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‘Back to Africa’ Is More Than a Movement — It’s a Business Strategy
For Black millennials in the U.S. and abroad, doing business in Africa has more than just financial rewards
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
When Abdul Karim Abdullah founded Afrochella in 2017, he considered holding the festival in New York City. He’d grown up between there and Ghana and imagined the festival as a way to come together with friends and associates who knew a similarly bicontinental existence. After scouting expenses, however, he decided Ghana was a better option. He expected 2,500 attendees that first year; almost double that showed up.
A month ago, Afrochella’s third iteration, a one-day celebration of community and culture in the country’s capital of Accra, attracted 16,000 people from the U.S., Europe, and the Caribbean. Perhaps more important than the turnout was the giveback: Abdullah and his partners hired over 700 people from the region and highlighted dozens of local businesses, pumping money back into the country.
“In three years, we’ve been able to include educational programs like panels, scholarships, and community service, and we’re getting bigger companies to activate in Ghana,” Abdullah says. “When we first started going to Ghana, we never had that space where we could connect and learn from one another, but now we’ve created a space where people can come and see some of the amazing talent on the continent.”
Afrochella is by no means an isolated phenomenon. Actor Boris Kodjoe, whose father is from Ghana, has traveled to Africa for the past several years; last December, he hosted the inaugural Essence Full Circle Festival there, joined by 100 business executives, entertainers, and influencers. The festival purposely coincided with the Year of Return, an international initiative backed by Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo, marking the 400-year anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in the United States. It was just one piece of a larger mission to incentivize members of the Black diaspora to return and for Ghana to tap its own talent and resources to develop the continent.
“It’s great to see…
