Episode 1: Discussing China-Africa migration with Hannah Ryder and Development Reimagined

The Migration & Diaspora Podcast

Welcome to today's episode of the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, a podcast about all things migration, with me your host Loksan Harley, and boy do we have a show for you today!

Today I was joined by a good friend of mine, and seriously one the most inspiring and hardworking people I know, Hannah Ryder.

Hannah is the CEO and founder of Development Reimagined, a pioneering international development consultancy in China.

Development Reimagined advises Chinese businesses how to invest in Africa sustainably; they advise sustainable African businesses on how to enter the Chinese market; and they work with governments, UN bodies and NGOs to strengthen their China–Africa policies. Development Reimagined also happens to be the first Kenyan Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in China - a marvellous achievement I'm sure you'll agree.

Hannah is a former diplomat and economist, and her understanding of international relations was honed as one of the youngest negotiators for the UK in climate change talks. With close to 20 years of experience, she is also Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic International Studies, and sits on the Executive Board of the British Chamber of Commerce in China.

Hannah has won several awards for leadership in China and Africa as well as for her contributions to gender and racial diversity and youth development. She's also played various advisory roles for the UN, and is regularly cited in and invited to write/talk on a number of Chinese, African and global media outlets like Bloomberg, Quartz Africa, the Diplomat, the Guardian, and CGTN . You need only to Google "Hannah Ryder" or "Development Reimagined" to discover the extraordinary breadth of her work.

Hannah and I met while she was head of the United Nations Development Programme's Policy team in China, and we had so many common areas of interest, as many of you listening may recall that I've lived and worked across Africa and China, and China-Africa relations are a huge passion and research interest of mine. I also have great admiration for Hannah and her team's work to collect and share data widely and in an accessible way on China-Africa-related topics, including on some migration issues.

Hannah was therefore the ideal guest to talk about China-Africa migration. In our fascinating talk we touched on Hannah's migration experience as an entrepreneur in China. We talk about some of the trends of Africa-to-China migration and the challenges and opportunities faced by African migrants in China, including in the context of COVID-19. We also talk about China-to-Africa migration, which is a topic some of you may know I've written about too for the Migration Policy Institute.

If anyone has any questions about today's podcast, then feel free to get in touch with either of us via our websites which you can find in the show notes. Thank you very much for tuning in and we hope you enjoy the show.

Useful links

Development Reimagined: www.developmentreimagined.com

Twitter: @devreimagined @hmryder

Book recommendation: China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa, by Howard W. French

Development Reimagined's analysis of African student migration: https://developmentreimagined.com/2020/09/08/where-africans-study-abroad-post-covid19/

Some of my recent research on African visa requirements for Chinese nationals: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/african-countries-relax-short-term-visa-policies-chinese

Thanks for listening! Feel free to visit loksanharley.com/podcast, where you can subscribe to the mailing list and get in touch!