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and the French Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development that had launched their own codevelopment projects investing in large part in Senegal’s infrastructure (for example, public facilities and water sanitization) (de Haas 2006:74). The 140 founding members of Gie Tekki fi ci Sénégal (“to succeed here in Senegal”), the only Senegalese NGO engaged in migration so far, were coincidentally all return migrants from Spain, that is, people who had been repatriated in the course of their clandestine journey at sea or during an attempted unauthorized entry into Spain (Panizzon 2008). Hometown associations from Senegal in France, such as the Association Drôme Ouro Sougui, have been particularly active among West African communities in transferring skills and investing in their communities of origin (de Haas 2006:76–79); Ndione and Bröekhuis 2006:17–18). In view of codevelopment’s multistakeholder strategy, it will be important to cooperate with NGOs issued from migration.
International Codevelopment: Complement or Competitor? Various codevelopment initiatives exist at the international level, such as the United Nations Development Programme’s Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals, launched for Senegal in 2002 with US$200 million, and the United Nations Digital Diaspora Network, launched in 2003 for Africa, both of which complement France’s codevelopment tools. The Migration for Development in Africa program, which promotes links between the immigrant communities in Italy and their hometowns in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Senegal, is perhaps the international program most tailored to facilitating migrant entrepreneurship, even if it has not yet been launched for France. One of its key components is a database where Senegalese residing abroad can register their interest in contributing to the development of their country of origin and list their skills (de Haas 2006:29). On a more political level, the United Nations Development Fund for Women calls for mobilizing diaspora resources as an additional way to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (Kampala Declaration 2003). The majority of Malian and Senegalese populations, particularly the unemployed workforces, have not really benefited from codevelopment initiatives, which primarily have targeted elites in cities. Islamic tradition and French cultural values are similar in their view of the desirability and value of intellectual careers and academic exchanges.