High-rise buildings under construction in Lagos, Nigeria. Most accommodation is unaffordable for young Nigerians. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
ABUJA, May 15 2025 (IPS)

After graduating in 2019, Jeremiah Achimugu left Sokoto State in northwestern Nigeria for Abuja, the nation’s capital, in search of better opportunities. But life in the city brought unexpected challenges, especially the high cost of housing.

At first, Achimugu stayed with his uncle and worked as a marketer, earning 120,000 naira (USD 73) a month. However, his salary barely covered his basic needs.

“The cost of living in Nigeria’s rapidly developing capital soon ate deep into my salary,” he said. “By the end of the month, I was always broke. Transportation, food, and other expenses were just too much.”

When he began searching for a place of his own, he was shocked by the prices. Even a small one-room apartment in a remote area costs about 500,000 naira (USD 307) a year.

“There was no way I could afford that kind of rent even though the apartment was nothing to write home about,” he said.

Few months later, Achimugu resigned from his job and returned to Sokoto. His dream of building a life in the city was cut short by the soaring cost of living.

“The cost of living and rent in Nigerian cities is too high for young people,” he said. “But these are the places where the opportunities are. Some landlords are taking advantage of young people coming into the cities by raising the rent.”

A Continental Rental Crisis

Achimugu’s experience reflects a larger problem faced by young people across Nigeria. About 63 percent of the country’s population is under the age of 24, and cities are growing rapidly. The United Nations has warned that Nigeria’s urban population is increasing almost twice as fast as the national average. However, housing hasn’t kept up with this growth. As a result, the few available homes are now overpriced. The World Bank estimates the country has a housing shortage of over 17 million homes.

In major cities like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, rent prices can range from around 400,000 naira (USD 246) to as much as 25 million naira (USD 16,000) per annum, depending on the location and kind of apartment.

With a monthly minimum wage of 70,000 naira (USD 43), which is often unpaid or delayed, and high unemployment, many young people cannot afford decent housing. This makes it harder for them to settle down, build strong social connections, or feel financially secure.

Nigeria is not alone. Across Africa, young people are being priced out of the rental market. Rapid urbanization, population growth, and economic hardship have made affordable housing a growing concern. In interviews with young people in Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, IPS confirmed that the same challenges exist across the continent.

Formal housing remains beyond the reach of most Africans, with only the top 5 to 10 percent of the population able to afford it. The majority are left to live in informal settlements, many of which lack essential services such as clean water, electricity, and proper sanitation. Experts have warned that without increased investment in affordable housing, a growing number of young people will struggle to find a place to live.

Kwantami Kwame in Kumasi, Ghana, blames capitalism and the greed of real estate owners for the high cost of rent. He told IPS that the rush for quick profits in the cities is affecting the welfare of young people, most of whom are low-income earners.

“A few weeks ago, I was looking for a one-bedroom apartment in Accra, the capital of Ghana, and I was asked to pay an upfront two-year rent fee of 38,275 Ghanaian Cedis (USD 2,500). The apartment wasn’t even up to standard. The fee didn’t cover water, electricity, or waste bills. It’s really unfair,” said Kwame, who noted that in a country where the monthly minimum wage is just 539.19 Ghanaian cedis (USD 45), there should be provisions for young people to access affordable housing in cities where opportunities exist.

Kwame believes governments should regulate rents and check the excesses of landlords. But Olaitan Olaoye, a Lagos-based real estate expert, sees it differently. He points to limited land availability as a major factor driving up rent and argues that price controls won’t solve the problem.

“Governments in Africa shouldn’t be setting rent prices when they’re not doing enough to tackle inflation, which keeps pushing up the cost of building materials,” he said.

“For instance, in a country like Nigeria, the removal of the fuel subsidy caused prices to skyrocket. This had a ripple effect on everything else, including construction. It led to an increase in the cost of building materials. The government then has no moral right to instruct landlords to reduce their rent,” Olaoye argued.

While he does not excuse the greed of some landlords and estate developers, Olaoye worries that if young people already struggle to rent homes, the dream of owning one may become increasingly unrealistic.

“In the past, it was easier for people to build homes. Prices of building materials were affordable and life was more stable. Back then, when people finished school and got a job, they could start saving right away. They could afford to buy a car, build a house, and live comfortably. But things have changed,” he said.

Inadequate Social Housing Programs

Olaoye’s concerns are echoed by Phoebe Atieno Ochieng in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. After securing a teaching job in the capital, she left her family home in the countryside of Busia. However, with a monthly salary of only 18,000 Kenya Shillings (USD 140), renting a place in the city was out of her reach.

“I had no choice but to live in a small space provided by the school management within the school premises,” she told IPS. “The houses here are not affordable. A basic one-bedroom apartment costs 120,000 Kenyan shillings per month. I can’t balance my income because I still have to pay taxes, buy food, and take care of other daily needs. Unless I get a better-paying job, I can’t manage.”

Ochieng criticizes the Kenyan government for its failure to provide adequate social housing and ensure access to affordable mortgages.

While the Kenyan government has launched a social housing scheme like the Affordable Housing Programme to help low- and middle-income earners secure decent homes, the initiative has faced growing criticism. Many argue that the houses being built are still unaffordable, and there are widespread concerns about the potential mismanagement of the scheme. Also, the introduction of a mandatory housing tax has sparked outrage, with many questioning why they are being compelled to fund homes they may never qualify for or benefit from.

Similarly, the Nigerian government has made several attempts to address the housing crisis through various national housing programs designed to provide affordable homes in cities. However, these programs have often failed due to poor implementation, inadequate funding, and corruption. Many housing projects have been abandoned, leaving the promise of affordable housing unfulfilled for the majority of Nigerians.

