Diaspore, “Decolonising aid: foreign communities are protagonists of international development cooperation”
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ROME – “My name is Ibrahima Camara, I’m Roman and this here on my head is the hat of the Fulani people”. With theatrical gestures and a deep gaze, this citizen of the world, roots in Senegal and a life in Italy, provokes with a smile: “How many people today in this amphitheater can go back four generations in their family tree?” Former animator of the Confederation Sénégalaise pour la promotion des Petites et Moyennes Enterprises des Migrants, Camara speaks on behalf of the African Diaspora in central-southern Italy.
The Summit is back, despite the pandemic and war. It is Saturday, February 4, in Rome: at the Angelicum Congress Center, he addresses his questions to the audience of the National Diaspora Summit. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine that is tearing Europe apart, we have reached the fourth edition. Activists, associations and ordinary citizens, with migrant roots or just an international horizon, discuss the issues of development cooperation. Among them is Jaime Noriega Adrianzen, president of Cical Odv, an acronym that stands for International Center for Afro-Latin American Cooperation: “The theme”, he says, “is the new multilateralism, which can only be multicultural”. Noriega Adrianzen has Peruvian origins but quotes Thomas Sankara, president-revolutionary of Burkina Faso, icon of pan-Africanism: “To achieve change you need to have courage and dare to invent the future”.
The Draft the Future! project. The future, indeed. The Summit is part of “Draft the Future!”, in Italian “draw the future”, a project carried out by the Association Le Reseau together with the International Organization for Migration (oim) thanks to the support of the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGCS) of the Farnesina and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (Aics).
Decolonize help. But let’s go back to the new multilateralism. What does it mean today, with respect to social and peoples’ rights? “We have to decolonize aid”, replies Emilio Ciarlo, Head of Communications and Institutional Relations of Aics. “The commitment is to focus more and more on equal partnerships, changing the approach and fully recognizing the role of communities of foreign origin”. The idea is already written in law 125 of 2014: the diasporas are the protagonists of international development cooperation because they are bridges between countries and cultures. Capable as anyone of “decolonising aid”, freeing it from all paternalism. And to create alliances of mutual benefit, putting down roots in the territories, valuing talents and contrasting negative stereotypes.
The importance of words. Ouidad Bakkali talks about it, born in Agadir in Morocco 36 years ago, just elected deputy in Ravenna with the Democratic Party. In an interview with the Dire agency, you make an appeal: “On the issue of migration, we need to start from the data, to get out of the impasse of immobilism and political exploitation”. Her idea of her is that we need to become aware of the fact that “Italy is no longer as it was, that the country has changed and that it is crossed and lived by contemporary diasporas and new citizens”. She uses similar words Aurica Danalachi, 32 years old. She moved from Moldova as a teenager for a family reunion, and she participated in the Summit immediately, since 2017. Today she is an entrepreneur, runs a restaurant in the historic center of Rome and despite the repercussions of the pandemic she can count on 40 collaborators. “I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter”, she says with a hint of a smile, “but I want to maintain a social commitment and an eye on the world”.
Diasporas protagonists of cooperation. Next to Danalachi is Mehret Tewolde Weldemicael, Eritrean origins, vice president of Le Réseau. “Perhaps we had even lost hope of resuming this path” he says of the Summit, last edition in 2019, before the pandemic. “This new phase is part of the ‘Draft the Future!’ they are the demonstration of the Italian Cooperation’s commitment: from 2017 to today there have been five governments, which is no small amount, but despite the political vicissitudes we are still here, with a strong commitment that requires resources and wants to be transformed into actions”. Tewolde mentions the title of the new edition of the Summit, dedicated to the “protagonism” and “leadership” of the diasporas. And he asks a question: “Is the Cooperation system ready to include and integrate?” Also in dialogue is Marco Riccardo Rusconi, director of policies for Africa at the DGCS. He recalls the etymology of the Greek word “diaspora”, “dissemination”, with those “seeds” without which there are neither plants nor life; and he defines the link between migration and development as “fundamental”.
Towards the Forum. During the Summit it was recalled that an association with migrant roots was registered in the list of entities entitled to carry out Italian Cooperation projects. Many more are needed and hence the idea of setting up a Forum of the diasporas, an open, permanent and participatory space, with its own regulation and its own statute. “It must be a container to be filled with content”, warns Laurence Hart, IOM director for the Mediterranean: “Here, we need a collector of high-impact ideas”.
* Vincenzo Giardina – DIRE Agency
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