Our Parents Left Africa – Now We Are Coming Home

As a child in London, Afua Hirsch was embarrassed by her African roots. Then, in February, she became a 'returnee', choosing to live in her parents' birthplace, Ghana. Her story is echoed across the continent: attracted by economic opportunity and a new sense of optimism, the African diaspora is starting to come back …

...There is a symmetry to the journey that returnees are making, which speaks volumes about the state of Africa today. Our parents left – exactly 50 years ago in my case – fleeing deteriorating economic conditions and limited opportunities at home. Now their children are forming an exodus from the crisis-ridden eurozone, four years of recession and the dogged perception of inequality and discrimination in the west. "Who needs the glass ceiling when you could be running your own business in one of the world's fastest-growing economies, enjoying the warm weather and surrounded by your own people?" one returnee to Ghana told me. "There is no contest."

The facts about Africa's change in fortunes are dazzling. Dubbed the "next Asia" for its rapid growth, the IMF forecasts that seven of the world's fastest-growing economies over the next five years will be in Africa; Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria are expected to expand by more than 6% a year until 2015.

The resource-rich continent has benefited from a boom in commodity prices, ranging from cocoa to gold, but has also increased manufacturing output, which has doubled over the past decade. Surveys by firms such as Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey all describe how the telecom, banking, retail, construction and oil and gas industries are booming, sending foreign direct investment to dramatic new highs, while themselves representing an eagerness among global firms to attract business in Africa...