South Africa’s housing crisis is worsening due to rapid urbanization, economic challenges, and the legacy of apartheid. Cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban are seeing an increasing number of people move from rural areas in search of better job opportunities, putting pressure on housing infrastructure.

During apartheid, many Black South Africans were confined to overcrowded townships on the outskirts of cities, areas that still lack proper infrastructure and services. As young people flock to cities for better prospects, they face the challenge of unaffordable rent, which, according to Ntando Mji, a receptionist in Cape Town, is limiting their potential.

Although the government has attempted to provide subsidized housing for those with a limited income, the scale of the problem is overwhelming, and millions are still waiting for homes. “In Cape Town, getting a house is so difficult. The agents require a three-month rent deposit, and they scrutinize your income, but even getting approved for a space is really hard,” Mji lamented.

“Because it is mainly commercial entities that build houses, they are so expensive. This is why the South African government should intervene by providing accommodation at lower prices and engaging the private sector in building lower-cost housing in safer areas,” said Bhufura Majola, who told IPS that he waited a year before he could even get a small apartment in a student area far from where he works.

He added, “The high cost of rental prices in South Africa is a big deterrent to young professionals in particular because it takes away their choices of where to stay, especially near places where employment is guaranteed. This has forced many to abandon their dreams.”

Peace Abiola, who lives in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria, spent all her savings—600,000 naira (USD 369)—on an apartment last year. She works as a freelance content creator for brands, earning an irregular income. Now, with her rent due, she is considering returning to her village because she can no longer afford to keep up.

“I think one solution to this problem is the proper implementation of laws to control the irregular hike in rental prices,” she said, echoing the frustration of many Nigerians who have started protesting and calling on the government to act.

The Nigerian government has repeatedly promised to enforce policies that protect tenants, but none of those pledges have materialized.

“Here, we are just focused on survival or how to pay the next rent or how to get the next meal. This is not how life should be,” Abiola said.

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.
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APDA organizes regular conferences bringing together various parliamentarians from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe to address critical issues on population and development – including youth employment and other issues arising from ICPD25 take center stage. Here Bridget Bedu takes a test in computational electronics as her daughter Giovana plays under the desk at the National Vocational Technical Institute training center. Credit: IMF Photo/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 6 2023 (IPS)

Many Ghanian Members of Parliament (MPs) champion adolescent reproductive health rights to stop the practice of child marriage, which is prevalent in some areas of the country even though the country’s Constitution and Children’s Act outlaw it, Dr Rashid Pelpuo (MP) told IPS in an exclusive interview.

Pelpuo, who is President of the African Parliamentarians Forum on Population and Development, also said it had become “normal practice” for MPs to work to support youth and “lead discussions on issues of family planning and adolescent reproductive health at youth sensitization programmes.”

He told IPS the Presidents of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the African Parliamentarians Forum on Population and Development recognize: “Our shared interest in, commitment to, and existing cooperation on population and development issues such as sexual and reproductive health and rights, including family planning and HIV/AIDS…” This commitment is expected to be signed in a memorandum of understanding in 2023.

President of the African Parliamentarians Forum on Population and Development and Member of Parliament Dr Rashid Pelpuo.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

IPS: While Ghana’s Constitution and its Children’s Act both outlaw child marriage, according to a study, 1 in 5 girls get married before age 18 and 1 in 20 before they are 20. These marriages are more common in the northern regions.

How are parliamentarians dealing with these issues?

RP: The issue of child marriage in Ghana is traceable to an age-old tradition of marrying women early ‘before they are spoiled’ – a woman who has ‘known a man’ before marriage was a disgrace to the family that has brought her up. Though this situation no longer exists, the practice of early marriage of women continues, especially in rural Ghana.

Parliamentarians of the Population and Development Caucus and others are strong advocates against this practice both in and outside Parliament.

According to the Ghanaian 1992 Constitution and the Children’s Act, it is unlawful to marry a girl before she’s 18 years of age. In a few cases when such laws are violated by a man who marries before the minimum age or even before the girl has finished her basic education, MPs will normally work with law enforcers to free the girl and help prosecute the culprit.

A good number of MPs have signed on as champions of adolescent reproductive health and rights and are key supporters of family life education. This year alone, MPs have worked with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in key locations to interact with young people and address their health and education challenges by referrals.

IPS: West Africa’s population accounts for about 30% of Africa’s population. From roughly 367 million people today, it is expected to increase to almost 570 m by 2035. However, the region is yet to benefit from the ‘demographic dividend.’ Many say that a high population of youth is a challenge for the government; there is a high cost of health care, education, and other services and high levels of unemployment. How are parliamentarians working towards policies that may reduce fertility rates, improve education, family planning, etc.?

RP: The fertility rate in Ghana is 3.696 births per woman (Ghana Statistical Service, 2022), as against the fertility rate of Africa at 4.212 births per woman. Ghana’s fertility rate has been consistently declining since 1985 and is expected to be 2.9 births per woman in 2025. As part of efforts to sensitize the public about unplanned birth and avoidance of teenage pregnancy, Parliamentarians often interact with youth leaders along with experts on the issue of reproductive health.

For example, in November last year, MPs interacted with young people about issues with their reproductive health. Also, at the beginning of December 2022, on the occasion of the birth of the world’s 8 billionth child, MPs held a workshop, with the UNFPA sponsorship, to view the implications of having a global population of 8 billion on Ghana.

After that programme, the MPs pledged to revise their annual advocacy on Ghana’s population growth and concerns to quarterly advocacy through statements on the floor of Parliament. The thrust of MPs’ work in supporting the education and awareness of the youth is in policy advocacy and direct interaction with the youth. It has become normal practice for MPs to lead discussions on family planning and adolescent reproductive health issues at youth sensitization programmes.

