The diaspora has always been seen as a source of financial help for families back home, but all too often little more than that.
President Mnangagwa and his Government have already been seeing the diaspora as a far greater asset, both for investors and for skilled people.
In the hard and soft sell campaign around the world launched by the Second Republic for investment, outlining the attractions of Zimbabwe, President Mnangagwa always makes sure he is also in contact with the diaspora, and makes time for potential investors in this group.
The President has also noted that with the expansion of the economy, some of those who left for greener pastures can be told that there are some good pastures now back home if they want to return.
Last weekend he mentioned the modest and successful campaign launched by Zesa to attract some of its engineers and technicians to return.
But it now appears we can go further with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development looking at elements within the Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain as being the ideal trading link between the homeland or former homeland and the UK, with particular emphasis in the early stages on horticultural produce.
One huge advantage of a diaspora population is the fact that they have links with both Zimbabwe and where they live now, and often have maintained cultural ties as well as family ties, even if they are second or third generation in their present country and could well now be foreign citizens.
One huge example around the world, often talked about in admiration in many business circles, is the Indian diaspora over more than a century and the more modern Chinese diaspora.
While the giant global companies in these two countries are well-known everywhere, there are a lot of the businesses that supply mainly the home market or are specialists in other areas, especially business areas with cultural significance.
And these companies get a major boost from their diaspora, and horticulture and related cultural foods are one of the biggest areas where you really do need a diaspora community to get your foot through the door..
If you know where to look in Harare it is fairly easy to find the specialist spice shops and the like that can supply from imported and home-grown resources much of what makes Indian cuisine special.
And if you are interested you will find a pleasant person of the Indian diaspora in Zimbabwe, usually a Zimbabwean citizen of several generations standing, who can still explain just how to use these ingredients.
The trend is even more obvious within the local Chinese community, where several smaller shops and the odd big store sell the specialist ingredients for Chinese dishes, and here you often require the advice of the shopkeeper because the packets are in Chinese and even the translated English names are unfamiliar.
One major supplier of these sort of items has even run special demonstrations for those interested.
You can buy several made-for-export brands of soy sauce for example, but it is also possible to buy a range of the identical product that you can find on the kitchen shelves in many Chinese households in say Beijing, and that is where you hit the real authentic notes.
But you need someone familiar with China to tell you which are the authentic products and which might well be not.
Horticulture exports to Britain were in the past largely for fresh produce in the British winter months, where a tropical supplier in the Southern Hemisphere had certain advantages of guaranteeing supply.
These need to be restored and while anyone can do that, people of Zimbabwean descent obviously have an advantage, even if it is only to say this is the sort of thing their cousin grows.
But there are other markets that have hardly been tapped. There are a number of campaigns in Zimbabwe to build up the range of our cuisine by reintroducing far more of the traditional grains and other traditional products where use fell away in colonial times.
A number of companies are now processing and packaging these, both for the Zimbabwean kitchen and for export markets.
Somewhere in that strong Zimbabwean community in Britain there will be people of Zimbabwean descent who run or work in food shops, restaurants and the cultural area, and who in combination with suppliers back here can bring in these traditional products and explain how their grandmother would cook them.
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Interestingly, traditional grains are far more likely to find markets in Europe and other developed countries than maize, a far more recent introduction that tastes pretty much the same everywhere, while traditional grains have hundreds of varieties being a pure indigenous grain from Africa.
The same could done with other traditional foods, such as certain types of fruit, especially wild fruit, where it might be possible to set up specialist distributors, who can market both the product and the way it needs to be prepared.
Again certain elements in the diaspora can be the agents and the link people between the Zimbabwean supplier and the British consumer.
In other words we can, for everyone's benefit, make more use of our diaspora communities rather than just as a source of cash.
As other countries and cultures have found, they can be a serious route within global trading and marketing, having knowledge of both ends of a trade route and often creating new markets in their new country for products from their old country.
Certainly this should not be neglected.
