Mr. Iwan Zunder works for IntEnt as a consultant. The Netherlands-based organization works on a project called "Migrants in the Spotlight (MITS) which aims at promoting the works of migrants who had invested successfully in the countries of their origin.

IntEnt held its first meeting in Ethiopia the previous Friday.

Mr. Zunder spoke to Bruck Shewareged about the project. Excerpts.

What is the project about?

We want to develop a media campaign in which successful migrants or successful initiatives of migrants which are directed to develop certain countries are more highlighted in the media. As you can imagine, the Western media is more focused on different things. And it can be nice to put all these initiatives in the spotlight.

So we are going to develop a media campaign to put successful role models who are adding something to the development of their country of origin. This is the essence of the project.

You started working in five countries, i.e., Ethiopia, Ghana, Turkey, Morocco and Suriname. What is your reason for selecting these countries to start the project.

IntEnt works with those five countries. IntEnt has a programme in which we assist people who want to start business in those countries out of Holland. We have a programme of assistance for them.

You start writing you business plan in Holland. For instance, if you want to start business in Ethiopia, you come to Ethiopia, you get a business advisor in Ethiopia to conduct your market research, who will introduce you to the business environment. That is the IntEnt trajectory, so to speak.

We work on those five countries because there are a lot of migrant people in Holland from these countries. We selected actually the biggest groups because we think that in those groups the interest is the highest to start a business in the countries of their origin. This is actually the reason.

What is your particular plan for Ethiopian diaspora?

What we actually wanted to do is to look at all the positive initiatives that come from Ethiopian diaspora. What I mean by that is that people have moved from Ethiopia to, for example, Holland. Sometimes they have very nice initiatives. For example, they want to return to their country of origin to be investors, to set up a successful business when they work here. They hire people, pay taxes and so on.  

We want to put those investors in the media as role models. We want to publicize them as role models. We want to get the message across. We want to say, "Look, this is an example of what you are able to do, the potentials that you, especially in Europe, have."

Now we see a lot of people out of the United States who are busy and have very successful initiatives here in Ethiopia. Maybe there are successful people from Europe but we don't see them. So we want to bring that forward. We want to bring forward not only successful role models but also successful initiatives. It can be that a group of people working together, and they have this project, say, to set up a clinic in Harar. We want to bring that kind of initiative forward to the news via our website which we are going to set up, and maybe through different media channels. So we want to use the potential of the Ethiopian diaspora, and bring that forward and put it in the news in order to inspire others.  

Do you think there are Ethiopian diaspora with big potentials in Europe?

I don't only think so but I know it for certain because, at IntEnt, we are assisting people who want to start a business in Ethiopia. That means these are actually people who are a product of the Ethiopian diaspora, and who are actually doing it. So they have started business in Ethiopia out of Europe.

Their numbers might not be as big as those in the United States because in Europe you have maybe 70,000 Ethiopians: of course, the figure is not clear. In the United States, you have 600,000.

I think, the group in Europe is smaller. In Holland, the community is even smaller. Even though they are small in number, they have initiatives.  Holland car is one initiative (car assembly plant set up by an Ethiopian who used to live abroad) that can be taken as a good example. Everybody talks about Holland car. But we don't want to focus only on the big ones. You need to focus also on the small initiatives because you want to inspire people. You know, not everybody is able to set up a Holland car in Ethiopia. But people might be able to sponsor, maybe, a building which can be used for children who have lost their parents, for example. You want to put both forward. . .

You mean smaller but peculiar initiatives?

Yes, those you can more easily identify yourself with. For example, I met an entrepreneur here who studied in Amsterdam. His mission is more or less finished. He started his business, which is agriculture, 500 km west of Addis. That is a very good example. And the guy is only 27 years old. He works with a few friends.

The Ethiopian diaspora in Europe are not aware of such kinds of initiatives. So it would be nice if you can see that.

So what are you doing to make them aware of those initiatives? What would be your outlets? Is it going to be radio, television or a website?