A chunk of the programme of the African Parliamentarians Forum, often sponsored by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the UNFPA, centers on issues of family planning, reproductive health, and universal health. This appears to be a direct response to the high fertility rate of sub-Saharan Africa at 4.6 births per woman (World Bank Report, 2021). Knowing the frequent occurrence of teenage pregnancy and unplanned births throughout the continent, it has become a necessary effort to sink home the need for policy advocacy in these areas for all African countries.

In a memorandum, yet to be signed by the Presidents of the Pan African Parliament and the African Parliamentarians Forum on Population and Development, Parliamentarians recognized “our shared interest in, commitment to, and existing cooperation on population and development issues such as sexual and reproductive health and rights including family planning and HIV/AIDS…”

IPS: In Ghana, the maternal mortality rate is shrinking. Figures quoted online are that it is 308 per 100,000. It is much higher in other countries in the region; in Ghana’s neighbor Nigeria, the rate stands at 917/100,000. While both seem to be going down (which is good), they are a long way from the 70/100,000 in the SDG 3 targets. What are parliamentarians working toward to improve this in Ghana? Is there regional cooperation to address this?

RP: Parliamentarians often make policy statements on maternal health directed at the ruling government to address the concern about the unacceptable situation of high maternal deaths in Ghana. Issues on maternal death are paramount in our health policies. Ghana has introduced a Free Maternal Health Care Policy (FMHCP) on which pregnant women register for free health insurance and receive free medical care. Parliamentarians have played an advocacy role in developing this policy and have been reaching out to women who may not be aware of it to help them take advantage of it. The impact has been very positive (and shows) in annual improvements in maternity health.

There has been regional cooperation in discussing and sharing information on Universal Health Care and reproductive health and rights. The African Parliamentarians forum has had a number of meetings and conferences with their counterparts from other regions, especially with the Asian and European Parliamentarians forums that touch on issues on reproductive health and policy sharing. Major cooperation in areas of maternal health is recorded in various international conferences that tackle the problems of high maternal mortality. Such conferences include Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), New Delhi, India, in December 2018, and Women Deliver (Africa Parliamentarians), Vancouver, Canada, in June 2019. Such arenas of cooperation give a good comparative understanding of how various countries across regions tackle reproductive health challenges.

IPS: Could you elaborate on APDA’s role in facilitating regional cooperation on the ICPD25 programme of action?

The Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) was established in Japan as a Non-Governmental Organization directed at addressing the challenges posed by issues on population and development. It serves as the Secretariat of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP) and directs its focus on the role of the Japanese MPs and their counterparts in Asia, Africa, Arab and other regions. APDA’s research focuses on three main areas, which are gender, health, and social policy issues. Since the establishment of the ICPD 25 as a focus area of intervention, APDA has organized various programmes.

APDA often organizes conferences in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East under ICPD 25 thematic areas. These conferences often bring together various parliamentarians from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe to address critical issues on population and development. Issues such as youth unemployment and other goals of ICPD25 are center stage at the conferences.

Indeed each year, APDA, in collaboration with the UNFPA, organizes annual conferences on ICPD25. In recent times APDA has organized webinars and conferences for regional participation both in June, July and September 2022.

In September 2022, the conference with the theme “The Role of Parliamentarians in Realizing the ICPD25 Commitments” was patronized by Asian and African Parliamentarians.

Another follow-up meeting on ICPD25 Commitments was held in June 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was supported by UNFPA ESARO and Japan Trust Fund (JTF) with cooperation from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). More than 100 participants, including parliamentarians, officers of national committees on population and development, and UN experts, attended.

In effect, APDA has always supported the implementation of the ICPD25 in various ways but mostly through international conferences that ensure regional cooperation and participation.

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Africa needs to urgently invest in health programmes to reduce maternal deaths, which is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births. Measures include ensuring women access to skilled birth attendants. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jan 3 2023 (IPS)

As the effects of COVID-19 on Africa’s health sector become clearer, it looks the continent will need to take urgent steps to overcome the disruptions suffered in the breakdown in antenatal and postnatal care for women and newborns and neonatal intensive care units. The pandemic brought some setbacks to the gains achieved in maternal mortality over the past decade.

Consequently, the continent needs to race against time to improve its health sector to meet the Sustainable Development Goals against the backdrop of a new report, the Atlas of Health Statistics 2022, which called for increased investment to avert the growing number in maternal mortality across the continent.

The report said that inadequate investment in health and funding for programmes were some of the major drawbacks to meeting the SDG in the sector.

“For example, a 2022 WHO survey of 47 African countries found that the region has a ratio of 1.55 health workers (physicians, nurses, and midwives) per 1000 people, below the WHO threshold density of 4.45 health workers per 1000 people needed to deliver essential health services and achieve universal health coverage.”

It noted that 65% of births in Africa are attended by skilled health personnel – the lowest globally and far off the 2030 target of 90%, adding that “skilled birth attendants are crucial for the well-being of women and newborns. Neonatal deaths account for half of all under-5 mortality. Accelerating the agenda to meet its reduction goal will be a major step toward reducing the under-5 mortality rate to fewer than 25 deaths per 1000 live births.”

The Ghanaian authorities might have taken note of the trend last year and launched a national campaign to avert all preventable deaths related to pregnancy dubbed “Zero Tolerance for Maternal Deaths.”

Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said the campaign was to remove all barriers and unfair treatments that increased the vulnerability of pregnant women and girls to maternal mortality and also push those with unintended pregnancies to indulge in unsafe abortions and other risky action.

Kuma-Aboagye said the campaign was critical to accelerating the decline of maternal mortality from 308 out of every 1,000 live births to 70 by 2030, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “The slow decline in maternal mortality in Ghana is of great concern to the Ministry of Health, the GHS, and its partners.”

Reacting to the Atlas report, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said: “This means that for many African women, childbirth remains a persistent risk and millions of children do not live long enough to celebrate their fifth birthday.”

She asked governments to take note.

