Global Voices » Ghana

Ghana: Will Parliament Pass Right to Information Before 2013?

Ndesanjo Macha — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:44:53 +0000

Cecil Dadzie wonders whether the Ghanaian parliament will pass Right to Information Bill before 2013: “The Rights to Information Bill (RTI), which was laid before Parliament in February, 20I0, has generated controversy, with the RTI Coalition blaming Parliament for feet-dragging in passing the bill into law.”

Africa: The Golden Baobab Award

Ndesanjo Macha — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:07:50 +0000

Submit your story for The Golden Baobab Award: “The Golden Boabab Award was established in 2008 to encouraged writers in Africa who specialize in books for children and young adults.”

Ghana: We Must Reject Free Education

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:32:25 +0000

Samuel is against free education in Ghana because “I’m convinced beyond doubt that making secondary education free is not the way to go about improving education in Ghana. Such a move, I dare say, might cause our already fragile education sector to crumble like the Biblical wall of Jericho or at best accelerate the decline in education standards in this country.”

Africa: Will Local Content Policies Help Avert the Oil Curse?

Julie Owono — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:34:48 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage International Relations & Security.

In recent years, major reserves of oil have been discovered at various locations across Africa. If this ‘black gold' represents an opportunity for economic growth, the fear that the windfall may not benefit the local populations - and maybe even become a curse - is shared by Sub-Saharan African citizens and experts alike.

In 2009, Modern Ghana’s Nana Adjoa Hackman suggested a possible solution:

It is common practice for oil and gas producing countries to negotiate local content agreements with interested IOCs [International Oil Companies] in an attempt to secure for the country a higher share of the value from oil and gas projects. This trend has surfaced as a result of the realization of the poor economic performance of many resource rich countries despite their vast wealth.

Tullow oil camp, Uganda. Image by Conservation Concepts on Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Taking the example of Ghana, he explains:

As part of measures being undertaken to put in place the framework for Ghana's oil and gas production, a Bill entitled the Ghana Petroleum Regulatory Authority (GPRA) Bill was released in October 2008. (…) Sections 100 to 105 inclusive of the Bill deal with the promotion of local content, specifically, the involvement of the state oil company, provision of goods and services by local entrepreneurs, as well as the employment and training of citizens of Ghana.

The adoption of the local content policy framework in Ghana followed in 2010, however it is still pending parliamentary endorsement. The latter is now more urgent than ever, as finding employment is a preoccupation for an increasing number of Ghanaian citizens.

Commenting on an article entitled ‘Youth Angry-Over Elusive Jobs In Oil Industry‘, Christiane Badgley writes:

Oil brings in huge amounts of money, of course, and along with that come expectations of many, well-paid jobs. The problem is that the industry – at least as it exists in Ghana now – doesn’t generate much work. (…) We’ll have to wait for details on how the government intends to increase local content and participation, which is easier said than done. Training, education, quotas, regulation, penalties, taxation, incentives – the government has multiple options for addressing the question.

In Uganda, the same move towards the adoption of a local content policy is being made, as explained on the In2EastAfrica website:

Uganda wants a strong local content in the nascent oil and gas industry for its citizens to gain skilled manpower and a competitive supply edge. This is in an attempt to ensure revenues trickles down, averting the resource curse.

Indeed, avoiding the oil curse is important for Uganda, particularly if it helps to prevent the emergence of other Joseph Kony- like characters. Petroleum was, after all, discovered in the north-west, near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the 30 year long conflict led by the Lord's Resistance Army chief. A local content policy would hopefully create employment for local populations and distract them from the path of war.

In Kenya case, where oil was found earlier this year, Local Development Network of Africa asks on Twitter:

@ledna: How far have discussion on #Ghana “local content” for the oil and gas sector gone? #Kenya (new found oil) could learn from that

Günther Schulze, professor of economics at the University of Freiburg, Germany, adds another perspective on the World Bank blog:

The biggest -but most important- challenge is to build and maintain good institutions. (…) transparency will be the most powerful lever for accountability. If Kenyans know exactly how much oil is being produced, how much royalties oil companies pay this would already be a major step in the right direction. (…) Kenya’s strong civil society and creative industries, especially in ICT, can play a strong role in monitoring the oil revenue flows and proposing solutions on how to spend the money well. Then the resource curse can be turned into a blessing.

