The term 'Diaspora' immediately connotes loss, deficit, downfall, ruin, death; loss of manpower/human capital, loss of intellectual capital, loss of much needed (ICT) skills -- that would all 'hypothetically' be more useful if they stayed home in Africa.

This blog supplies some interesting statistics that appear to contradict this pervasive intuition that diaspora amounts to denoument and death of a society;

"...Diaspora on average contribute 5-10% of some African countries Gross Domestic Product and in a few cases over 20%. In a year alone it is estimated that the Diaspora invest over US$ 450 million, this excludes the estimated US$ 12 billion remittances sent by the Diaspora annually..."

And in response to the above blog, I had said:

"Diaspora investments tickles me to the very core -- in a positive way, that is :-)
Permit me to introduce another major ICT-Diaspora connection here:
Anybody in sub-Saharan Africa who knows a thing or two about leveraging ICT for economic development is always quick to brandish the PSA (Singapore) story, and very few understand or acknowledge the 'diaspora Engineering' underpinnings. When Singapore started planning this ICT leveraged PSA concept, they had practically no ICT skills, and they knew it was impractical to 'buy' all the ICT skills (expatriates)they needed from the west. Instead, they massively shipped out their citizens to the west to go learn ICT skills (with scholarships of course and very compelling 'be-sure-to-come-back-home' incentives)and by golly, IT WORKED!
The Celtic tiger woke up in the 90s and smiled on ICT, and before you could say 'Erin-go-bragh', a throng of ICT-skilled Irish diaspora returned to Ireland,... and need I say more about the economic growth trajectory of Ireland since the 90s?
And of course, the Indian diaspora was also critical in realizing their currently booming ICT souk.
Sub-Saharan Africa on the other hand has a plethora of ICT (as well as other kinds of) skills abroad -- most people say that's mostly potential energy right now..."

More on this Diaspora debate...