Ben Guerir – Khalid Baddou, the director of institutional affairs at the University of Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P), has illuminated the diaspora diaspora critical and yet insufficient role in the continent’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Recently on the 27th annual Africa Business Conference, which takes place this week at the Harvard Business School in Baddou focused Undisory diaspora about Africa’s inexplicable.
While Africa has an essential economic potential for sectors such as agriculture, digital technology and renewable energies, the continent shows bad results in unicorn startups.
In strong numbers, in contrast to the United States, which with 380 and India produced 18 years of 1,020 unicorn startups in China, the African continent only has nine.
Khalid Baddou claimed that this inequality, even if the continent’s diaspora sends almost 100 billion US dollars a year at home, refers to ongoing challenges for African entrepreneurs.
During his panel discussion on diaspora-controlled entrepreneurship, Baddou found that a large part of this capital is largely lost to high transaction fees or used directly for consumption and was not spent on productive investments.
However, aspiring fintech solutions begin to solve this problem, especially in Morocco. In this regard Baddou mentioned That the country’s Bank set a fintech hub to promote innovations in financial services and reduce the transmission costs.
Sustainable growth, no copy paste solution
The Baddou message also challenged traditional practice to import western business models in order to be applied directly to African markets.
He believes that the solutions for the success of Africa should not depend on copying and sticking existing solutions, but that entrepreneurs have to concentrate on sustainable expansion through extensive market research and close cooperation with local stakeholders and governments.
The universities are now increasingly Play A crucial role in this transformation, a strategy that can be seen through many of the UM6P initiatives.
A lively example is the UM6P Associates Network, which connects Moroccan diaspora with the university programs and thus provides a model for other African countries.
These initiatives strive to involve the Diaspora talent of Africa in research programs that benefit the continent, as well as to promote the Pan African cooperation between young innovators.
Morocco as a model
This urge for diaspora engagement corresponds to the latest political directions in Morocco. King Mohammed VI called for the creation of structured citizenship for qualified citizens abroad to contribute to national development.
Through such initiatives, Morocco positions itself as a model for other African national four -folders who want to use their global talent pools.
While Africa is working on putting its economic potential into reality, Baddou argued during the conference that success requires more than just financial investments.
He especially said That the transfer of knowledge, mentors and the allocation of strategic resources of the disapora will be decisive in order to build sustainable companies that not only thrive in local contexts, but can also compete globally.
These strong statistics on unicorn startups that Baddou brought to the surface indicate that the entrepreneurial journey of Africa is still in the early stages.
With coordinated efforts between governments, educational institutions and diaspora networks, however, the continent seems to be ready to write its own unique success story in global entrepreneurship.
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