Promoting the productive investment of the Bassa-Mpoo-Bati diaspora
World Bank statistics taken by the British company WorldRemit in 2015 show that remittances from the Cameroonian diaspora had reached the amount of US $1.2 billion which equates to 585 billion FCFA. This amount has significantly increased in less than 6 years. From 181 billion FCFA in 2009 to 218.7 billion FCFA in 2013. Remittances in 2015 represented around 33% of the total public investment budget of the country for the year 2016. It is fair to believe that these statistics for the overall Cameroonian diaspora are representative of the contributions of the Bassa-Mpoo-Bati diaspora to productive investments in Cameroon.
A study was conducted jointly by Cameroon and the International Organization for Migrations (IOM) from July 30th to August 30th, 2018 to assess the impact of remittances from the Cameroonian diaspora in productive investment. About 1472 individuals were surveyed. The findings of this survey were presented on November 28, 2018 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Ms. Naomie Mikel Begala, Director of Cameroonians Abroad and Dr. Boubacar Seidou, Head of Mission of IOM Cameroon. The results of this study show that 13% of the remittances are used for productive investment, 1% go to savings, 43% are used to pay for the household daily consumption and about 25% are used to fund family events. In the same report, it is stated that without these transfers of funds, 18.6% of the beneficiaries would have a hard time making ends meet and 8% would live in absolute precarity.
During the presentation of the results of this study, IOM Chief of Mission Boubacar Seidou expressed a wish: “The hope is that these funds are better channeled into productive sectors”. Mr. Philippe Mpeck, of the Bassa-Mpoo-Bati diaspora who has been living in Quebec since 1982, Director of International Cooperation and Development at the Cégep de Trois-Rivières, a general and vocational college in Quebec, contacted on the telephone in Cameroon where he was on a business trip said: “Without being close to the leaders in power or the opposition leaders, from my point of view and out of concern about the progress of the country, I invite my fellow members of the diaspora including Bassa-Mpoo-Bati diaspora who have the means and the opportunities, to invest in productive sectors in the country without any hesitation. Despite the fact that everything is not perfect, I believe that you can invest successfully in Cameroon and other developing countries if you comply with what I call the law of the 3P namely patience, perseverance and presence (in the field). As an African old saying goes, at the end of patience there is heaven”.
If remittances are needed to help support parents and other family members who rely on this solidarity, it is critical to go beyond that. Dr. Elie Nkamgueu, a brilliant dentist of the Cameroonian diaspora in France and co-founder in 2007 of Club Efficience with compatriots Elias Fosso and Victor Tantcheu, all three coming from the Bamileke diaspora, encourages members of the African diaspora and the Cameroonian diaspora in particular, to strive to reach the highest level of achievement and recognition.
Club Efficience focuses on the development of three areas of strategic importance for the African diaspora: human capital, innovative ideas and financial capital through the establishment of an investment fund in Africa. The goal is to give members of the diaspora the tools they need to break the various glass ceilings they face in their adoptive countries.
Club Efficience is becoming an important lobby in France and a think tank for the future of Africa. This club regroups the black elite in France. It invites the Cameroonian diaspora to follow the lead of their peers from Mali and Senegal to make more productive investments in the country to create wealth that will effectively participate in the prosperity of the country in the long run. This was the main message delivered by the president of Club Efficience Mr. Elie Nkamgueu, on February 8th at the Intercontinental Opera Paris, at the official launching of the Gotha Noir d’Europe 2019-2020, the first bilingual global guide of the Afro-European elite which has about 1000 pages. It is important to note that this book was prefaced by the Senegalese of origin Mr. Pape Diouf, former president of the Olympic Club of Marseille, who passed away recently of Covid-19.
Nevertheless, at the highest level of the state, the Cameroonian authorities must take more incentive measures to attract more productive investments from the diaspora including the Bassa-Mpoo-Bati for local development. In an effort to increase these investments, former Cameroonian Foreign Minister Henri Eyebe Ayissi said: “The challenge today is to bring about a more significant contribution from our compatriots from abroad through adequate and transparent incentive programs … It is therefore necessary to create the necessary conditions for greater mobilization of the financial resources and human capital of our compatriots abroad, through integrated projects involving a partnership between the government, the private sector and the Cameroonian diaspora.”
Nonprofit organizations like Mbai Bassa Community and many others whose mission is to build a striving diaspora community in their adoptive countries and to empower their communities of origin to become financially self-reliant through micro-economic projects and other programs, can play an important role in increasing the part of productive investment of the diaspora in Cameroon in the long term and shall be encouraged to fully integrate that objective in their programs.
