BY DANIEL ALEMAYEHU
Reports show that there are more than 3 million Ethiopians live across the globe. These Ethiopians have been contributing what they have for their country both good and evil things. The Diaspora community has been migrated in different means. Some of them have got the legal opportunity to go and live abroad whereas some of them used the illegal way to cross the boarders of the countries and asked for political asylum. On the other hand, there are children, relatives, even people those have close attachment with the former government, now labeled as the terrorist group, TPLF, have granted visit visa, obtained scholarship or used the people’s money to live in different parts of the world.
No matter how they fled from their country, but nowadays, they are standing in extremely distant polar regarding the interest of their country. As the people of Ethiopia and the rest of the world is witnessing, there is extreme love and hate from the Diaspora regarding the current issues in the country. There are patriotic Ethiopian Diasporas who want to give everything for their country. On the other hand, there are Diasporas who bite the breast of the country ignoring that there is nowhere better than home.
In any case, these people whether they live overseas legally or illegally have great impact on the overall development of the country. Their contribution highly impacts the social, economic, and political atmosphere of the country. There are evidences that the Diasporas’ contribution is high throughout the country.
From the many contributions of the Diasporas, the economic contribution is the basic means for the government which enables it easily get foreign currency from different contributions. According to the government’s reports, the Diaspora has been contributing for different occasions such as for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), for the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), and the like.
In the past ten years the Diasporas have contributed over 1.3 billion Birr for the country. While approached by The Ethiopian Herald, Wondwosen Girma, Public Relation Director of the Ethiopian Diaspora Agency said that the Diaspora participation can broadly be divided into two major categories. These are monetary participation and public diplomacy participation. In these two categories, the Diasporas have been actively engaged in many circumstances. For instance, the Diaspora community around the world contributed millions of Birr during the last fiscal year.
According to Wondwosen, the Diaspora community contributed more than 270 million Birr for the construction of GERD, around 30 million Birr for Dine for the Nation, more than 280 million Birr for COVID- 19 prevention, and about 600 million Birr for supporting the National Defense force and for Tigray rehabilitation. Not only this, the Diaspora donated about 103 million Birr for voluntary services. In addition, over 1.3 billion Birr was contributed from different corners of the globe to Ethiopia. “The plan for the fiscal year was to collect 200 million Birr for GERD, but we achieved more than our plan; we collected over 272 million Birr,” he remarked.
Wondwossen further said that in order to raise fund, there are two forms: project fund raising and timely situation fund raising. For instance, the GERD is an example of project fund raising, and the law enforcement operation is an example of timely fund raising. From these fund raisings, the country got more than 1.3 billion Birr. This doesn’t include the contribution from remittance. In the form of remittance alone, the Diaspora has contributed more than 3.6 billion Dollar which is very close to the export income that the country earned in the fiscal year.
Regarding the remittance, the Director said that the Agency has been working on enlightening them on the current situation in the country, and encouraging the legal ways of transferring money like ‘It’s my dam’ in Europe and ‘My GERD.com’ in USA. The Diaspora falls in moral question whether sending the money in a legal way so that the government use it for the country’s development or use the illegal ways to transfer the money to get extra benefits in return. All of the moves taken by the Diaspora have rested on moral supremacy. At the moment, the Diasporas have opened an account and transferred their money through the legal way, and the country got a deposit of more than 7.5 million Dollar.
He added that the means of collecting money are in the forms of bond and gift. Most of the contributions from the Diasporas have been gift. This shows how the Diasporas have been actively participated in the overall development of the country.
In order to avoid the donors’ repugnance, the community has raised opinions like most of the donors want to contribute something continuously and constantly. One of the ways they mentioned was to contribute something deducted monthly or yearly from their income. This might be complicated and hard to achieve in the near future; however, the Agency brings this idea to act on in the long run, the Director highlighted.
To this end, during the past 6 months, the Diaspora Committee and the Agency have been aggressively working on the public and digital diplomacy campaigns all over the globe. There were over 700 virtual and in person meetings; social media campaigns and rallies achieved by the Diaspora communities. For instance, there was a report on child soldiers by the New York Times, and the Diaspora community started a campaign on social media as #children not soldiers. This campaign forced the media to drag the report down from their platform. There are over 50 tweeter campaigns throughout the world like: #TPLF must go #Justice for Ethiopia, #TPLF crimes, #Hands off Ethiopia among others Wondwossen said.
“One of the achievements of the Ethiopian Diaspora Agency is that we have tried to join the Diaspora together in one platform on Watts App, and at this time more than 10 thousand messages have been conveyed through this platform. This helps us to have common interest and all the Diasporas stand together to speak. This also assists the Diasporas to place their fingerprints on the country’s development. In the long run, the Agency plans to have offices and hire professionals to craft messages on this platform,” Wondossen added.
“On top of that,” he said, “The Ethio- American Professionals Association hired lobbyists as entitled the ‘Mercury Lobbyists’, and are working the job on behalf of the government of Ethiopia as the country has not hired any lobbyist yet.”
The Director also added that the Diaspora has been involving in the investment sector too. In the past three years, for instance, more than 5 thousand Ethiopian and foreigners of Ethiopian origin Diasporas have engaged in different investment sectors on 170 different projects. The Diasporas have earned more than 71.3 billion Birr from these investments.
Besides, the Agency has been working on the rights of Ethiopian citizens around the world especially those are passing through various hardships in the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. The agency along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has tried to bring the citizens back to home. In the first round, around 43 thousand Ethiopian citizens have returned home, and there will be second round, the Director said.
According to the Director, the main objective of the Agency is to act as a bridge between the Diaspora and the country. In order to achieve its objectives under this flagship, the agency is implementing the policy that defends the rights and benefits of the Diaspora. To this end, the agency plans to mobilize many Diaspora communities. In these movements, there will be different meetings, campaigns, rallies, and discussion forums. This will be a good tool to aware the Diaspora about the country in order to make them engaged in different sectors and help the nation’s journey to prosperity.
The Ethiopian Herald August 21/2021
