Access Is Not Representation

What the African Diaspora Owes the Communities It Claims to Serve

By Siam D. Yabili

I was born in Kalemie, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and displaced during the Congo wars in 1997. After moving through several places of refuge, I spent approximately eleven years in Tanzania’s Nyarugusu refugee camp before resettling in the United States. Displacement taught me early that decisions made far away arrive in ordinary lives as food, school, work, safety—or their absence. It also taught me that being spoken about is not the same as being heard.

That distinction now shapes my work with Congo Connexion and the way I think about the African diaspora. Remittances are the most visible form of diaspora contribution, but money is not the only resource people abroad acquire. We also gain language, networks, credentials and access to institutions that remain difficult for many people on the continent to reach. That access can be useful. But access is not representation, and visibility is not accountability.

In April 2025, I moderated the Sustainable Development Goal 8 plenary at the United Nations Economic and Social Council Youth Forum. The session focused on decent work and better jobs for young people. My responsibility was not simply to recount my life. I had to frame questions, guide exchanges among young people, governments, international organizations and the private sector, and keep the discussion connected to policy. That mattered to me because moderation is not ceremonial: the person shaping the questions helps determine which experiences count as evidence and which solutions receive attention.

In 2026, I was invited to contribute to a forum organized by the International Labour Organization, UNHCR and UNICEF on forced displacement and economic inclusion. The question I was given concerned how refugee youth-led organizations can help young people access decent work and become self-reliant. There is a meaningful difference between asking a displaced person, “What happened to you?” and asking, “What have you learned, what are communities already doing, and what should institutions change?” The second question recognizes expertise, not only trauma.

Those experiences show part of what can work. A defined role, a specific policy question and access to the agenda before an event allow someone with lived experience to prepare and contribute with substance. Formal programmes and clear records also create accountability: they show who was invited to do what. Yet even a serious invitation does not make one person representative of millions, and a prominent panel does not by itself improve anyone’s life.

What too often fails is the structure around participation. Young people and people affected by conflict may be invited after priorities, budgets and recommendations have already been decided. They receive a few minutes to share a moving story, but no opportunity to shape the questions, review the conclusions or track what happens next. Institutions can then report that affected communities were included, while those communities are left without a clear answer to a basic question: what changed because we were there? When participation ends with applause and photographs, lived experience risks becoming a resource that institutions extract.

Diaspora leaders must accept responsibility for this problem too. Distance can create blind spots, even when our intentions are sincere. Personal experience does not automatically give anyone a current mandate to speak for a community. Before entering a policy space, we should be able to say whom we consulted, which perspectives are missing and how we will report back. At Congo Connexion, I think of our role as a bridge between conflict-affected Congolese communities and international institutions. A bridge has value only when movement goes both ways: community priorities must travel into decision-making rooms, and information, opportunities and results must travel back.

Institutions can make that exchange more credible. They should involve affected people while agendas and budgets are still being designed, not only when speakers are being selected. They should compensate local and refugee-led experts for their time and make direct funding more accessible to organizations closest to the problem. Every consultation should end with a public record of the commitments made, the person responsible, the deadline and the resources attached. Success should be measured not by the number of panels held, but by changes in policy, local decision-making power, access to decent work and the capacity of communities to lead their own solutions.

For those of us in the diaspora, accountability requires discipline. We must distinguish our personal history from current evidence, be precise about whom we do and do not represent, share documentation when making public claims and use our access to open doors for people who are closer to the crisis. We must also resist turning community suffering into a personal brand. This approach may be slower than speaking as if one voice carries an entire nation, but it is more honest and more likely to build trust.

I know what closed doors feel like. I also know that entering one of those rooms can be mistaken for the end of the journey. It is not. I do not want to be celebrated merely for reaching institutions that were once inaccessible to people like me. I want to be judged by whether the door remains open behind me—and whether the people whose pain opened that door gain more power over the decisions that shape their lives. That is the standard diaspora leadership should be willing to meet.

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Author bio

Siam D. Yabili is a Congolese-born civil diplomat and Founder and President of Congo Connexion, an advocacy-based network connecting conflict-affected communities with multilateral policy spaces. A former refugee who spent approximately eleven years in Tanzania’s Nyarugusu camp, he has moderated and contributed to UN forums on decent work, displacement and youth inclusion.