Cairo, Egypt – When Ahmed Ginah first left his village in Egypt’s northern delta for the Tanzanian capital in 2017, it was with little greater than a dream. 4 years later, he named his firm after that dream.
“After I first got here to Tanzania at 28, nobody imagined why I’d head south,” Ginah, who’s lightheartedly referred to as the “Mayor of Egyptians in Dar-es-Salaam”, instructed Al Jazeera, saying that within the minds of a lot of his family and friends again residence, nations in sub-Saharan Africa are tainted by stereotypes of famine, poverty and illness.
However when Ginah arrived, what he discovered had been alternatives – and an opportunity to construct one thing new.
“In 2021, I established my firm, Dream [Trading],” he mentioned, in recognition of his “dream” to be a hit. He set it up with financial savings of $3,000, tapping right into a rising market importing and exporting aluminium family items. Because the years progressed, he expanded into the metal enterprise.
However past work, the 36-year-old can also be considerably of a benevolent godfather determine for different North African migrants making the journey southward.
Ginah has a normal day by day routine. Each morning, his driver, Hamed, drops him off on the family items warehouses hooked up to Dream Buying and selling. Some time later, he drives him to Metropolis Mall, the preferred buying centre in Dar es Salam’s Kariakoo neighbourhood.
Ginah is an everyday on the Somali cafe there, the place he sits till about midday, assembly different Egyptians and Tanzanians, typically over a breakfast of mandazi – deep-fried dough fritters dusted with powdered sugar – or a chipsi mayai, a well-liked road meals omelette with French fries, tomato sauce and greens.
Sometimes, Egyptians who transfer to Tanzania have already got a relative or buddy residing there. For individuals who don’t, Ginah helps them discover a place to remain, typically providing them a job at Dream and serving to cowl their hire in the event that they’re an worker. He additionally introduces them to the work system in Tanzania, and offers them a lay of the land about cities the place they’ll probably work.
“Nonetheless, an important factor I present,” mentioned Ginah, “is a trusted, assured translator.” In city centres in Tanzania, folks communicate English. However many village residents solely communicate Swahili. This might result in misunderstandings and expose newcomers to “fraud or scams”, Ginah mentioned, so he lends a serving to hand.
However Ginah is set to assist solely those that wish to assist themselves.
“I assist those that come to work, not those that lie on their laurels and delegate the work to the translator or others,” he mentioned. “In such instances, I counsel the person who this nation has so much to supply, but it surely doesn’t give to the lazy or dependent.”
Ginah has gained so much in eight years. At present, his firm distributes merchandise all through Africa, and he has helped dozens of younger males from his residence village relocate and set up themselves in Tanzania, the place an estimated 70,000 Arabs dwell – together with 1,200 Egyptians, in accordance with figures supplied by Egypt’s ambassador to the nation, Sherif Ismail, in 2023.
South-south migration
Whereas Europe fortifies its borders towards North African migrants, bold younger Egyptians in a struggling financial system are in search of options to emigrating to the West, in accordance with Ayman Zohry, a demographer and knowledgeable on migration research on the American College in Cairo.
This south-bound migration has accelerated considerably in recent times.
Official statistics present the variety of Egyptians in non-Arab African nations elevated from 46,000 in 2017 to 54,000 by 2021.
This development stands in stark distinction to the perilous journeys many Egyptians nonetheless make throughout the Mediterranean. In 2023, Egyptians represented greater than 7 % of all arrivals in Italy alongside the Central Mediterranean route, making them the fifth commonest nationality, in accordance with a report by the Blended Migration Centre.
The European Union lately responded with a brand new 7.4 billion euro ($8.7bn) settlement with Egypt, partly aimed toward boosting border controls to cut back irregular migration to Europe.
Zohry defined that Egypt’s youth migration traits are present process a notable transformation.
“Whereas conventional locations had been the Gulf and Europe, there’s a new development in the direction of the south, particularly some African nations,” Zohry instructed Al Jazeera.
“Financial migration” sees younger folks searching for funding alternatives in rising and promising markets. “This development has grown in tandem with the enlargement of the Egyptian authorities’s diplomatic and industrial relations with a number of African nations.”
Nonetheless, Zohry mentioned, migration to Africa is commonly round or short-term. “Because of this the migrant returns to Egypt after a brief interval, or strikes between a number of nations in accordance with accessible alternatives.”
The back-and-forth stream is clear each Friday evening in Dar-es-Salaam, as an aeroplane takes off from Julius Nyerere airport, heading to Cairo.
Throughout excessive seasons like Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr, entire households fill the departure gates, as Egyptians take their earnings residence to go to household, contribute to constructing a brand new residence, put together a member of the family for marriage, or assist their mother and father fulfil a dream of performing the Hajj pilgrimage.
‘Open to Egyptian expertise’
Throughout the African continent, diaspora communities of Arabs and North Africans are rising.
South Africa accounts for the very best share of Egyptian residents in Africa, accounting for 85 %, adopted by Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal.
Ginah recounts a narrative from the late Nineteen Nineties which has since change into an city legend amongst youth searching for greener pastures in Africa.
“A younger man went to South Africa on trip to go to a buddy. Bizarrely, he was arrested in Cape City for a visa irregularity,” mentioned Ginah. “When he was launched, he was broke. All he had had been some aluminium utensils, so he offered them to make sufficient cash to purchase a ticket residence.”