“It is crucial that governments make a radical course correction, surmount the challenges, and speed up the pace towards the health goals. These goals aren’t mere milestones, but the very foundations of a healthier life and well-being for millions of people.”

The report estimated that, in sub-Saharan Africa, 390 women will die in childbirth for every 100 000 live births by 2030. This is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births and much higher than the average of 13 deaths per 100 000 live births witnessed in Europe in 2017.

“It is more than double the global average of 211. To reach the SDG target, Africa will need an 86% reduction from 2017 rates, the last time data was reported, an unrealistic feat at the current rate of decline,” the report said.

The region’s infant mortality rate is 72 per 1000 live births. At the current 3.1% annual rate of decline, there will be an expected 54 deaths per 1000 live births by 2030, far above the reduction target of fewer than 25 per 1000.

The report assessed nine targets related to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on health and found that at the current pace, increased investment is needed to accelerate progress on the targets. Among the most difficult to achieve will be reducing maternal mortality.

Physician and chief executive officer of Medway Health, Dr Omotuyi Mebawondu, has expressed concern that despite the worldwide reduction in maternal mortality rate, sub–Saharan Africa still accounts for two third of an average of 800 daily deaths of women from pregnancy and its complications.

Mebawondu said one of the key interventions is to ensure that pregnant women have access to antenatal care principally to identify danger signals early and enjoy delivery with the assistance of skilled birth attendants.

Accordingly, he has suggested that another way of reducing maternal mortality is to look into the use of technology. “The challenge of human resources for health in sub-Saharan Africa imposes a great responsibility on policymakers to explore technology in delivering health interventions to hard-to-reach populations.

Mebawondu said this must be preceded by adequate internet penetration and access, especially in rural areas, as such technology will help update and upgrade the health workers’ skills and educate the women on the challenges of pregnancy.

“A database of all pregnant women in poor rural localities must be collated and followed up through such technology. In addition, technology can be used to enhance emergency response to common causes of maternal deaths like bleeding, sepsis, and eclampsia. It can also be used to deliver most needed family planning services,” he said.

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Sarah and Doris ride to school on their bicycles because they live several kilometres away. Ghana’s education sector was one of the hardest affected by the pandemic and for many girls, particularly those in rural areas, the consequences of school closures means many will never return to their schooling. Credit: Jamila Akweley Okertchiri/IPS

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
ACCRA/WA EAST DISTRICT, Ghana, May 27 2021 (IPS)

Seventeen-year-old Muniratu Adams, a form two student of the Jeyiri D/A Junior High School at Funsi in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region of Ghana, is fortunate to have returned to school this January after the long COVID-19 shutdown.

Ghana’s education sector was one of the hardest affected by the pandemic and for many girls, particularly those in rural areas, the consequences of school closures means many will never return to their schooling.

“It was difficult for me to come back to school,” she tells IPS. “When I was home, I did not think I will be able to return to school.”

Adams was like many girls here who had to take on more responsibilities at home during the lockdown.

“I had little time to study my books because I had more household chores to do and I also had to help my family farm for food which we survive on,” she explains. “When I get to learn, I don’t get the help I need,” she adds.

Last March, Ghana closed schools in the wake of rising COVID-19 infections across the country.

Approximately 9.2 million learners from Kindergarten to High School and about 500,000 tertiary learners were affected until schools opened in mid-January, according to a report by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

However, the prolonged absence of teaching and learning activities in a structured setting disrupted the academic calendar affecting the gains made in education and negatively impacting low performing students.

For many children from vulnerable groups, including children with disabilities, the prolonged school closures have put a premature end to their education.

Prior to the pandemic, UNICEF data for Ghana showed that 16.9 percent of children aged 5 to 11 years, 50.9 percent of children aged 12 to 14 years, and 83.3 percent of children aged 15 to 17 years were either not attending school, two or more years behind in school, or have not achieved the correct level of schooling for their grade. 

The pandemic’s impacts on children’s access and quality of education were most severely felt through the tracking closure of schools without adequate alternative education services accessible by all children, nation-wide.

This exacerbated existing inequities in education in the short and long- terms and worsened existing barriers to access as urban/rural disparities are significant, with children in rural areas, as well as in the Northern and Upper West regions faring far worse.

Adams says initially she was unable to continue with her studies at home during the closure of schools as she did not have the tools to facilitate her studies.

“My parents did not have a television or a radio at home so I read only my notes ,which I had before our school was closed,” she says.  “But later I got a mobile device which helped me to learn through the remote learning system.”

Remote Learning Impact

Ghana’s government, with funding from the World Bank, introduced a $15 million, one-year remote learning system as part of the COVID-19 response for continued learning, recovery and resilience for basic education. 

It included developing accessible and inclusive learning modules through TV and radio, distributing printed teaching and learning materials, distributing pre-loaded content devices to vulnerable groups who lack access to technology, and in-service teacher training to ensure teachers can effectively deliver lessons through innovative platforms.

Despite the remote learning platforms, Adams says she and some students in her community still faced a lot of challenges in ensuring equitable access to these services, because “we do not have access to online learning devices or the internet at home”.

“A large number of us in my community lack technology such as TV sets, computers, smart phones and other online devices, as well as stable internet connectivity,” Adams says.

Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Benjamin Kofi Gyasi, who is also the COVID-19 focal person for education, tells IPS that while remote learning strategies aim to ensure continual learning for all children, “we know that the most marginalised children, including those in the most rural, hard-to-reach and poorest communities and girls, may not be able to access these opportunities.”

He adds that the ministry is prioritising the learning of most vulnerable children through the provision of learning devices/equipment and connectivity, where possible, adding that the initiative has reached more than half of targeted learners.

Executive Director of the African Education Watch, Kofi Asare, tells IPS that more children have been left behind as a result of the pandemic. He believes the government can do more to ensure that vulnerable children especially those in the remote and poorest communities of the country have the tools needed to access quality education.

