Strong ties can remain even when home is far away.
Diaspora describes people, families and communities living outside a country or region of origin while maintaining personal, family, cultural, property, business or investment ties. For BOWestAfrica, the practical issue is distance: the client may be abroad while the decision, property, supplier, contractor or project is in West Africa.
Planning baseline: research citing IOM 2024 reports about 12.1 million migrants originating from West Africa. The wider diaspora, including children and later-generation descendants born abroad, is larger and is not captured by one official global total.
IOM 2024 context · Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (2026) ↗