This post and its translations to Spanish, Arabic and French were commissioned by International Security Network (ISN) as part of a partnership to seek out citizen voices on international relations and security issues worldwide.

Visit the ISN blog and see more related stories.

Africa: Is Faint Medal the next Osibisa?

Ndesanjo Macha — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:13:31 +0000

Bismarck wonders whether the band Faint Medal is the next Osibisa: “After the great Osibisa band which told the African story across the world, people have been searching for the next band to continue with the legacy.”

Ghana: BlogCamp Ghana 2012

Ndesanjo Macha — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:53:27 +0000

BlogCamp Ghana 2012 will take place on 5 May, 2012, Nana Yaw Sarpong reports: “BloggingGhana, a registered organisation of pro-Ghana bloggers, is putting together a one-day social media training event dubbed BlogCamp 2012 themed Voice of a New Generation.”

Africa: Calls for Transparency Over Marked Increase in Land Deals

Lova Rakotomalala — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:25:59 +0000

An international coalition of researchers and NGOs have released the world's largest public database of international land deals, reports the Global Development blog of The Guardian's (UK). This marks an important milestone in highlighting a developmental issue that has received little attention in the international news cycle.

The report states that almost 5% of Africa's agricultural land has been bought or leased by investors since 2000, and emphasizes the fact that this is not a new issue, yet points out that the number of such land deals has increased tremendously in the past five years.

Many observers are increasingly worried that these land deals usually take place in the world's poorest countries and that they impact its most vulnerable population, the farmers. The benefits seldom go to the general population, partially because of a lack of transparency in the proceedings of the transactions.

An additional report by Global Witness, entitled Dealing with Disclosure, emphasizes the dire need for transparency in the making of land deals.

World's poorest nations targeted

The Global Witness report lists that 754 land deals have been identified, involving the majority of African countries for about 56.2 million hectares.

Target countries of land deals from the Land Matrix Project

The nations targeted are usually some of the poorest in the world. The countries with the most deals in place are Mozambique (92 deals), Ethiopia (83), Tanzania (58) and Madagascar (39). Some of those deals have made headlines because they were conducted to ensure control over food imports, when the targeted regions faced major food crises.

The NGO GRAIN has already explained in detail the gist of their concerns in an extensive report released in 2008:

Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land is becoming increasingly privatised and concentrated. If left unchecked, this global land grab could spell the end of small-scale farming, and rural livelihoods, in numerous places around the world.

In Malawi, land deals have grown increasingly prevalent to the detriment of the local farmers. A report from Bangula explains the challenges faced by Malawian farmers, Dorothy Dyton and her family:

Like most smallholder farmers in Malawi, they did not have a title deed for the land Dyton was born on, and in 2009 she and about 2,000 other subsistence farmers from the area were informed by their local chief that the land had been sold and they could no longer cultivate there. […] Since that time, said Dyton, “life has been very hard on us.” With a game reserve on one side of the community and the Shire river and Mozambique border on the other, there is no other available land for them to farm and the family now ekes out a living selling firewood they gather from the nearby forest.

Land construction in Madagascar. Photo by Foko Madagascar, used with the author's authorization

Farmers in Madagascar share similar concerns because they do not own the rights to the land they farm and an effective land reform is yet to be implemented. The Malagasy association Terres Malgaches has been at the forefront of land protection for the local population. They report that [fr]:

Les familles malgaches ne possèdent pas de document foncier pour sécuriser leurs terres contre les accaparements de toutes sortes. En effet, depuis la colonisation, l’obtention de titres fonciers auprès de l’un des 33 services des domaines d’un pays de 589 000 km2 nécessite 24 étapes, 6 ans en moyenne et jusqu’à 500 dollars US. (..) . Face aux convoitises et accaparements dont les terres malgaches font l’objet actuellement, seule la possession d’un titre ou d’un certificat foncier, seuls documents juridiques reconnus, permet d’entreprendre des actions en justice en cas de conflit.

