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David Kpondehou is an entrepreneur from the Republic of Benin. He is the president and founder of the Africa Diaspora Network Japan (ADNJ) and an Executive Board member of the High Council of the Beninese Community in Japan (HCBE).
As part of ADNJ’s efforts to strengthen Africa-Japan business relations and create employment opportunities for young people, Kpondehou and his team organize the Osaka Africa Business Forum annually. This event is held in collaboration with Higashi-Osaka City, the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation of Japan, the Osaka Chamber of Commerce, the Osaka Prefectural Government, the Osaka EXPO Organization, JICA, JETRO, UNDP Japan, UNIDO, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African embassies in Japan, and several sponsors.
In 2022, the Osaka Africa Business Forum attracted 227 participants and 110 companies.
Kpondehou is also actively engaged in youth-focused policy initiatives. He is currently collaborating with the Japanese youth organization Asia Africa Youth Nest (AAYN), UNDP Japan, and JICA on youth-led policy proposals aimed at shaping TICAD and benefiting young people in Africa, Japan, and beyond.
Additionally, he is the founder of Africa Samurai Consulting (ASC), a Benin-based company that assists Japanese businesses in expanding into the African market while also providing IT training and job opportunities for African youth.
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Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Kpondehou works as a business developer and coordinator at the Awaji Youth Federation (AYF) fellowship program, part of Pasona Group, one of Japan’s leading human resources companies.
Recently, The Reporter’s Ashenafi Endale conversed with Kpondehou during his visit to Addis Ababa, where he was crafting strategies and policies to enhance engagement between African youth at home and the African diaspora through international platforms. Excerpts:
The Reporter: What brought you to Addis? Tell us about your current works in Africa, including Ethiopia?
David Kpondehou: The TICAD9 Youth Initiative brought us to Addis Ababa Ethiopia. A little background is required for this.
About 30 years ago, the Japan Government recognized a need for a platform that could facilitate developmental agenda between the Japanese government and African member states. The Tokyo International Conference on African Development was hatched for this course and been used to advance this agenda from 1993. During the third-decade anniversary celebration, a reflection on globalization and the role of youths was discussed and the need to institutionalize youth within TICAD was identified.
Recognizing the need for a youth-led and youth-focused organization to take the lead in championing the unheard voices of young people as next-generation leaders in Africa and Japan, the Africa Diaspora Network in Japan (ADNJ) and Asia Africa Youth Nest (AAYN) are at the forefront of TICAD’s youth institutionalization vision and collaborate with JICA, UNDP and UNV to formulate a Policy Proposal (Youth Agenda 2055: The Future We Want) with an Action Plan that will set in place the mechanisms to promote a more connected, empowered, and proactive co-creation and partnership among young people in Africa and Japan and elsewhere for the future we want. The Youth Agenda 2055: The Future We Want is a call to action from African and Japanese youth, urging TICAD stakeholders including the World Bank, African Union member states, UNDP, and The Japan government to participate in realizing a shared vision for the future.
ADNJ and AAYN designed a roadmap of a series of in-person, hybrid, and virtual activities to engage young people in Africa and Japan dubbed ‘TICAD9 Youth Engagements’ that seek to institutionalize the youth agenda as a central component of TICAD.
What are the best lessons Africa should learn from Japan? How do you evaluate Africa’s progress towards that, in terms of socio-economic, industrialization and technological advancements? For instance, how African diaspora working in japan think-tanks contribute to African development?
There are several but Discipline and being virtuous would be among the top. When one is conscious and mindful of their words and actions, it informs how their express themselves which is the stepping stone of social interactions. Given that we are social beings, interactions are at the centre of everything. This means great values attract and advance developmental agendas. Matters like trust, integrity, honesty and polite language as well as hard work are one of the reasons Japan is at the forefront of development.
Do you think African diaspora in Japan is giving back to Africa? how many African diaspora in Japan and how do you compare them with African diaspora in Europe, America, middle east and other parts of Asia?
The usual contribution of Africans in Diaspora is financial remittance. There has been great amount of time taken to create the systems to support this endevour, especially in Europe, Americas, Middle East, and other parts of Asia.
As I represent Africans in Diaspora Japan, I can tell you that we are changing the narrative. We are not only remitting finances back to Africa and even when we do, the approach is different. What me and many other uncountable Africans in Japan are doing is empowering our brothers and sisters better explained with ‘teach a man to fish’ saying. We have established companies in Japan and our countries in Africa to facilitate b2b exchanges. My organization – ADNJ and Africa Samurai….
Tell us about TICAD9, its plans for Africa, and what would be the planned outcomes of engaging the youth with TICAD?
From when it was founded, the platform TICAD provides facilitates vital conversations and drawing strategies that advance developmental initiatives across the countries in Africa and every three years during a new TICAD, improvement strategies for this cause are also devised and revised, making Japan, one of the ‘friends of Africa’ that promote Pan-Africanism as the key message is to support Africa the way Africa wants which includes supporting continental trade and business development done for Africa, in Africa, by Africans.
How the you engagement policy drafting is initiated, and what will be the major targets?
The TICAD9 youth initiative my team and I came for in Ethiopia is a good example of how TICAD stands for African development founded on Pan-Africanism. See, we are developing a policy proposal – Youth Agenda 2055: The Future We Want. This policy will have an action plan annexed to it to ensure that once it is adopted, a pathway to bringing it to life exists. As this is just the start of the institutionalization of youth in TICAD, we hope to achieve three major outputs which include setting up a TICAD YOUTH BOARD, TICAD YOUTH FOUNDATION, & YOUTH TICAD PRE-CONFERENCE.
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