JAMAICANS living overseas are potentially a vital source of investment for Jamaica. So there has been some interest in a recent World Bank report titled Diaspora Investing: The Business and Investment Interests of the Caribbean Abroad.

It needs to be handled with some caution. There is some internal evidence that the survey sample is not a representative sample of Caribbean persons living overseas. The researchers claim that 65 per cent of the people in their survey work in the private sector. In the UK that would be wrong.

Disproportionate members of the diaspora actually work in the public sector, in professions like health and education. The researchers also say that 80 per cent of their respondents have degrees. This is unlikely to be true of the diaspora as a whole, particularly the older generation.

But not having a degree does not stop many Jamaicans overseas from running successful businesses. The fact that the main research tool for this survey was an online survey, with only 200 face-to-face interviews, suggests that the survey was skewed to the type of person who would do an online survey. And this is not necessarily representative of all potential Caribbean investors overseas.

But with that “health warning”, the report contains some useful indicators of diaspora opinion. One thing the report points out is that people are not keen on investing in diaspora bonds. Such bonds have long been the favoured solution of multinational institutions to the challenge of getting the diaspora to invest.

But, as some of us have long pointed out, people don’t like diaspora bonds because of the lack of transparency. According to the report, “many focus group participants expressed apprehension at the notion of investing in diaspora bonds, which anonymise their contributions and provide limited visibility on the use of funds. Instead, they much favoured opportunities to not only ‘touch and feel’ the investments being made, but to have an active role — preferring to give directly to family and friends, alma maters, and organisations whom they know and trust personally”.

Unsurprisingly, the report shows that the biggest deterrents to diaspora investment are crime and bureaucracy. Interestingly, the report also reveals that the Caribbean diaspora is happy to invest anywhere in the Caribbean. They are not only interested in investments in their country of origin.

This reflects the fact the persons of Caribbean origin living overseas are much more regionally minded than people back home. There is nothing like being a minority in a foreign land for impressing on people the importance of coming together as a region.

As has been commented on elsewhere, the majority of the respondents to the survey want to invest in the Caribbean, but only a minority have actually done so. But the solution to this challenge is not just more and glossier leaflets. The real solution to the conundrum of turning overseas remittances for consumption into overseas investment for growth lies in Jamaica building a holistic relationship with its diaspora.

One thing the report points out is that 85 per cent of the people who took part would like to mentor someone in Jamaica. Many Jamaicans would probably think that they want money, not mentoring. But the interest in mentoring suggests that the diaspora wants a personal and reciprocal relationship with Jamaica.

The diaspora is happy to give money to their family or their old school. But they are weary of being regarded by the Jamaican state as merely a cash cow or money tree.

Jamaica needs to build a mutually respectful relationship with its overseas diaspora. And Jamaica needs to recognise the value of its diaspora’s human capital as well as its financial capital. Only when Jamaica gets its overall relationship with the diaspora right, will there be a change in investment.

— Diane Abbott is the British Labour party MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington

www.dianeabbott.org.uk