Malagasy families do not usually own an estate property document that enable them to secure their lands against land grab. In fact, since colonial times, one has needed about 24 steps, 6 years and up to 500 US dollars to get such documents. There are merely around 33 agencies in the country that deliver such documents for a country that is 589,000 kilometres square […] In the face of the increasing land grabs that Malagasy land is currently at risk of, this certificate is the only document that can trigger legal action in case of conflict.

The association also reports on the practices of a mining company Sheritt, in Ambatovy, which have created a buzz in the local blogosphere because of environmental concerns for the local population and business malpractices (via MiningWatch Canada):

Sherritt International’s Ambatovy project in eastern Madagascar – costing $5.5 billion to build and scheduled to begin full production this month – will comprise a number of open pit mines (..) it will close in 29 years. There are already many concerns about the mine from the thousands of local people near the facilities. They say that their fields are destroyed ; the water is dirty ; the fish in the river are dead and there have been landslides near their village. During testing of the new plant, there have been at least four separate leaks of sulphur dioxide from the hydro-metallurgical facility which villagers say have killed at least two adults and two babies and sickened at least 50 more people. In January, laid-off construction workers from Ambatovy began a wildcat strike, arguing that the jobs they were promised when construction ended have not materialized. The people in nearby cities like Moramanga say that their daughters are increasingly engaged in prostitution.

Video of a worker's testimony in Ambatovy.

Solutions for the local population?

The plight of Madagascar's farmers' plight may be slowly changing though. Land reform discussions are in progress, according to this report:

According to a paper presented at the 2011 International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, about 50 agribusiness projects were announced between 2005 and 2010, about 30 of which are still active, covering a total land area of about 150,000 ha. Projects include plantations to produce sugar cane, cassava and jatropha-based biofuel.
To prevent the negative impacts of land grabbing, (The NGO) EFA has set up social models for investors, with funding from the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The goal is to help investors negotiate with the people in the area where they want to implement projects, as a way to prevent future problems.

Joachim Von Braun, formerly of the International Food Policy Insitute (IFPRI), wrote the following regarding land deals:

It is in the long-run interest of investors, host governments, and the local people involved to ensure that these arrangements are properly negotiated, practices are sustainable, and benefits are shared. Because of the transnational nature of such arrangements, no single institutional mechanism will ensure this outcome. Rather, a combination of international law, government policies, and the involvement of civil society, the media, and local communities is needed to minimize the threats and realize the benefits.

The need for transparency in land deals is further emphasized by Megan MacInnes, Senior Land Campaigner at Global Witness:

Far too many people are being kept in the dark about massive land deals that could destroy their homes and livelihoods. That this needs to change is well understood, but how to change it is not. For the first time, this report (Dealing with Disclosure) sets out in detail what tools governments, companies and citizens can harness to remove the shroud of secrecy that surrounds land acquisition. It takes lessons from efforts to improve transparency in other sectors and looks at what is likely to work for land. Companies should have to prove they are doing no harm, rather than communities with little information or power having to prove that a land deal is negatively affecting them.

Ghana: Shinning Light on Akan/Twi Movies

Ndesanjo Macha — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:55:48 +0000

African Movie Critic shines light on Akan/Twi movies from Ghana: “I have always said local movies in both Ghana and Nigeria (e.g. Yoruba movies) ALWAYS seem to have a better story line. Why is that? Is it because the actors and actresses are able to perform better and let the story shine when acting in their own local dialect? And if so why not maybe do more of such movies with confidence that nonetheless it will still make international film festival.”

