What made China the world’s factory? What made India the world’s technology hub? What made Israel a leading innovation centre? Connecting with their diasporas in the United States.

Who?: Governments around the world should begin to think about their diasporas in new ways and seek to build mutually beneficial relationships and partnerships with them. Rather than viewing them as being ‘lost’ to the homeland, they can re-engage with the homeland through stregetic diaspora initatives such as formal mentoring programs, investment and trade programs, and cultural initatives. They do not need to return in order to make a difference.

Why?: Global diasporas constitute an obvious collective of people through whom networks can be created and individuals mobilized for mutual benefit of both diasporas and the home country.

How?: Global diasporas serve as an important conduit, facilitating the two-way flow of capital. That capital presents itself in every form be it human, social, intellectual, cultural or financial. Looking at capital flows alone, the transfer of funds in the form of remittances, bonds, philanthropy or business investment is massive by any scale, and growing.

Lets say you are based in Ontario Canada and would like to invest back home, where  are you going to get  general information about investment opportunities in Zimbabwe? Are you going to  turn to the newspapers that are available online? Will they provide you with up to date information on opportunities in Zimbabwe? The bad news is that newspapers only concentrate on general business information.

Will you obtain information from the  Zimbabwe Investment Authority? The problem is that they only provide general information about large scale investment opportunities and their target seems to be foreigners. So who will you turn to? Relatives? Relatives may provide some bit of information but this might not be enough for decision making . Maybe  to try Private financial advisors, but how would you know about them? Do we have register of financial advisors who provide expert advice especially to the Diaspora Community? Do they have references? How would you know whether they can be trusted? Who has used them before?

Dear reader, this is how ZBIN was born, to try and bridge the gap in terms of investment information! We are not going to provide nzungu dzakamenywa but will provide you with better information than is currently available online. We are hoping to improve in terms of quality with detailed market surveys. A ZBIN member who maybe  in Diaspora or locally based, should be a well-informed person in terms of business and investment. If you are in business and your competitor is a ZBIN member then you are in deep, deep trouble because a ZBIN member will see opportunities before others see them, before the flood comes in, a ZBIN member should have crossed the river!

So what does your favourite forum have in store for you this week? We got fabulous news for you, we have introduced a Tender Tracker that targets members in remote areas where there is no access to newspapers. As a Diaspora friendly forum, we had you in mind when we created this tracker!

This will keep you up to date with all tenders circulating in Zimbabwe especially on Zimbabwe’s newspapers. Tenders mean BIG BUSINESS and every serious Entrepreneur should take an interest in them. We will compile on a bi-weekly basis and share with you…for free! We have identified a youngster who has volunteered to compile tender adverts on behalf of the community. Information provided is eaisily available in newspapers so that you can always cross check for follows ups.

In future we will help you with checklists that you need to use before submitting tenders. In the past you probably read about our message encouraging them to register and be tax compliant do you know why? The answer is that we had tenders in mind! It is through tenders that you can grow and expand your business. The first requirement on the checklist of people reviewing tenders is that are you registered? Are you tax compliant? If not then the first thing is to throw the tender in the dust bin!

A ZBIN member tender application should never be found in the dustbin, you should tick all the boxes and perhaps fail at the last hurdle?

Anyway for now, allow us to share with you what is happening on the ground. This should guide you of what to invest in. It’s a window of opportunities that exist in Zimbabwe and you are fortunate to find the information in one place….Enjoy!