Bridging the Gap: How can African Diaspora Networks, Like the African Business Association in Bradford, Drive Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in Africa?

This paper examines the African Business Association (ABA) as a diaspora-led intermediary organisation connecting African and African-Caribbean entrepreneurs in the UK with economic opportunities across Africa. Using an autoethnographic narrative inquiry approach, the study analyses selected ABA initiatives undertaken between 2023 and 2025 through insider observations, organisational documents, and storytelling outputs. Grounded in Black feminist epistemology and theories of transnational Black consciousness, it shows that storytelling works as a tool for entrepreneurial learning, institutional navigation, and cross-border collaboration. A proposal of a dual-approach framework that combines awareness of colonial legacies with future-oriented economic action, positioning diaspora organisations as spaces of resistance and reconstruction. Although ABA operates within structural challenges such as limited access to finance, fragmented policy support, and institutional mistrust, it demonstrates how diaspora organisations utilise experiential knowledge, cultural capital, and collective networks to strengthen entrepreneurial infrastructure. The study contributes to diaspora entrepreneurship scholarship by highlighting the role of meso-level diaspora institutions, demonstrating the value of autoethnographic narrative inquiry in entrepreneurship research, and examining the relationship between historical consciousness and entrepreneurial agency within Black diaspora communities.