Ghana: Tourism Sector Urged to Speak Against Violence

Ndesanjo Macha — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:42:32 +0000

MadinGhana urges Ghanaian tourism sector to speak out against election violence. Ghanaians will go to the polls this year: “It is time business leaders in the private sector speak out, especially those in the tourism/export services sector which would be one of the most devastated if election violence erupts.This sector is highly developed organized.”

Ghana: Social Media Use in 2012 General Eelections

Ndesanjo Macha — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:38:47 +0000

As Ghanaians are getting ready for presidential and parliamentary elections that will be held on 7 December 2012, BloggingGhana community has lauched a social media initiative that seeks to train stakeholders to use social media tools for election monitoring and reporting.

GhanaBlogging is a group of bloggers in/outside Ghana who blog about Ghana.

Ghanaian radio broadcast journalist, writer and blogger Nana Sarpong writes about the launching of the initiative:

The logo of Ghana Decides project. Image source: Ghana Decides Facebook page.

The Ghana Decides-A BloGh Election 2012 Project been launched today at Windy Lodge, Winneba. Ghana Decides is a BloggingGhana initiative meant to introduce NGOs, Civil Society Organisations, students (especially first time voters), political groups and the general Ghanaian public to the importance and benefit of use of social media tools in elections in Ghana. The projects seeks to engage these bodies and individuals, train them to use these tools as well as provide a reliable platform for elections monitoring in the country.

Young voters showing their voting cards. Image source: Ghana Decides Flickr account.

Nana continues:

As most innovative projects such as Ghana Decides are typically based in the nation's capital, the project team thought it best to launch outside of Accra. The launch which was under the theme Encouraging Informed Youth Participation in the 2012 Elections saw participants from Senior High Schools within Winneba, the local union for the physically challenged in Winneba as well as other physically challenged people, students from University of Education, Winneba, NGOs such as Plan Ghana and the general public.

The launch marks the official outdooring of a series of Ghana Decides online and offline activities including the iRegistered campaign meant to propel young voters to go out in numbers, register and take videos or pictures of themselves doing so or after registering. Currently, the hashtag #iRegistered is trending on Twitter.

The video below from Ghana Decides YouTube channel displays scenes from the ongoing voter registration exercise in Ghana.

Ghana Decides explains more about #iRegistered initiative:

Among Ghana Decides’ activities, is the ‘#iRegistered’ campaign to get Ghanaians to register as the Electoral Commission (EC) has begun the biometric voter registration.

#iRegistered in 4 simple steps;

1. Ghana Decides has provided information on the biometric registration its website (http://ghanadecides.com). The Government of Ghana website (http://ghana.gov.gh) also has an information leaflet for the biometric registration exercise. Every Ghanaian is being urged to read, be informed and share this information with family, friends and people in their communities.

2. Tweet or post a Facebook or Google+ update telling your friends and the world about the registration exercise and the need to register with the hashtags #iRegistered and #GhanaDecides.

Ghana Decides initiative is on YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

The main competition in the December 2012 elections will involve the two main Ghana's political parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Ghana: #GhanaDecides Launched

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:21:48 +0000

Ghana Decides is a BloggingGhana initiative meant to introduce NGOs, Civil Society Organisations, students (especially first time voters), political groups and the general Ghanaian public to the importance and benefit of use of social media tools in elections in Ghana.

Africa: How Many African Women are Online?

Ndesanjo Macha — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:20:10 +0000

Gamelmag would like to know how many African women are online: “Firstly, we need to be able to place a figure on the actual number of active female Internet users. Next, we should figure out the factors that inhibit women's use of the web and finally put in measures to reverse this trend.”

Ghana/London: The Taste of Ghana in London

Ndesanjo Macha — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 11:10:43 +0000

Davida reviews restaurants offering Ghanaian food in London: “Eating soul food in London is a unique connection with the motherland that cannot be broken. Indigenous food – or ‘home chow’ – is a big deal. Thankfully, nestling among the various boroughs of London is a proliferation of African markets from Dalston to Peckham, Tottenham to Leytonstone, Harlesden to Brixton and beyond that caters for this specific need.”