‘Now the children are back to the classrooms but I can confidently say that we have lost a significant number due to the long period schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he asserts.

His statement is confirmed by Adams, who says some girls in her class are yet to return more than five months after schools reopened.

“I have not seen some of my friends since we started school in January, I do not know if they will be coming or not,” she tells IPS. “My friend, Hassana Yakubu who came to school here from another community has still not returned.”

This feature was made possible by a donation from Farida Sultana Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Farida Sultana passed away in December 2020 after battling COVID-19 for two weeks. 

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Adwoa Frimpomaah, a smallholder farmer from Ghana’s Bono East Region, and her two children have been eating maize likely infected by aflatoxins. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
BONO EAST REGION, Ghana , Oct 16 2019 (IPS)

Adwoa Frimpomaah, a smallholder farmer from Dandwa, a farming community in Nkoranza, in Ghana’s Bono East Region, and her two children have been consuming insect-infested and discoloured grains produced from their three-acre farm.

“Just look, I harvested this maize a week ago and after de-husking, majority of the cobs are either rotten, mouldy, or discoloured. I spent all my resources on this farm so I will sell the good grains, and wash the darkened grains, take out the rotten ones and eat it because we have no food,” she tells IPS.

Part of the yield from the April to July farming season, the grains that Frimpomaah and her family consumed are discoloured and mouldy because of the humidity and high temperatures here.

Dr. Rose Omari, Senior Research Scientist at the Science, Technology and Policy Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, describes these discoloured and mouldy grains as potentially being contaminated by harmful aflatoxins, which are both toxic and carcinogenic.

Researchers say that Ghana, like many West African countries, has high levels of aflatoxins in a majority of its staples, such as maize, peanuts, millet, and sorghum.

“Consumption of both maize and groundnut results in high human aflatoxin exposure in Ghana. However, most Ghanaians have little to no knowledge of either what aflatoxins are or the health risks posed by these toxins,” a 2018 report titled ‘Prevalence of Aflatoxin Contamination in Maize and Groundnut in Ghana’ states.  

“Aflatoxins are one of the most potent and dangerous groups of mycotoxins worldwide. Over four billion people in developing countries are repeatedly exposed to aflatoxins, contributing to greater than 40 percent of the disease burden in these countries,” an explanation on the characteristics of aflatoxins states. 

Smallholder farmers take a hit

This is in addition to economic losses.

“The trade sector has been affected as well. Commodities from Ghana (peanut butter, spices, and edible seeds) exceeding tolerance thresholds have been rejected in European borders. As a consequence, Ghana faces a threat of an export ban of aflatoxin-susceptible commodities if necessary actions to reduce aflatoxin levels in trade commodities are not taken,” the 2018 report titled ‘Prevalence of Aflatoxin Contamination in Maize and Groundnut in Ghana’ states. 

Other small holder farmers are also feeling the impact.

“Yesterday an aggregator came here to convince us to sell a 100-kilogram sack of maize for GHC 90 ($16). We do not get the right market because of high levels of aflatoxins that affects the quality of our grains,” smallholder farmer Regina Dabiali, 30, tells IPS.

“It is demotivating for us to work hard throughout the season and not receive our deserved wage. We are not progressing in life.”

Ghanian smallholder farmer Regina Dabiali says they are increasingly losing out on harvests as their grains are becoming affected by aflatoxins. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

People unwittingly exposed to the toxins

Gladys Serwaa Adusah, the leader of the farming cooperative, Middle Zone Women Farmers, says that aflatoxin contamination is not only robbing people of income, but also is “deadly and scary”.

“I know that some traders in their quest to maximise profit prepare and sell unwholesome corn dough by mixing aflatoxins contaminated grains with the good ones. It is used to prepare a variety of dishes, including porridge, kenkey and banku, (local dishes) which many people eat unknowingly,” she says.

Omari tells IPS that studies conducted show that the continuous intake of food that contains high levels of aflatoxins, is detrimental to the health of both adults and children. In adults, she says, studies validate that the accumulation of low levels of aflatoxins over time damages the human liver, resulting in liver cancer. It also causes acute health conditions including, vomiting, abdominal pains, coma, and death when highly contaminated products are consumed.

Omari says, “It is a fact that in sub-Saharan Africa children are exposed to aflatoxins very early in life, including in utero through maternal food intake, during breastfeeding, through weaning and post-weaning periods through foods prepared from aflatoxin-contaminated peanuts and maize.”

“This leads to malabsorption, micronutrient deficiencies, impaired immune function, and vulnerability to gut infections, which all lead to impaired growth and malnutrition.”

Omari says, according to the latest Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, stunting in Ghana is highest among children under the age of five in the Northern Region and lowest in the Greater Accra region.

Referencing a study she conducted in 2018, together with other researches, Omari reveals that over 64 percent of weanimix (food made of maize, peanuts and beans) samples tested for high levels of aflatoxins, above 10 parts per billion (ppb) codex standards for process foods.

“The prevalence levels in this country are very high. These products ideally should not be on the market because safety-wise it is not wholesome. Most especially it is food for children who are the most vulnerable, ” she says.

However, according to the Food Sustainability Index, a global study on nutrition, sustainable agriculture and food waste developed in collaboration between the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition Foundation and the Economist Intelligence Unit, Ghana has a malnourishment prevalence score of 74.2 out of 100, where 100 equals the highest sustainability and greatest progress towards meeting environmental, societal and economic Key Performance Indicators.

Though quality Assurance Manager at Nestlé Ghana, Raphael Kuwornu, tells IPS that the issue of high levels of aflatoxins is of great concern to the company, “because we produce food for both adults and especially infants”.

