Our history

AFFORD awarded an honorary TAD Community Engagement Award

AFFORD Europe established in Brussels

Diaspora Experience crowdfunding & volunteering platform launched

AFFORD held First Diaspora Investment & Policy Forum in Rwanda on affordable housing

AFFORD hosts Minister for Africa Harriet Baldwin, MP

Began work on RemitPlus Diaspora Bond of $10M towards Rwanda to finance affordable housing units in Rwanda

AFFORD won DFID contract to deliver Diaspora Finance programme, launching the AFFORD Business Club (ABC)

DEMAC (Diaspora Emergency Action and Coordination Project) launched partnership with the Berghof Foundation & the Danish Refugee Council

AFFORD becomes grant maker as Noel Buxton Trust approves a small grants fund

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diaspora, Development and Migration (APPG-DDM) created with AFFORD acting as the Secretariat

AFFORD spearheaded consolidation of the €3.56 million Africa-Europe Development Platform – ADEPT, with its headquarters in Brussels

AFFORD Chair, Gibril Faal OBE addresses UN General Assembly at the High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development on the importance of diasporas and migrants at the post-2015 MDG framework

Africa Gives launched to enable young diaspora to give time, skills and money to Africa

AFFORD Sierra Leone is established with local board and staff, providing approx $500,000 to SMEs as part of a business planning Business Bomba competition

AFFORD hosts SCORE4Africa Awards to celebrate the contributions of diaspora footballers to African development

AFFORD pilots SEEDA with VSO for 150 diaspora volunteers to support 800 businesses in Sierra Leone and Ghana

AFFORD launches it’s jobs focused direct development work in Africa at AD3. Keynote speaker – Kenyan Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai

First AD3 conference on ‘Shaping Africa’s Future: Do Young Africans in the diaspora share the dreams of NEPAD/AU?’

AFFORD hosted DFID minister Sally Keeble ahead of establishing connections for development/ADVAD

AFFORD receives first funds from Comic Relief for ‘Hello Africa’ project

AFFORD pilots first development conference – Target Africa 2015 to be rebranded African Diaspra and Development Day (AD3) in 2003

Advocacy from AFFORD leads Comic Relief to start funding diaspora organisations

A £5000 grant from the City Parochial Funds leads to the publication of the groundbreaking ‘Survey of African Organisations in London’

AFFORD and others advocacy led to the sentence “We will seek to build on the skills and talents of migrants,… ethnic minorities…. to promote the development of their countries of origin” in the White Paper that set up DFID: ‘Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century’

AFFORD is founded by Chukwu Emeka Chikezie and Nicholas Atampugre with the aim of expanding African diaspora contributions to African development