Africa: Tech Entrepreneurship Bubbling in the Developing World

Lova Rakotomalala — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:01:19 +0000

To illustrate the technological transformation that the African continent is undergoing, CNN's African Voices has highlighted 10 leading tech voices from different African countries. While the article put a much needed emphasis on the innovation trend originating from the African continent and their achievements, many tech experts felt that the feature did not represent the whole scope of tech innovation and entrepreneurship that is brewing in all the regions of the continent. It left out most of the non-English speaking regions and outreach actions that took place in the most isolated areas from a technological standpoint.

Business canvas presentation in Addis Ababa by BillZimmerman on Flickr (CC license BY)

Innovation from Necessity

Bright B Simmons, the Accra-based founder of mPedigree Network explains “What Africa's Entrepreneurs Can Teach the World”:

It's becoming ever clearer that entrepreneurship is the answer to the vexing economic questions facing Africa today (..) But how has it actually evolved in Africa? Are there peculiar features of African entrepreneurship we may consider relevant to big global debates on development and sustainability? [..] the overall difference in the structure of typical African economies, compared to the West, makes a big difference. The fewer resources available to regulatory and tax authorities and the smaller sizes of businesses jointly mean that when businesses make complex arrangements to rationalize their tax expenditures, their costs go up rather than down. Also, a shallower financial system makes the notion of a corporate treasury function similar to what is common in the West nearly redundant in the African setting.[..] In a sense, African entrepreneurs run profit ecosystems rather than business units. These ecosystems interact with other ecosystems in a culturally elaborate manner that can produce extreme robustness, resilience, and flexibility.

In Senegal, entrepreneurs have clearly identified the need for better networking between actors in the field of agriculture ( and other industries). A Start Up conference is set up on March 30 in Dakar to discuss opportunities in collaboration between tech experts and entrepreneurs [fr] :

Le constat est simple : trop peu de liens sont encore tissés entre les TIC et les secteurs dans lesquelles elles pourraient avoir des retombées sociales et économiques considérables. Les jeunes développeurs ne savent généralement pas comment utiliser leur talent au profit de ces industries et de l’autre côté, les professionnels des secteurs concernés ne sont pas en contact avec le monde des TIC et du fait peinent à exprimer leur problématiques en termes techniques.

The fact is, there are still not enough links between IT and other industries to generate a meanignful ecnonomic and social impact. The young developers do not know how to leverage their knowledge and the professionals in other industries are not up to date with the innovation in IT and struggle to express the technical needs of their business.

In the CNN African Voices feature, Ory Okolloh emphasizes why technology is important but that other critical areas need to evolve as well for the effort to persevere:

In order for this growth to be sustainable and to create more revenue generating opportunities, we need other forms of infrastructure such as electricity to catch up and we need more governments to embrace the idea of open access policies

An indication of the current innovation trends that are bubbling on the continent is the multiplication of technology hubs across the continent (via Crowdmap):

African tech Hubs via Hubs in Africa

A recent example of collaborative tech initiative through the aforementioned hubs is the Apps4Africa event on Climate Change that i-Hub tech community in Madagascar is organizing on March 16.

The Language Divide

Okolloh noticed along with other tech African experts that other regions were missing from the coverage. Jean Patrick Ehouman explains both his satisfaction with seeing African tech being in the news and his disappointment with the lack of coverage of the francophone tech world [fr] :

Il y a 21 pays en Afrique (environ 350 millions de personnes) dont la langue officielle est le Français. En plus de ces 21 pays, il y a 5 autres dont le Français est aussi une langue officielle (la deuxième). Il s’agit de l’Algérie, le Maroc, la Mauritanie et la Tunisie qui sont des pays dont la première langue officielle est l’Arabe. Dans tous ces pays, il y existes des passionnés et des leaders de technologies qui publient régulièrement sur Twitter. Ces personnes passent beaucoup de temps à créer ou a mobiliser les différents acteurs de cette industrie pour en tirer le meilleur. [..] @Fasokan n’a jamais réussi à lever des centaines de millions de dollar pour ces projets, mais il a beaucoup de mérite quand on sait que grâce à lui les villageois des zones reculées du Mali arrivent à se faire connaitre du monde en tenant un blog. Et il publie tant en Bambara (Langue africaine parlée au Sénégal, en Mauritanie, au Mali, au Burkina Faso, en Côte d’Ivoire, en Guinée, …) qu’en français. Combien de blogueurs connaissez qui ont réussi l’exploit de dynamiser l’une des langues les plus parler sur le continent ?