“As a result we are working with a roadmap, which would see a continuous reduction in aflatoxin from 0.5ppb to 0.2ppb by 2020 for companies that supply us with maize grains,” he says.

Temperatures soar and so does prevelance of aflatoxins

Conditions favourable for the development, growth and dispersion of these fungi is between temperatures of 18 to 42° Celsius.

Deputy Director and Head of Research and Applied Meteorology at the Ghana Meteorological Agency, Francesca Martey, tells IPS that data gathered indicates a warming climate in Ghana.

Since 1960, she states, Ghana’s whole mean annual temperature rose by 1° Celsius and projections shows a further increase. “This is anticipated to have a major impact on the crop production system. The situation is not mild it is a serious issue,” she stresses.

Dr. Emmanuel Tachie-Obeng, a Principal Programme Officer at the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, confirms to IPS that the rising temperature will fuel the production and spread of aflatoxins.

Tachie-Obeng says aflatoxins levels in maize may increase rapidly if not checked in areas such as Northern Volta, Central and Bono regions.

A solution that is not yet available to all

Last year, scientists at the International Institute of Tropical Agricultural (IITA) in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research Service and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology developed and tested a bio-pesticide called Aflasafe that controls the fungi that produces aflatoxins in the soil. 

Aflasafe is made from four non-aflatoxin producing  types of fungi native to Ghana, preventing crop infection, contamination, and reducing aflatoxins by between 80 and 100 percent.

Dr. Daniel Agbetiameh, Aflasafe Technical Advisor at IITA, tells IPS that the all-natural product is applied before crops are harvested and it displaces the aflatoxin-producing moulds by first occupying and then “colonising” the space these poison producers would otherwise occupy.

“With four kilos of Aflasafe, we can protect an entire acre of maize, groundnuts or sorghum. The result is increased farmer income, and better consumer health,” Agbetiameh notes.

He adds that aflatoxin management is a pipeline of events that starts from the farmer to the consumer so each actor needs to play their role in reducing levels of aflatoxins.

Frimpomaah, Adusah and Dabiali want the government to consider including Aflasafe on the list of inputs offered to farmers under its flagship programme Planting for Food and Jobs.

Until then, Dabiali says that smallholder farmers like herself, are “sweating for nothing”.

Smallholder farmers in Isiolo, Kenya sorting beans before sending them to the market in Nairobi. the latest Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR) shows that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the main drivers of food economy on the African continent. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
ACCRA, Ghana/ELDORET TOWN, Kenya, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

Viola Kiptanui, a resident of Langas estate in the outskirts of Kenya’s Eldoret town, has discovered a new way of life – eating only what she knows the source – thanks to a new smallholder entrepreneurship venture.

“Given the many health problems that have emerged, there is need for one to know exactly what they are feeding their families,” said Kiptanui a mother of three children.

Within the Langas shopping centre, residents stream to a newly-established grocery called ‘iAgribizAfrica’ to buy fresh green vegetables and fruits that are grown by Uasin Gishu County’s smallholder farmers and sold directly to the grocery.

“Such entrepreneurships represent a profound turnaround from mere decades ago,” said Dr. Thomas Reardon of Michigan State University, a lead author of the latest Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR).

The report, released on Sept. 3 on the sidelines of the Africa Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Accra, Ghana shows that entrepreneurs from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the main drivers of the food economy on the African continent.

According to the 220-page document compiled by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), 64 percent of total food consumed on the continent is sourced from SMEs, with only 16 percent coming from larger enterprises, and the remaining 20 percent being grown and eaten by farming households.

“There has been a ‘Quiet Revolution’ in agrifood private sector value chains linking small farmers to burgeoning urban markets and growing towns in Africa. This has spurred farmers’ participation in food and farm input markets,” said Reardon during a media briefing prior to the launch of the report.

These SMEs, often women-led, include food processors, wholesalers, and retailers, and they provide a range of services, from transport and logistics to the sale of inputs such as fertilisers and seed to farmers – says the report.

According to Rodgers Kirwa, a 27-year-old farmer and founder of iAgribizAfrica, there is a growing demand for food whose origin can be traced. 

“I started this business in 2018 and so far, I have 40 smallholder farmers within my network,” he told IPS at the AGRF in Ghana.

The 40 farmers were all recruited and registered by the young entrepreneur, and at some point supported for farm inputs on credit in case of a pressing need.

“The idea is to have farmers we know very well, so that we can monitor what they are growing, advice them on farm inputs, and monitor how they are using them for the safety of our customers,” said Kirwa.

Besides the entrepreneurship, Kirwa is a member of another online platform known as ‘Mkulima Young’ (young farmer) which was started with 10 partners, among them three young agronomists, two marketers, and social media enthusiasts. The platform now has 30,000 subscribers from Kenya and Uganda, mostly seeking information about farming enterprises. It is from this platform that farmers get answers to all their questions.   

“SMEs are the biggest investors in building markets for farmers in Africa today, and will likely remain so for the next 10 to 20 years,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA in a statement. “They are not a ‘missing middle,’ as is thought, but the ‘hidden middle,’ ready for support and investment to thrive further. Today, we bring them out into the light.”

Contrary to common belief, the report shows that large enterprises play a relatively minor role in directly supporting small-scale farmers, and the food value chain in Africa.

“We live in a global market,” Kalibata said. “Our job today is to ensure that these SMEs are grounded enough to provide the right kind of support to family farms; and to be competitive so that they can survive and thrive in an increasingly interconnected and global market,” she said noting that the smallholder entrepreneurs’ success will determine the future of agriculture and food security on the African continent.

However, according to Reardon, there are challenges. “The journey has taken off, but not flying in its full potential,” said the lead researcher. “We need sound policies that will support these SMEs, good infrastructure and capacity building for them,” he said.

So far, governments that have invested in this have already registered a positive impact.

