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 might head south,” Ginah, who’s lightheartedly known 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 dwelling, international locations in sub-Saharan Africa are tainted by stereotypes of famine, poverty and illness.
However when Ginah arrived, what he discovered have been alternatives – and an opportunity to construct one thing new.
“In 2021, I established my firm, Dream [Trading],” he stated, 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 connected to Dream Buying and selling. Some time later, he drives him to Metropolis Mall, the most well-liked purchasing 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 preferred road meals omelette with French fries, tomato sauce and greens.
Usually, Egyptians who transfer to Tanzania have already got a relative or buddy dwelling there. For many who don’t, Ginah helps them discover a place to remain, typically providing them a job at Dream and serving to cowl their lease 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 doubtlessly work.
“Nevertheless, crucial factor I present,” stated 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 stated, so he lends a serving to hand.
However Ginah is decided 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 stated. “In such instances, I counsel the individual that this nation has loads to supply, however it doesn’t give to the lazy or dependent.”
Ginah has gained loads in eight years. At present, his firm distributes merchandise all through Africa, and he has helped dozens of younger males from his dwelling village relocate and set up themselves in Tanzania, the place an estimated 70,000 Arabs reside – together with 1,200 Egyptians, based on figures supplied by Egypt’s ambassador to the nation, Sherif Ismail, in 2023.
South-south migration
Whereas Europe fortifies its borders in opposition to North African migrants, bold younger Egyptians in a struggling economic system are on the lookout for alternate options to emigrating to the West, based on Ayman Zohry, a demographer and skilled on migration research on the American College in Cairo.
This south-bound migration has accelerated considerably lately.
Official statistics present the variety of Egyptians in non-Arab African international locations elevated from 46,000 in 2017 to 54,000 by 2021.
This pattern 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, based on a report by the Combined Migration Centre.
The European Union not too long ago responded with a brand new 7.4 billion euro ($8.7bn) settlement with Egypt, partly geared toward boosting border controls to scale back irregular migration to Europe.
Zohry defined that Egypt’s youth migration tendencies are present process a notable transformation.
“Whereas conventional locations have been the Gulf and Europe, there’s a new pattern in direction of the south, particularly some African international locations,” Zohry instructed Al Jazeera.
“Financial migration” sees younger folks searching for funding alternatives in rising and promising markets. “This pattern has grown in tandem with the enlargement of the Egyptian authorities’s diplomatic and industrial relations with a number of African international locations.”
Nevertheless, Zohry stated, migration to Africa is commonly round or momentary. “Which means the migrant returns to Egypt after a brief interval, or strikes between a number of international locations based on obtainable alternatives.”

The back-and-forth move is obvious 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, complete households fill the departure gates, as Egyptians take their earnings dwelling to go to household, contribute to constructing a brand new dwelling, 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 abilities’
Throughout the African continent, diaspora communities of Arabs and North Africans are rising.
South Africa accounts for the best share of Egyptian residents in Africa, accounting for 85 %, adopted by Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal.
Ginah recounts a narrative from the late Nineties which has since turn 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,” stated Ginah. “When he was launched, he was broke. All he had have been some aluminium utensils, so he bought them to make sufficient cash to purchase a ticket dwelling.”
That’s when the phrase acquired out, he says, and folks found the massive 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 international locations 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 pattern 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 international locations in sub-Saharan Africa – because the Gulf and Libya have been significantly affected by the political turmoil.”

Regionally, migrants have additionally discovered a extra pleasant working surroundings, many say.
The federal government of Tanzania has made strides to assist entrepreneurship and international funding. In line with Lloyds Financial institution nation profile, international buyers can profit from many fiscal and non-fiscal incentives.
“Tanzania has pure sources and vital funding alternatives,” stated Makame Iddi Makame, the commissioner basic and chief of workers on the Tanzanian embassy in Cairo.
He stated the nation established the Tanzania Funding Centre to handle funding affairs. This contains decreasing 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 good points overseas; and deferring taxes and VAT for loss-making tasks for as much as 5 years.
The nation’s political stability additionally supplies a excessive diploma of funding safety, as there may be low inflation (4.2 %) and steady trade charges, he added.
“Given the restricted alternatives inside Egypt, some African international locations might seem much less aggressive however are extra open to Egyptian abilities in sectors like building, agriculture, schooling, and knowledge know-how,” based on migration skilled Zohry.
But, regardless of the potential alternatives and customarily extra welcoming environment, migration to African international locations remains to be restricted, in contrast with the Gulf and Europe, he added, because of a stigmatised psychological picture many North Africans have about the remainder of the continent.
Nevertheless, there are indicators the continent might turn into a gradual various 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 trade 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 employees to supply a pure cashew nut. That is adopted by the ‘processing’ stage to arrange it for export in good situation.”
Tanzania is certainly one 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 employees, apart from the seasonal labourers employed in the course of the cashew harvest season in October.
His foray into the cashew business was unintentional, stated el-Shafei, who studied Chinese language as an undergraduate at Cairo College, earlier than transferring to Beijing to proceed his schooling.
“On the time, I had a variety of Vietnamese buddies who labored within the cashew business. That was once I discovered that Tanzania had a promising enterprise alternative and that Chinese language tools specialised in cashew crop processing was a spot that I might fill,” he stated.
With slightly assist from his buddies, 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 kids wouldn’t be removed from him. At present, all of them reside amid the Arab and Egyptian neighborhood, 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 usually are not 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 direction of independence and nation-building. We additionally have a good time Swahili Language Day and Eid al-Adha via communal meals held in cashew farm villages,” he says.
For Ginah, dwelling in Dar-es-Salaam along with his spouse and youngsters, Egyptians are a part of the material of their new neighborhood.
“We keep good relationships with Tanzanians, and we share friendships,” he stated, together with assembly at work, mosques and social golf equipment.
However amid the successes, there are additionally troublesome moments in dwelling removed from dwelling, he stated.
“The ache of alienation hits hardest when somebody dies. We [Egyptian immigrants] know one another properly, whether or not in East or West African international locations, so it’s very troublesome. We instantly band collectively to make preparations for the physique to be repatriated, and we assist the household financially and emotionally, whether or not they stay in Tanzania or return dwelling to Egypt.”
However when there may be household by your facet, “the sensation of alienation disappears,” Ginah stated. And because of know-how, “we will see household and buddies each day on cell phone calls.”
Ginah feels Tanzania is the nation the place he was destined to make his dwelling.
“It has definitely turn into a second dwelling for me, the place my kids are rising up,” he stated. “When will I return to my homeland, I don’t know.”
This piece was revealed in collaboration with Egab.