Sri Lanka has struggled with engaging its diaspora. The protracted conflict polarized diaspora communities abroad and created negative perceptions at home. Yet, a conference held last week attempted to reverse this. Titled ‘Our Sri Lanka: Engaging Persons of Sri Lankan Origin Overseas’, the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) and International Alert brought together inspiring and committed individuals from the UK who are demonstrating how diaspora communities are already positively engaging with Sri Lanka.

Over the twoday conference, the writer shared some thoughts on diaspora engagement, anchored to a draft paper titled ‘Leveraging the Diaspora for Investment and Knowledge in Sri Lanka: Challenges and Policy Options’ t he writer co-authored with a member of the Sri Lankan diaspora community in Canada.

Interestingly, she was part of a successful diaspora engagement initiative called t he LankaCorps Fellowship (The Asia Foundation). While there is much debate on what constitutes ‘the diaspora’, here is it taken to generally mean persons of Sri Lankan origin who are living overseas, regardless of when they went or how long they’ve been away for. Unpacking motives for engagement

Diaspora groups are not homogenous. They not only vary in terms of their ethnicity, religion and political views, but also in their interests and motives for engaging with Sri Lanka. According to the literature, motives for engagement are classified as financial, social and emotional (or sentimental); sometimes these motives overlap no doubt.

The paper revealed a few key findings that are interesting in this regard. Firstly, those born in Sri Lanka have a greater frequency of revisiting and 77 percent of them are likely to return on a visit or short stay at least once every five years. Secondly, of those who do engage with Sri Lanka 50 percent said they do so purely due to sentimental connections, a further 21 percent for philanthropic reasons and 11 percent for social recognition of their efforts. Only 14 percent said they do so for financial gains.

Thirdly, engagement in terms of ‘sending money to friends and family’ and ‘donating to charities’ are the most popular forms of engagement among the 45-64 age-group but t he highest proportion of those who ‘donated professional time to a Sri Lankan institution’ were among the 25-44 agegroup.
So, when devising policy approaches for diaspora engagement, we must be acutely aware of such heterogeneity i n motives; it has implications for the success or failure of any programme. Remittances – Positive and perverse effects

The most basic form of diaspora engagement or investment in their country of origin is remittances – a hands-off approach by which diaspora communities send money to family, relatives and friends. And the numbers are staggering. Globally, over US $ 400 billion was sent in remittances to developing countries in 2013 and it surpassed Official Development Assistance to developing countries.

Studies have shown that a 10 percent rise in remittances in a developing country can reduce poverty by up to 1.6 percent in that country. In Sri Lanka, too, remittances (around US $ 6 billion annually) have played a strong role in raising prosperity of provincial economies and could explain part of the recent poverty reduction that we have seen.

Sometimes, however, it can cause distortions to the labour market. On a visit to Jaffna last year the writer found that families in the Jaffna town were receiving considerably more remittances than those in Point Pedro. Youth here were spending a lot of it on consumption activities and were ‘picky’ about the work they wanted to do. Businesses couldn’t find workers. Remittances had skewed the incentives to work.

In Point Pedro on the other hand, the news of an ice factory expanding was attracting dozens of youth queuing up every morning inquiring about when they can start work. Diaspora communities – and indeed those managing diaspora engagement – must be mindful of the positive as well as perverse effects of remittances and ensure that the money can be productively and sustainably invested in local communities.

Not just money but talent
While remittances are the most obvious form, financial engagement by diaspora includes instruments like sovereign diaspora bonds and diaspora investment funds. Sri Lanka, too, has both of these. But it is also important to think beyond the money and this was a key recommendation that came out of the ‘Our Sri Lanka 2025’conference.

The writer argued that diaspora knowledge transfer and ‘brain-gain’ initiatives could be as valuable as direct financial investment. Several countries that have seen high growth in the past have launched programmes specifically for this purpose. The ‘Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals’ (TOKTEN) programme devised by the UNDP and implemented in Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan and Rwanda, the ‘Reverse Brain Drain Project’ in Thailand and the ‘Thousand Talents Programme’ in China, are excellent examples of this.

Sri Lanka can learn from these to design a credible and open scheme that provides a meaningful and organised mechanism through which Sri Lankans living overseas can connect to knowledge, intellectual, cultural, technological needs and opportunities in Sri Lanka. The National Science Foundation has already initiated some schemes to attract diaspora scientists. Government championship needed

To do many of these activities, there needs to be support and coordination at the highest level. I proposed that Sri Lanka establish a lead agency to deal with diaspora engagement in all areas – financial, scientific, cultural, educational, etc. In fact, our study revealed that there is plenty of support for such an idea – two-thirds of those surveyed believe that Sri Lanka could benefit from a specialised government institution solely dedicated to handling diaspora affairs.
The writer advocated for careful thinking, t hough, on where t his should be placed; the External Affairs Ministry should not be the default choice as diaspora engagement is more than visa matters. The writer argued for a model like the former Peace Secretariat where professionals with diverse expertise and experience work in an agency that is trusted by all stakeholders, has sponsorship from the highest authorities but operates at a ‘meta’ level.

An agency that generates new ideas on ways to engage the diaspora facilitates such engagements and advises line ministries implement policies and programmes around it. The work would not only focus on citizenship issues but also on building networks and knowledge partnership opportunities, conducting surveys and information gathering on diaspora motives and interests and curating a repository of diaspora contacts, their i nterest/abilities and their achievements.

With around three million Sri Lankans living overseas, it ’s essential that diaspora engagement becomes a stronger priority area. There is ample evidence on the socio-economic benefits accruing to a country from it. Admittedly, more work needs to be done to strengthen this case but a coherent and credible government strategy is an important first step.

(This is the fourth article in the ‘Smart Future’column that advances ideas on economic reforms,innovation and competitiveness. Anushka Wijesinha is a ConsultantEconomist, with an MAin Economics. The draft study referred to in the article is co-authored by Madushi Seneviratne.Anushka blogs at thecurionomist.wordpress. com and is on Twitter @anushwij)