All of that, in this phase of the project, it is not yet very clear. I'm only involved in some parts of the project. But what I do know is that we are going to set up a website. We are going to promote that website. There might be meetings. Apart from that, there might be some other media channels used, like articles in certain papers which have access or outreach to the target group, i.e., Ethiopian diaspora or other groups.

What kind of assistance or incentives do you offer to these groups?

We have the Migrants in the Spotlights project for which we have organized the experts meeting (last Friday). Apart from that, I have my work as an IntEnt consultant in which we assist entrepreneurs who want to go to Ethiopia from Europe. Now let me elaborate how we go about assisting them.

For example, you are a Dutch citizen of Ethiopian origin and you want to start a small lamp factory or candle factory, not normal candles but very nice ones. You have this business idea. But how are you going to start it? Where do you start? You don't know.

So we start by giving people training about what it means to be an entrepreneur. How many candles do you need to sell every month in order to make a profit? How many people do you need? What is your total investment going to be? Do you need 10,000 dollars in the beginning? Or 50,000? If you know how much money you need, then how are you going to finance it? We bring forward these things in the trainings in order for people to write a business plan.

Apart from that, we support people when they have to conduct their market research. Maybe you think of a location out of Addis Ababa. What is the cost of water there? Can you get internet connection? You have to come here in order to find out all these sorts of things. So we assist people in that as well. We finance half of the air ticket. And they can come and conduct their market research. They are coupled with business advisors here in Ethiopia. After they finalized their business plan, they have to look for finance. That is the end of the preparatory phase.

And then when they start the business, we assist them in the first two and half years. You may run into all kinds of problems in the first years. That is why we provide that assistance.

By the way is it part of the Market Place for African dispora initiative? It is an EU project.

No it is not related.

Is your project assisted by your government? Or is it totally privately financed project?

We are a foundation. We are financed by HIVOS which again is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Development. Apart from that, for different projects, we look for different sources of finance. For example, EU is one source.

For how long are you going to carry out the project?

The total project runs for three years.

When did you start it?

We started about two months ago. We started by conducting meetings of experts in different countries. When you want to access the diaspora in Europe, we don't want to come up with a story, say, "You know, you have a lot of potential to do. And we know what you should do for your country."  Who are we to say that? After all, we are just an organization in Holland with a group of people working together.

In this project, we think it is important to contact people here in Ethiopia, i.e., professionals or experts, people from government, business, NGOs who know Ethiopia very well.

When we want to access the diaspora in Europe, what actually should the issues be that we bring forward to them? And out of perspective of Ethiopia, where would they like assistance from that group? So we start in the country, what do they want? What are the potentials? Then you start to develop the campaign.

What did you discuss in the experts meeting last Friday?

It was a fruitful discussion. We identified a few themes and presented them to the group of people. And they came up with all sort of information, concepts, ideas related to those themes. We put all that information together. We have to come up with a report about everything that was discussed.

What kind of people did you talk to?

There were people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because the ministry has a specific programme for the diaspora to use their potentials. There were two entrepreneurs who are a prime example of the potential of the diaspora. We had people from NGOs, too. We also had someone from the ILO. So people at different levels were represented in the meeting.

Did you discuss the government's policy towards the diaspora?

It was brought to the table but we didn't really explore it because, from our point of view, we are a very small organization. We work in the frameworks which are presented to us. It would be relevant, I guess, to discuss the political environment if you want to inform people in Europe about the possibilities or potentials in your country. But as soon as you start talking about politics, there is a risk involved. So we wanted to focus on positive things. We want to focus on those successful initiatives and successful role models. They had to deal with the political environment. They still have to deal with that political environment. So if we bring those people forward, they might be able to say something about the problems that they had. It is just part of making something successful.

What are the challenges that you have identified so far that discourage the disaspora from coming to Ethiopia?  

It is a very interesting question that was posed during the discussion as well. We start asking people here about what they think is the potential over there, and what they expect and what they want from that potential.

If you are going to talk about what is in the way of people to have added value for Ethiopia out of Europe, for example, you actually, have to talk to them. So that's what we want to do.

Have you, so far, identified role models?

Yes, we have identified some role models. We are at the early phase of our work. In the process, we will identify more. We have some individuals. We have some exemplary initiatives, too.