The African Union’s Call for Global Pan-Africanism and the Ghana-Diaspora Relations in the 21st Century

Abstract

One of the most outstanding initiatives that the African Union (AU) has taken that distinguishes it from its predecessor (the Organization of African Unity) is the adoption of the African diaspora as its sixth region. This article has two principal sections. First, by establishing the reasons for adopting the African diaspora as its sixth region from development perspectives, it explores how the African diaspora can engineer development processes in Africa and the challenges that the AU must address if the African diasporas are expected to play this role. In the second section, the article explores how Ghana provided a political base for Pan-Africanism and how Nkrumah laid an intellectual foundation for the movement. It also examines how Rawlings and Kufuor built on Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist legacy by creating incentives for the returnees/repatriates from the diaspora. While probing the character of the returnees/repatriates phenomenon and politics in Ghana, the second section also explores the controversies that center on dual citizenship, the right of return and abode, and voting rights of Ghanaians Living Abroad (GLA). Finally, the section investigates the receptivity of the traditional political system to the returnee/repatriate phenomenon in Ghana. The article concludes by making recommendations on how the Ghana-diaspora relations can be strengthened.

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