Africans living abroad sent home a record $124.2 billion in 2025, and the continent’s biggest development lender now wants a bigger role for that money than paying school fees and hospital bills.
The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) unveiled a new Diaspora Initiative in Paris on Monday, November 9, at a meeting themed “Mobilising diaspora capital for Africa’s prosperity and transformation.” More than 200 entrepreneurs, private investors, diaspora networks based in Europe and public financial institutions attended, according to the African Development Bank.
“A strategic partner”
AfDB President Dr Sidi Ould Tah framed the diaspora as a co-investor rather than an aid channel. “The diaspora is not a beneficiary; it is a strategic partner working towards the continent’s prosperity,” he said, noting that remittances had passed $124 billion last year (AfDB).
The initiative sits inside the bank’s “Four Cardinal Points” strategy and its New African Financial Architecture for Development (NAFAD), which aims to help Africa mobilise and channel its own resources. Didier Acouetey, senior adviser to the AfDB president, described the bank as a “trusted third party that invests,” pointing to African savings estimated at more than $4 trillion against annual development financing needs of about $400 billion. He also highlighted the African Trade and Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI) as a tool to reduce the risk of investing in African projects (AfDB).
The African Union’s head of citizens and diaspora affairs, Amr Aljowaily, said the plan “comes at just the right time, when Africa must mobilise all its own resources to finance its development,” as official development assistance shrinks worldwide.
The remittance reality
The scale of the opportunity is clear. Remittances to Africa grew 86% between 2016 and 2025, according to International Fund for Agricultural Development figures cited by The Africa Report. The same report notes that the inflows are unevenly shared across countries, and that sending money to Africa still costs more than sending it anywhere else in the world.
That cost problem is where fintech comes in. Cheaper transfer rails, stablecoin corridors and diaspora bonds are all being pitched as ways to keep more of each dollar in recipients’ hands, and to turn one-off transfers into long-term savings and investment.
Momentum beyond Paris
The AfDB launch is part of a wider push. In Lagos, Global Africa Gateway and Afreximbank used the CANEX WKND creative-economy event (November 5 to 8) to connect African creators with diaspora professionals and investors; organisers said more than 15,000 delegates from Africa, the Caribbean and the wider diaspora attended (ThisDay). In Ghana, officials have been urged to remove practical barriers to permanent return for people of African descent (allAfrica).
For Africans abroad, the message from Paris is that the continent’s lenders want them at the table as shareholders and bondholders, not just as the family member who sends money at the end of the month. Whether the new instruments are cheaper, safer and easier to access than a mobile money transfer will decide if that pitch works.
