Africa's return migrants - the new developers?

Many African migrants nurture a hope to one day return, at least temporarily, to their country of origin. This impetus is likely to increase due to the economic crisis in Europe in combination with rapid economic growth in parts of Africa. Returnees are often portrayed as agents of development who bring capital, knowledge and skills gained in Western countries. However, reality is often more complicated.

A new edited volume Africa’s Return Migrants – The New Developers? scrutinizes the ideal of return migrants as development agents. Based on extensive fieldwork in Congo, Somaliland, Ghana, Senegal, Burundi, South Sudan and Cape Verde, the authors examine the divide between policy assumptions and migrants’ actual practices. Senior researcher Nauja Kleist contributes with a case study on how highly skilled Ghanaian male return migrants involve themselves in development processes in Ghana. All the interviewed returnees had managed to establish successful careers in Ghana, ranging from deputy ministers to traditional authorities, lawyers and businessmen, thus resembling the policy ideal of return migrants as development agents. Nevertheless Kleist shows that despite the success of the returnees, the assumption of an almost automatic link between capital acquired abroad and its smooth conversion to contributions to development processes in Ghana is fundamentally flawed – at both the empirical and theoretical level. Rather a thorough understanding and mastering of local realities and power positions is pertinent to initiate change and exercise leadership ‘back home’.