Efficient communication

Today I read an article that gave me a lot of food for thought. It was about something very dear to my heart: the availability of basic infrastructure to all. By "infrastructure", I mean roads and electricity, but also schools, health services, and hygiene (tap water, waste removal, etc.).

I was therefore quite glad to read about small town water projects sponsored by DANIDA in certain parts of the very underserved Kwahu North (Afram Plains) District, namely Memkyemfre and Kayere near Donkorkrom.

The following:

At Memkyemfre, the [Eastern Regional] Minister [Mr. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo] urged the community members to take good care of the project because it was constructed with other people's money. (1)

prompted me to write this post.

Indeed, it is very commendable that foreign aid organisations help underserved communities have access to clean water. However, the catch in aid is that it comes from outside, is brought, built, donated by people the local community never set eyes upon before the project and will probably never see again after its completion, and communication of the kind shown here only serves to reinforce the alien nature of the effort. There is no local ownership of the project.

What is it all about? For something to work at the grassroots level, that is, where it is needed and will hopefully be used, it must be appropriated by said community. Reminding the recipients that someone else paid for it may have been said with the best intentions. Surely, the honourable Minister wanted to impress on the community how important it is to take good care of a gift. However, this kind of utterance can very well have the very unwanted effect of people never considering it as theirs.

What do we do with things that don't belong to us? The best case scenario is that we keep it very carefully so that if and when the rightful owner comes, s/he find it almost as s/he left it. If need be, we will guard it and prevent everybody from touching it out of fear of it being spoiled.

The other scenario is that we won't care about something that cost us nothing, we'll use and abuse it and when it's spoiled, either we will revert to our previous makeshift ways, or we will go and demand that the donor repair or change it.

Empowerment is what we need to make real progress. Empowerment is about including the local community at every step of the project, from collecting ideas about the actual needs and the best place to install the infrastructure, to constructing the project, learning how to regulate its use, and how to maintain and service it.

Empowerment is the opposite of making the community stand in awe on the sidelines. Empowerment is not tantamount to being ungrateful. Empowerment is about using this aid as a stepping stone for community improvement. Being grateful doesn't mean that you have to go back to the donor again and again when you need something else. The best show of one's gratitude is to be able to display that one can use what is being donated effectively and incorporate it into one's array of tools to go farther and achieve bigger, longer-term goals.

It is unfortunate that this communication seemed rather to aim at glueing the community to a specific point in time (aid) instead of a continuum called 'community development'. Development is a dynamic, evolutionary process. We won't achieve anything of substance if we keep waiting for aid to come to us, no matter how warm our demonstrations of gratefulness are whenever we receive such aid.

(1) Ofosu Ampofo Inspects Small Water Projects, By Samuel Opare Lartey, Afram Plains, Donkorkrom. - The Ghanaian Times, Projects/Developments, Wed, 13 May 2009

Please define "top"

This morning I read an article on this Top UK Security Firm visiting Ghana to help solve our problems with drugs and other violent crime.

Like a lot of people in Ghana interested in public interest news, I heard on the radio and read that

Government's efforts at fighting the narcotic drug menace and illegal armed trafficking received a boost on Tuesday as officials of Yahuda Security Management Consulting, a top United Kingdom security firm arrived in Accra to assist national security agencies. They would discuss with national security officials wide-ranging security matters, international trade in drugs including cocaine, illegal arms, armed robbery and links to possible terrorism.(1)

The situation in Ghana has become a matter of concern for all patriots and we can only be glad that this administration decided to give it its full attention. I could only regret in passing that these experts had to be brought in from the UK instead of Ghana training her police force to international standards and giving them the means to accomplish their mission successfully.

What woke me up seriously today was another post on the Internet revealing that this "Top United Kingdom Security Firm" appeared officially out of the blue only two days ago. Indeed, a search on the UK Companies House's website revealed to this vigilant citizen (and I was able to verify it) that this "top" firm was only registered on May 20, 2009.

Let's be serious for a minute. This is a company that did not exist only two days ago. The Companies House's website shows when there has been a change of name or restructuration, so it's unlikely that this company existed under another name or legal form before May 20, 2009 without it appearing on this website. How could the President of Ghana or any person of his entourage, while on an official visit to the UK last week, have met representatives of this company, and based on what compelling information did such representatives convince their interlocutor that their company was ideally positioned to help Ghana in this very sensitive job of getting rid of drugs and violent crime, let alone terrorism?

The CEO of this startup (which is the most positive designation I can imagine for such a firm) is a Mr Tetteh, so I suppose he is a Ghanaian living in the UK. Why he didn't register in Ghana instead of the UK is not very clear. Since the company was non-existent when he allegedly met the President or a member of his entourage, he could easily have chosen to register in Ghana (paying taxes to the mother country is a nice civic gesture too).

My hypothesis (and I'm sorry it's the only one that comes to mind right now) is that it sounds so much better, richer and more impressive to say "Top UK Security Firm" than "Ghanaian team with international credentials" (they do have credentials, don't they? Has anybody checked this? Has the Ghanaian High Commission in London done its homework on this?). The unsavoury underlying idea is that UK is key, and "top" only reinforces the obvious: an obscure UK outfit tops a Ghanaian one any day. Sad, very sad.