There are 21 countries in Africa (about 350 million people) whose official language is French. In addition to these 21 countries, there are five others where French is also an official language (the second). Of these Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia are countries whose first language is Arabic. In all these countries, there are passionate tech leaders who posts often on twitter. They invest a lot of their time mobilizing multiple actors to optimize the tech field. Fasokan never raised millions of US dollars but he managed to reach out to the most remote villages in Mali and feature their everyday lives. He writes in Bambara (an african language spoken in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina-Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea..) as well as in French. How many bloggers are you aware of who promote one of the most spoken languages on the continent?

Market in Malian Village by Workshop Segou on Flickr (with authorization)

Lusophone Africa was also left out of the conversation on tech in Africa which did not sit well with GiantPanda. She writes on Menina do Javali:

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while: the laziness of the international media in relation to the (post-) colonial tower of babel. Articles in English about “Africa” suffer from the “Africa is a Country” lens, but I would go further and say it’s “Africa is a Country That Speaks English” lens [..] Just as Jean Patrick Ehouman suggests in his post in French, let’s start a thread here below assembling the best tweets (in Lusophone Africa)…

The Challenges

Nigerian Ndubuisi Ekekwe, founder of the non-profit African Institution of Technology, highlights the challenge of raising investment funds in developing countries and the importance of making African tech business ventures easier to grasp for investors :

Entrepreneurs need to have plans in place for investors to exit, especially in developing countries. Most investors don't have years to wait around to recoup investments through growth and profits. Most are gone after about four to eight years, and entrepreneurs need to present a clear path for that to happen.

Malagasy tech blogger Tsiory Razafimanantsoa highlights another challenge that plagues the tech world in Africa : the proliferation of online scams [fr] that undermines the trust that investors require for a sustainable business atmosphere [fr]:

(A Madagascar,) Aujourd’hui, l’actualité porte sur la hausse des prix de communications mobile, le mauvais temps, la connexion internet capricieuse… Mais au milieu de tout ce foutoir, il y a une autre “crise” grandissante: l’arnaque pyramidale. [..] Il n’y a pas encore de texte dans la loi malgache qui condamne une telle pratique. En effet, surement déjà pratiquée à petite échelle avant, elle ne gagne du terrain que depuis quelques mois.

(In Madagascar,) Daily news have been centered around the cost of mobile communication, bad weather and unreliable internet connection but amidst this mess, there is yet another growing crisis: the proliferation of the Ponzi scheme [..] There are still no laws in Madagascar prohibiting such practices. In fact, while already well-established at a small-scale level, it's been growing steadily for the past few months.

In conclusion, despite tangible challenges, tech in Africa is bound for a major leap forward. As Julia Rotich states :

The narrative about Africa is changing every single day, driven with the opportunity in a continent of more than 300 million middle class Africans. [..] The promise here is that the entrepreneurial drive we see in young technologists will translate to more African solutions to African problems, and thereby African prosperity. Challenges abound of course, but indications in innovation hubs like Kenya point to a lot of promise and a very different narrative in the coming years.

Ghana: 2012 Burt Award for African Literature – Call for Submissions

Ndesanjo Macha — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:06:49 +0000

2012 Burt Award for African Literature calls for submissions from Ghanaian authors: “The Ghana Book Trust and CODE, a Canadian NGO, have the pleasure to invite Ghanaian authors and publishers to participate in a competition to produce story books for the youth between the ages of 12 and 15.”