanated from personal networks developed by individual African diaspora scholars with their counterparts in African universities.

While these individual efforts are commendable, they are not sustainable because they lack the institutional infrastructure that can sustain such undertakings.

They depend on the generosity of individual African diaspora scholars for the most part, who donate their time and personal resources, sometimes at the expense of their own career development in home institutions.

In 2013, the Carnegie Corporation of New York established the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP) to link African diaspora scholars in the United States and Canada to African universities in six countries (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda).

African universities identify areas in which they need support and are matched with fellows who possess the needed skills.

To date, 528 fellowships have been awarded at 168 universities on the continent where fellows travel for short periods of time – from two weeks to three months in summer.

This initiative has been successful, with fellows getting the opportunity to remit intellectual capital to African universities, which have gained revitalised and new curricular programmes, access to international exposure, graduate and early career faculty mentoring, best practices in virtual learning, building capacity for knowledge production and dissemination through academic publishing.

Tapping into diasporans’ skills

Unfortunately, the CADF programme will be phased out when funds are exhausted.

It is under this premise that we urge African governments, through their local universities, to develop comprehensive institutional policy frameworks and strategies for tapping the African diaspora scholars’ skills in pragmatic, innovative and flexible ways in order to transform their countries’ institutions of higher learning in sustainable ways.

African governments need to acknowledge the impact the ‘brain drain’ has had on the social and economic development of the continent and develop pipelines for their highly skilled African diaspora scholars to contribute their intellectual capital in what is popularly known as ‘brain circulation’.

Other countries such as China, India and Germany have successfully done so.

While some African governments have considered diaspora scholars to be unpatriotic or even dissidents, it is self-injurious not to tap into the intellectual capital in order to transform the education, technology, knowledge sectors and other socio-economic systems.

It is imperative that they strive to create conditions that attract diaspora scholars into the continent even for short periods of time. But the assumption that diaspora scholars can afford to engage with African institutions without any kind of remuneration is false.

What can be done?

In short, African governments and universities have a challenge and responsibility to:

• Create conducive environments for receiving African diaspora scholars;

• Develop clear policies on the value and role of diaspora scholars in strengthening, internationalising, and globalising the universities;

• Provide basic supportive infrastructure for visiting Africa diaspora scholars (eg, decent offices and housing);

• Provide financial support for scholars;

• Audit their institutional needs and identify gaps they have in light of knowledge, skills that they would need from the African diaspora scholars to gain a competitive edge globally; and

• Mitigate the hostile work environment involving territorial colleagues who feel threatened by diaspora scholars.

Diasporan dispositions

In the spirit of collaboration and giving back, it is important for African diaspora scholars to re-examine their own dispositions and expectations.

Having lived in well-resourced environments for many years, they often display intellectual and cultural arrogance that hinder meaningful engagement with their host colleagues in institutions in Africa.

This is sometimes manifested in a sense of entitlement, demanding special treatment that is not available in the under-resourced institutions.

It is, therefore, the responsibility of African diaspora scholars to reorient themselves with the culture of the host institutions and to approach the engagement with reasonable humility.

Efforts by African governments, in collaboration with African universities, to build sustainable infrastructures to harness intellectual capital from their African diaspora scholars are long overdue.

Diaspora scholars have immense knowledge, skills and resources to transform the continent through collaborative engagements with African universities that aspire to be global players.

But all stakeholders have the responsibility to devise systematic methods to attract the skills and human capital of its diaspora scholars in a manner that is sustainable and impactful.

mutindi ndunda is an associate professor in the college of education, Charleston University, South Carolina, United States, and a 2018 CADFP fellow in Tanzania. She can be reached at NdundaM@cofc.edu.

Faith Maina is a professor at the college of education, Texas Tech University, Texas, US, and a 2018 CADFP fellow in Kenya. Contact her at faith.maina@ttu.edu.

The views expressed in this article do not represent those of their respective home or host institutions nor those of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.

References

Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, 2021. Building capacity at African Universities through curricular collaboration. Unpublished Institute of International Education report.

Carnegie Corporation of New York,2020. African Academic Diaspora Toolkit: Preparation for university diaspora academics and hosts. Retrieved on 29 October 2021.