The African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) is a unique initiative of involving the African Diaspora community in the United States for the improvement of the economic conditions of the poor people in Africa. Recently, a lot of focus in the international development arena has been on remittances and the role of migrant workers for the upliftment of the poor in developing and least developed countries and many innovative programs have been launched in this context. The ADM believes that the African diaspora can make substantial contribution towards eradicating poverty and unemployment in the Sub-Saharan region through an enterprise-based approach. For this, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Western Union requested proposals this year under ADM from organizations which can effectively mobilize investments from the Diaspora community for small and medium enterprises in the African region that could further lead to improvement in the economic and living conditions of the poorest people. USAID has announced that it has received an overwhelming response for this call by receiving more than seven hundred proposals. Although each proposal is expected to be innovative addressing the issues, however funding will be limited to some 10-20 projects only. It will be a tough competition for the finalists. The funding is around US $50,000-100,000 which has to be leveraged with a matching grant from the investments mobilized from the Diaspora community. The marketplace is sponsored jointly the USAID and the Western Union. Since the project demands the role of migrant workers, the presence of Western Union is no surprise. The final grantees under this program will be announced in October 2009.