In Ghana, for example, the government has subsidised the cost of fertilisers by 50 percent, an intervention programme that has been in place since 2008 when the country ran into a food crisis due to poor yields, according to Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, the country’s Minister of Food and Agriculture. “This has been a huge success, and farmers have more than enough produce from their farms at the moment,” he told journalists at the AGRF.

According to Vanessa Adams, Vice President of Country Support and Delivery at AGRA, there is need to use appropriate technologies and available food systems to ensure that what is produced is sold at the right time.

“Bumper harvests are fantastic, but not after market crushes,” she said.

About 2.58 million metric tonnes of raw plastics are imported into Ghana annually of which about 73 percent of this effectively ends up as waste. Credit: Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
ACCRA, Dec 21 2018 (IPS)

Twelve-year-old Naa Adjeley lives in Glefe, a waterlogged area that is one of the biggest slums along the west coast of Accra, Ghana. The sixth grade student, his parents and three siblings use 30 single-use plastic bags per day for breakfast.

When they finish eating the balls of ‘kenkey’, fried mackerel, and pepper sauce, the plastic bags that the food was individually wrapped in are dumped into the river that runs through the slum, eventually ending up in the ocean, which lies a mere 50 metres from their home.

In one month, this family alone contributes over 900 pieces of single-use plastics to the five trillion pieces of microplastic in the ocean. This is because their community of over 1,500 households, which sits on a wetlands, does not have a waste disposal system.

So assuming that their neighbours also dump their waste into the river and that they consume similar amounts of plastics per day, this means they add over 1.3 million pieces of single-use plastics to the sea each month.

The situation is the same in all the other settlements that are close to degraded lagoons around the ocean.

To date, Accra has some 265 informal settlementss, including Chorkor, James town, Osu, Labadi, Teshie, Korlegonor, Opetequaye, Agege and Old Fadama.

With all of these being in different stages of development, according to a recent study by the People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements (PD) Ghana, a non-governmental organisation. Professor Alfred Oteng-Yeboah, Chair of the Ghana National Biodiversity Committee, recalls that 10 years ago food was packaged with leaves and women went to the market with woven baskets or cotton bags.

“Now because of civilisation, every food item or prepared food bought in this country is first wrapped in a single-use plastic and then is kept in plastic carrier bags. If Accra has a population of over 2.6 million and everyone uses a single plastic every day, just calculate how much plastic waste is generated per day,” he told IPS.

About 2.58 million metric tonnes of raw plastics are imported into Ghana annually, of which 73 percent effectively ends up as waste, while only 19 percent is re-used, according to the country’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Sadly, less than 0.1 percent of the waste is recycled, meaning all the plastic waste generated ends up in the environment.

John Pwamang, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, is worried about the discharge of plastics into the various lagoons, and ultimately in the sea. “The reckless manner in which we throw away waste has become the most insidious threat to the ocean today,” he told IPS.

“We have to keep reminding ourselves that we are fast reaching the point where there will literally be more plastics in the sea than fish. Our fishermen will agree with me as they already are experiencing it. They always have more plastics than fish in their trawls. I am inclined to believe that the situation in Ghana may be more dire than it would appear,” he said.

Dr Kofi Okyere, a Senior Lecturer at the Cape Coast University, says lagoons are home to diverse species. There are 90 lagoons and 10 estuaries with their associated marshes and mangrove swamps along Ghana’s 550-km coastline stretch.

“Although I cannot put precise statistical figures, most of the lagoons, especially those located in urban areas, have been heavily polluted within the last decade or two. The pollutants are largely domestic and industrial effluent discharge, sewage, plastics, aerosol cans and other solid wastes, and heavy metal contaminants (lead, mercury, arsenic, etc.) from industrial activities,” he told IPS.

Nelson Boateng, Chief Executive Director of Nelplast Ghana Limited, is one of a group of people and companies that are finding alternative uses for plastic waste. He is holding a paving brick made from recycled plastic. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

However, while a large number of Ghanaians are still using plastic, and discarding it, there are a few people and organisations that are putting the plastic to better use.

Nelson Boateng, Chief Executive Director of Nelplast Ghana limited, began moulding and creating pavement blocks from plastic in 2015.

The company uses 70 percent sand and 30 percent plastic to manufacture the pavement blocks, but the ratio of the two materials changes depending on the kind of pavement project.

Walking IPS through the process in an interview, he explains the plastic waste is mixed with sand and taken through a melting process, and then the pavement slab is ready.

“So far we have paved many important areas, including residential areas, the premises of the Action Chapel, the frontage of Ghana’s Ministry of Environment Science, Technology and Innovation and some walkways in the country.”

“The advantage of plastic pavement blocks compared to the conventional cement blocks is that it is 30 percent cheaper, it does not break, there is no green algae growth, it does not fade. A square metre of our plastic paves cost GHC 33 (6.9 dollars) while the concrete cost 98 (20.20 dollars) I am doing this because I love the environment and I did all this on my own to beat plastic,” he said.

Currently, Boateng is recycling 2,000 kilos of plastic waste, but his factory, which is situated on a one-acre piece of land at the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly, has the capacity to produce 200,000 plastic pavement blocks.

Of the over 500 waste pickers who sell plastics to Boateng, 60 percent are women who depend on this as their livelihood. With the price of a kilo being 10 US cents women make a minimum of 10.40 dollars per sale.

Ashietey Okaiko, 34, a single mother and plastic picker of Nelplast Ghana limited, confirmed to IPS that she earns 31 dollars on average per sale, and that is what she uses to take care of her family.

“Because people now know that plastic waste is valuable, many women who are now employed are picking plastics. The company needs support to be able to buy more because sometimes when we send it they do not buy,” she says.

Boateng stated that pickers could collect up to the tune of 10,000 kilograms a day, saying, “I feel bad telling them I cannot pay due to financial constraints.”

