By Abdoulaye Gueye, Michael Okyerefo, Paul Di\u00e9dhiou and Adamnesh Bogale<\/p>\n\n\n\n
introduction<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This book is part of a debate that has been raging in academic and political circles for at least two decades. Indeed, researchers, on the one hand, and governments or philanthropic organisations, on the other, are questioning the possibilities of mobilising the African diaspora for the benefit of the African continent and its academic institutions in particular. The reasons for this debate are well known. They are inseparable from the socio-economic evolution of sub-Saharan Africa over the last sixty years. At the very moment of the declaration of African independence, national leaders newly elected to power had made economic development their priority objective. To this end, they called on their peoples to make many sacrifices, including the suspension of multiparty politics and elections by universal suffrage, falsely arguing, at least in the light of the experiences of a number of foreign countries, that development, which presupposes the unbreakable unity of all the components of the nation, is incompatible with a multiparty system, which would be a source of discord. More significantly, the legitimacy of extending their political mandate was subordinated to the achievement of this objective. But even before the end of the first decade of independence, there were already many signs that African countries were descending into a deep political crisis and almost endemic economic lethargy. Between 1960 and 1999, there were sixty military coups in sub-Saharan Africa, not to mention failed attempts to overthrow governments and rebellions that led to regime changes. As political instability worsened year after year in many countries, economic development efforts were inevitably undermined. Despite an abundance of natural resources, and sometimes a strong political will to take up the challenge of development, national economies had shown signs of running out of steam, which the implementation of structural adjustment policies, from the second half of the 1970s onwards, was supposed to curb. Almost in vain. Without seeking to establish a direct causal relationship between this political and economic situation, on the one hand, and the increase in the number of African graduates who settle outside Africa, on the other, it must be noted that the latter phenomenon is becoming more pronounced at a time when the challenge of development is so acute on the continent. In a synthesis of several academic publications and study reports, Barka offers a gloomy and alarming picture of the scale of migration of these African graduates to other continents. Between 1960 and 1974, an average of 1,800 highly qualified Africans left their continent each year to work in industrialised countries. Between 1985 and 1989, this average amounted to 12,000 migrants. It has almost doubled since 1990 to a worrying 20,000. According to Barka’s position paper, at the same time, the number of PhDs among the expatriate African graduate population was estimated at 30,000 (Barka n.d.:1). The Brookings Institution study by two economists, William Easterly and Yaw Nyarko, confirms the statistical significance of this migration. Based on data collected by Docquier and Marfouk, it reveals that the total number of university-educated Africans who settled outside their continent of origin in 2005 was 961,037, i.e. almost one million. The American continent accounts for the largest proportion, 47 per cent, followed by Europe with 44 per cent (Easterly & Nyarko 2008:8). In a more recent survey, Malawian historian Paul Tiyambe Zeleza focuses exclusively on the trajectory of Africans residing in North America (specifically the United States and Canada). The study contains additional data that also attest to the persistence of the phenomenon of expatriation of the African educated elite. Estimating that there are 1.6 million native Africans residing in the United States, this researcher points out that, at the time of the survey, 68 per cent of this population had a university education, making Africans the immigrant community with the highest proportion of graduates in the United States (Zeleza 2013: 5). A very recent study conducted for the Pew Research Center, an independent US research institution, confirms these findings, revealing that in 2015, 69 per cent of African migrants aged 25 or older had completed a university-level education (Pew Research Center 2018: 2). Gueye Rfgi Ss Tblx.pmd 2 28\/03\/2019, 17:27 Introduction 3 The significant increase in the number of highly skilled expatriate Africans in Western countries also seems to be accompanied by their increased presence in professional sectors characterised by a certain social prestige. Among these sectors is undoubtedly university teaching and research. Using a large statistical database, Zeleza’s study shows that between 20,000 and 25,000 Africans were integrated into the teaching staff of American universities and colleges. This dynamic was already apparent in the smaller but no less illuminating research by Pires, Kassimir and Brhane. Based on a sample of 1,708 Africans who received their doctorate from an American or Canadian university between 1986 and 1996, out of a total of 5,537, these authors revealed that 36 per cent of these graduates eventually settled in North America after obtaining their degree and 2 per cent, who did not choose to return to Africa, remain in North America or emigrate to Europe, opted for another destination (Pires, Kassimir & Brhane 1999: 10). This study was conducted in this context, which is characterised by the phenomenon of expatriation of highly qualified Africans. It is, moreover, part of an ever-growing list of works whose common concern is to establish the engagement of this diaspora, particularly its academic component, in the functioning of academic institutions in Africa, and to explore the strategies devised by a range of institutional actors to strengthen such investment. Drawing on secondary historical literature and, above all, a survey of public universities in four African countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal – our research has three major objectives: 1) It aims to show that the desire to involve the diaspora in the African university is part of a long tradition of dependence of this institution on the outside. Indeed, Africa continues to assign the responsibility for the efficient functioning of its own higher education system to actors who are certainly identified with the continent by their birth, but external actors all the same, who receive the means to carry out their professional activity from Western organisations. Gueye Rfgi Ss Tblx.pmd 3 28\/03\/2019, 17:27 4 From dependence on the West to the expression of the need for an African diaspora 2) This study aims to empirically establish the extent and nature of the resources that circulate towards the African diaspora, before identifying and then reporting on the sociological determinants of this dynamic that links African academics posted in Africa to their expatriate counterparts. It also intends to reveal, through this objective, the disparities and inequalities in access to diaspora resources among scholars based on the continent, as well as the existence of a nomenclature, i.e. a hierarchical list of resources that circulate towards Africa in the diaspora. To do so, it relies on a meticulous sociological survey of some one hundred academics with permanent positions in teaching and research institutions in Africa. 3) Finally, the study seeks to analyse the criteria that inform the mobilisation of diaspora resources for the benefit of the academic community in Africa and to examine the ways in which they are distributed among these scholars. A robust argument structures the whole book. It can be summarised as follows: diaspora scholars are less willing to make specific professional resources available to their African-based colleagues because, on the one hand, they have very limited access to these resources and, on the other hand, the use of these resources is central to the advancement of their own professional careers. The significance of this argument is to suggest that the dependence of the African university on the diaspora for its own revitalisation is a very risky gamble, for the simple reason that the diaspora is integrated into teaching and research structures from which it expects the means for professional recognition. In return for these resources, these university structures require almost absolute dedication from African expatriate researchers in the quest for excellence, especially since the excellence of their recruits largely determines the ranking of these structures in the academic field. Because of this requirement, the diaspora is likely to be only episodically and marginally involved in the functioning of the African university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n