We, members of the public and taxpayers, are supposed to say wow, and ahhh, and clap our hands in ravishment of being graced with a Top UK Security Firm coming to solve our problems, while this story has all the makings of yet another scam to rob the taxpayer of their money in the form of obscure fees and kickbacks going to line nicely the pockets of whoever engineered this umpteenth trick that is being played at Ghana's expense.

Whether one wants to give this administration the benefit of the doubt and believe that they were merely gullible (and sloppy, for not having checked this company's existence), tricked by the all powerful "UK" rattle being waved in front of their collective nose, or this administration is as guilty as others before it of giving precedence to their own pockets before Ghana's interests while giving a leg up to a member of the Ghanaian Diaspora, this story is very disappointing. We, as a country, need to urgently change our mindsets so that we serve Ghana first, for the greater good of all. Only then will we earn international and self-respect, and bring real lasting, sustainable change to our country's situation which so far was a "fate", but can and will become a "destiny".


(1) Top UK security experts arrive in Ghana - GNA, Accra, May 19, 2009

Let's not grow Jatropha

One thing makes me wonder if we ever learn from our mistakes or ever will: why on earth would our mature, seasoned and thoughtful leaders want to embrace the new biofuel fad with so much enthousiasm?

One of the reasons why the developed countries decided to look for alternative sources for their much needed fuel was to reduce their dependency from imported oil products. Let's not be naive and believe the first and foremost reason was concern for the well-being of our planet. We'll continue to consume till we drop, collectively. Or till the planet suffocates completely. This cynical view is what the worldwide, globalized economy relies upon.

So why would Ghana be so urgently interested to grow biofuel plants now, when oil is being found in the Ghanaian waters every other week, or so it seems? Even if this booty is finite, won't it at least buy us a little time? Why welcome with so widely open arms President Lula of Brazil's project of growing sugar cane on a massive scale in Ghana to produce biofuels, when Ghana imports every single cristal of sugar she uses in food and beverages?

When people (scientists and environmentalists) started being critical about using crops fit for human consumption to make fuel (like corn, sugar cane, and soy beans, for example -- but we had already bought into this wonderful project Lula painted in so flattering colours for us), Jatropha curcas was touted as the 'miracle' wonderplant that would grow where nothing else thrives and even fertilize the soil where it grew.

Where the shoe pinches, is that

it’s already clear that, while jatropha can indeed grow on lands with minimal water and poor nutrition, “if you plant trees in a marginal area, and all they do is just not die, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get a lot of oil from them.” (...) “If you grow jatropha in marginal conditions, you can expect marginal yields,” says Vincent Volckaert, the Africa regional director for D1.(1)

Are we back to the main argument of the anti-biofuel crowd? Oh yes, we are right there: the whole problem is that food crops will be displaced to allow large multinational companies to use prime land for biofuels.

This is not just a bitter fantasy of progress-adverse or eternally disgruntled people. The new biofuel wave is already lapping against our agricultural lands. Tens of thousands of acres are being requested (and obtained) by big companies --none of them Ghanaian-- in Ghana.

Their argument that

only land not needed for food crop production would be used for the cultivation of jatropha(2)

is a severe insult thrown in the collective face of the more than 20 million of Ghanaians (2000 census figure), since

the country imports almost everything it eats. The country produces only 21% of its rice and about 42% of its maize requirements.(3)

Considering these figures, it is extremely difficult to understand exactly what can be deemed "land not needed" and based on what criteria large tracts of it were allocated to these projects.

The modern, globalized economy and its wizards tell us to stop fretting about growing our own food and to import whatever we need. It will be provided to us (nevermind the price, in terms of monetary cost or destroyed livelihoods to local farmers), as long as we grow what we are told to grow, sell it abroad as a raw material and take gratefully whatever price the buyer will condescend to give us. Does it ring a bell? It's not surprising: We've been doing that since colonial times and 52 years after we won our "independence", we are still begging to eat.

Let's use the newly discovered oil to buy us time to turn around our mentalities; to change the way we use our lands; to feed our fellow citizens --and especially our kids-- with healthy, plentiful, locally produced food; to educate them to be able to stand tall and face suppliers and buyers alike on a more equal footing, especially psychologically and morally; to learn how to use state of the art technologies so that Ghana can produce and process herself what she needs, including in terms of alternative energy, instead of giving up her heritage for lack of any ability to exploit it profitably.

Obi bεma wo a, nte sε woama wo ho.
If someone says that they will give you something, it is not like providing for yourself (Self-sufficiency is best). (4)

(1) Hailed as a Miracle Biofuel, Jatropha Falls Short of Hype, by Jon R. Luoma
(2) & (3) Indian companies also enter biofuel business in Ghana, by Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
(4) Bu Me Bε - Proverbs of the Akans, by Peggy Appiah, Kwame Anthony Appliah, Ivor Agyeman-Duah