From Remittances to Investment: Sierra Leone’s Next Financial Shift

Sierra Leoneans abroad send hundreds of millions home each year. This June in London, the Sierra Leone Diaspora Investment Conference will bring together experienced investors to address a more pressing question: how do we structure that capital for investment at scale?

Let us start with something we already know.

Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora are not waiting to be convinced to care about home. They already do. The remittances prove it; year after year, through recessions, exchange rate swings, and global uncertainty, the flows continue.

But remittances are not a development strategy. They were never meant to be. And as Sierra Leone enters a new phase — one that demands private investment, scalable industry, and long-term capital formation — the question the diaspora now faces is a harder one: how do we move from sending money home to deploying it as an investment?

That is the question at the centre of Panel 1 at the Sierra Leone Diaspora Investment Conference 2026, taking place June 19 and 20 at the InterContinental Hotel Park Lane in London.

The panel is “Build It They Will Come: Structuring a Diaspora Fund in the Current Reality.” The title makes a deliberate argument. You do not need perfect conditions to build a diaspora investment fund. You need the right structure, risk management tools, and financial mechanisms that are designed to work within the realities that exist today, not the ideal ones that may not arrive for years.

What the Panel Is Actually About

There is a version of the diaspora investment conversation that stays comfortable. It talks about potential. It acknowledges the barriers. It calls for more government action, better policy, and improved infrastructure. And then it ends.

This panel rather focuses on the practicalities: how are investment vehicles designed and governed? How do you pool diaspora capital in a way that meets institutional standards? How does investor confidence get built in a market where trust is earned slowly and lost quickly? And critically, what does the first concrete step look like for a diaspora professional who is ready to move from thinking about investing in Sierra Leone to actually doing it?

Meet The Panelists

What makes this panel worth paying attention to is that it brings together people who have built real things in imperfect conditions and who understand from the inside what it takes.

Parminder Vir OBE

Parminder Vir OBE is a globally recognised leader and former CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, where she led a $100 million programme supporting entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries. Her work has focused on building scalable systems that connect capital, innovation, and enterprise development. She now works to strengthen cross-border investment and entrepreneurship links between Africa, India, and the global diaspora, and is co-founding The African Fund, a digitally enabled investment community for the continent.

Roopal Kanabar

Roopal Kanabar is the Founder of Sustainabar, advising on capital mobilisation for sustainable investment across emerging markets. A former Citibank executive, she specialises in designing financial structures that connect institutional capital with development outcomes. Her current work explores how diaspora remittances can be leveraged to support investment, including piloting an innovative foreign exchange framework in Sierra Leone designed to improve currency risk management and unlock capital flows

Joe Kinvi

Joe Kinvi is a systems-focused entrepreneur building investment infrastructure for diaspora capital across Africa. He is the founder of Borderless, a platform designed to enable diaspora communities to invest collectively and at scale. With previous leadership roles at Stripe, Paystack, and Touchtech Payments, his work sits at the intersection of finance, technology, and community-building, focused on strengthening trust-based capital flows across borders.

Uwem Uwemakpan

Uwem Uwemakpan is Head of Investment at Launch Africa Ventures, where he backs early-stage African founders with strong potential for scale. He has deployed over $200 million in venture and programme capital, supporting companies that go on to attract global investors. With over a decade of experience in African venture capital, he brings a grounded, practitioner’s perspective on investment in emerging markets.

Matthew Mukalere

Matthew Mukalere is a software engineer at BlackRock, where he builds financial technology at an institutional scale. Alongside his professional work, he is an active diaspora investor, currently developing a mixed-use commercial project in Jinja, Uganda, financed through diaspora capital. His investment focus is on high-return opportunities in sectors such as real estate, agriculture, and trade, with an emphasis on long-term value creation.

Join Us in London

Registration is now open for SLDIC 2026, with delegate passes available across both days. The conference offers a valuable opportunity to engage with Sierra Leonean cabinet members, investors, and diaspora professionals shaping the country’s investment landscape.

For small and medium-sized Sierra Leonean and diaspora-led businesses, a curated marketplace will run alongside the conference, showcasing food, fashion, art, and locally rooted products in the heart of London. Vendor spaces are limited, book your vendor booth today!

Register for your delegate pass: https://makesierraleonefamous.com