That’s when the phrase obtained out, he says, and other people found the large demand for Egyptian aluminium family items. Younger folks realised they might earn a living – and that’s how the house equipment and residential items commerce between Egypt and different African nations picked up. Since then, Egyptian enterprise pursuits throughout the continent have diversified to incorporate manufacturing, agricultural processing, and mining.
Though North Africans have lengthy travelled south, the development surged following the 2011 mass uprisings in Egypt and the following political, financial and social change, Ginah says.
“There was a brand new wave of emigration inside Africa – each [to] South Africa and different nations in sub-Saharan Africa – because the Gulf and Libya had been significantly affected by the political turmoil.”
Regionally, migrants have additionally discovered a extra pleasant working setting, many say.
The federal government of Tanzania has made strides to help entrepreneurship and international funding. Based on Lloyds Financial institution nation profile, international traders can profit from many fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.
“Tanzania has pure assets and important funding alternatives,” mentioned Makame Iddi Makame, the commissioner basic and chief of workers on the Tanzanian embassy in Cairo.
He mentioned the nation established the Tanzania Funding Centre to handle funding affairs. This contains lowering customs duties to five % in precedence sectors and 0 % in main sectors; offering tax exemption on mining, agricultural, and industrial inputs; facilitating the issuance of residence, work and enterprise permits, and the repatriation of capital beneficial properties overseas; and deferring taxes and VAT for loss-making tasks for as much as 5 years.
The nation’s political stability additionally offers a excessive diploma of funding safety, as there may be low inflation (4.2 %) and steady alternate charges, he added.
“Given the restricted alternatives inside Egypt, some African nations could seem much less aggressive however are extra open to Egyptian expertise in sectors like development, agriculture, training, and knowledge expertise,” in accordance with migration knowledgeable Zohry.
But, regardless of the potential alternatives and usually extra welcoming environment, migration to African nations continues to be restricted, in contrast with the Gulf and Europe, he added, on account of a stigmatised psychological picture many North Africans have about the remainder of the continent.
Nonetheless, there are indicators the continent could change into a gradual different for some youth searching for alternatives past conventional borders.
Enterprise alternatives, shared friendships
Some 550km (340 miles) southeast of Dar-es-Salaam is Mayan village.
There, Mohamed el-Shafie, 34, one other Egyptian, constructed two cashew-processing factories within the Mtwara area in 2018, tapping right into a strategic crop that accounts for 10-15 % of Tanzania’s international alternate earnings.
“Cashew gross sales are constructed purely on belief,” el-Shafei instructed Al Jazeera. “The cashew rising and harvesting operation is meticulous and requires delicate dealing with by farm staff to supply a pure cashew nut. That is adopted by the ‘processing’ stage to organize it for export in good situation.”
Tanzania is one in every of Africa’s main producers and exporters of cashew nuts, rating among the many prime three on the continent and eighth globally.
El-Shafei’s firm has prospects throughout the Arab world and Turkiye, and employs some 400 Egyptian, Chinese language and Tanzanian staff, apart from the seasonal labourers employed in the course of the cashew harvest season in October.
His foray into the cashew trade was unintended, mentioned el-Shafei, who studied Chinese language as an undergraduate at Cairo College, earlier than shifting to Beijing to proceed his training.
“On the time, I had numerous Vietnamese mates who labored within the cashew trade. That was after I realized that Tanzania had a promising enterprise alternative and that Chinese language tools specialised in cashew crop processing was a spot that I may fill,” he mentioned.
With slightly assist from his mates, he linked with cashew farmers in Tanzania in late 2017, and with a small capital funding of 200,000 Egyptian kilos (about $11,000 again then), el-Shafei arrange store and imported two cashew processing machines from China to begin the enterprise. In 2023-2024, Elshafei Funding Restricted had made 13 export shipments with a complete worth of roughly $719,700.
El-Shafei determined to relocate his small household to Dar-es-Salaam so his younger youngsters wouldn’t be removed from him. At present, all of them dwell amid the Arab and Egyptian group, in addition to Tanzanians of Yemeni, Omani, and Iranian origin who moved there in the course of the Arab rule earlier than the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.
Egyptians in Tanzania aren’t remoted from the native inhabitants, el-Shafei says.
“We share celebrations and holidays such because the July 7 Saba Saba Day, which marks the founding of the Tanganyika African Nationwide Union (TANU) in 1954, a major step in the direction of independence and nation-building. We additionally have a good time Swahili Language Day and Eid al-Adha by way of communal meals held in cashew farm villages,” he says.
For Ginah, residing in Dar-es-Salaam along with his spouse and youngsters, Egyptians are a part of the material of their new group.
“We preserve good relationships with Tanzanians, and we share friendships,” he mentioned, together with assembly at work, mosques and social golf equipment.
However amid the successes, there are additionally troublesome moments in residing removed from residence, he mentioned.
“The ache of alienation hits hardest when somebody dies. We [Egyptian immigrants] know one another effectively, whether or not in East or West African nations, so it’s very troublesome. We instantly band collectively to make preparations for the physique to be repatriated, and we help the household financially and emotionally, whether or not they stay in Tanzania or return residence to Egypt.”
However when there may be household by your aspect, “the sensation of alienation disappears,” Ginah mentioned. And because of expertise, “we will see household and mates every day on cell phone calls.”
Ginah feels Tanzania is the nation the place he was destined to make his residing.
“It has actually change into a second residence for me, the place my youngsters are rising up,” he mentioned. “When will I return to my homeland, I don’t know.”
This piece was revealed in collaboration with Egab.