Similar to Boateng’s innovation is the efforts of the Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprises (GRIPE), an industry-led coalition under the auspices of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), a non-governmental organisation, that is manufacturing modified building blocks out of plastic.

The initiative, carried out in conjunction with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, is pending certification by the Ghana Standard Authority for commercial use.

Ama Amoah, Regional Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager at Nestle, a leading member of GRIPE, told IPS that the group has done community and schools education and awareness campaigns on proper waste management practices for plastics.

There are also other innovators such as Seth Quansah, who runs Alchemy Alternative Energy, which is converting plastic waste and tires through internationally approved and environmentally sound processes into hydrocarbon energy, mainly diesel-grade fuels.

Through the Ghana Climate Innovations Centre, and Denmark and the Netherlands through the World Bank, Quansah has received mentorship and is preparing to expand the company.

Ghana’s Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Ken Ofori Atta, says the Ministry of Environment, Science Technology and Innovation (MESTI) is in the process of finalising a new National Plastic Waste Policy, which will focus on strategies to promote reduction, reuse, and recycling.

But Helen La Trobe, an environmental volunteer in Ghana, tells IPS, “African industry should seek innovative approaches to reduce plastic use and plastic waste in all its forms by replacing plastic with other innovative products and reducing, reusing and recycling where replacing is not currently possible.”

She also wants the government to provide adequate public rubbish bins at trotro stops (bus stops) and markets to have these frequently emptied.

She says plastic is indestructible and breaks into smaller and smaller parts, called microplastics, but it takes more than 500 years to completely disappear. 

According to Trobe, microplastics and microbeads, tiny polyethylene plastic added to health and beauty products such as some skin cleansers and toothpaste, absorb toxins and industrial chemicals from the environment. As fish and other marine life ingest tiny pieces of plastic, the toxins and chemicals enter their tissue and then the food chain, which ultimately affect humans.  

While Boateng does not believe that production of plastic is a problem, but that authorities need to support innovators and there is a need for a behavioural change, he adds, “The more the support, the cleaner the environment. If we are serious of ridding the country and the sea of plastics this is the way forward. When people go to the beach to clean up, the waste ends ups in the land field site, which is still in the environment.”

A fish catch has come in. Since the community from the Sanwoma fishing village have begun restoring the mangroves, the lagoon has seen a marginal increase in fish stock. However, the stock in the ocean remains depleted. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IP

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
ACCRA, Dec 20 2018 (IPS)

It was just three and a half years ago that the Sanwoma fishing village, which sits between the sea and the mouth of the Ankobra River on the west coast of Ghana, experienced perpetual flooding that resulted in a loss of property and life.

This was because the local mangrove forests that play a key role in combating the effects of coastal erosion and rising sea levels had been wantonly and indiscriminately harvested. “Of a total 118-hectares mangrove, we had depleted 115 hectares,” Paul Nato Codjoe, a fisherman and a resident of the community explains.

The fisherfolk here depended heavily on the Ankobra wetland mangroves for cheap and available sources of fuel for fish processing. Wood from the mangroves was also used as material for construction, and sold to generate income.

But a video shown by officials of Hen Mpoano (HM), a local non-governmental organisation, helped the community understand the direct impact of their indiscriminate felling.

And it spurred the fishfolk into action. Led by Odikro Nkrumah, Chief of the Sanwoma, the community commenced a mangrove restoration plan, planting about 45,000 seeds over the last three years.

Rosemary Ackah, 38, one of the women leaders in the community, tells IPS that the vulnerability to the high tides and the resultant impact was one of the reasons for actively participating in the re-planting.

HM, with support from the United States Agency for International Development-Ghana Sustainable Fisheries Management Project (SFMP),provided periodic community education about the direct and indirect benefits of the mangrove forests.

In Ghana, there are about 90 lagoons and 10 estuaries with their associated marshes and mangrove swamps along the 550-km coastline stretch.

Dr Isaac Okyere, a lecturer at the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Cape Coast, explains to IPS in an interview that the conservation of mangrove forests is essential for countries like Ghana, where the marine fishery is near collapse, with landings of important fish species at 14 percent of the record high of 140,000 metric tons 20 years ago.

The fisheries sector in Ghana supports the livelihoods of 2.2 million people — about 10 percent of the population.

Carl Fiati, Director of Natural Resource at the Environmental Protection Agency speaking in an interview with IPS, explains: “Ghana is in a precarious situation where many of the stocks are near collapse and species like the sardine and jack mackerel cannot be found again if we do not take steps to conserve, restock and protect them. A visit to the market shows that sardines, for instance, are no more.”

The Sanwoma community is not unique in the degradation of their mangroves. According to Okyere, the Butuah and Essei lagoons of Sekondi-Takoradi, the Fosu lagoon of Cape Coast, the Korle and Sakumo lagoons of Accra and the Chemu lagoon of Tema are typical examples of degraded major lagoons in the country.

“Most of the lagoons, especially those located in urban areas, have been heavily polluted within the last decade or two.” Domestic and industrial effluent discharge, sewage, plastics, and other solid waste and heavy metal contaminants (lead, mercury, arsenic, etc.) from industrial activities are blamed for this.

Rosemary Ackah is part of the women’s group that was assigned to collect seedlings used to grown a nursery of mangrove trees. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

According to Ackah, many of the women in the community also became involved in the mangrove regeneration because of the positive resultant effect of clean air that would reduce airborne diseases in the community.

“As women, we take care of our husbands and children when they are ill so we thought we should seize this opportunity to engage in this as health insurance for our families,” she added.

Ackah says the women’s group was assigned to collect seedlings used to grown a nursery. They also watered the seedlings.

“We also played a significant role during transplanting. When our husbands dig the ground we put in the seedlings and cover the side with sand. It is a joy to be part of such a great replanting project, that will help provide more fuelwood for our domestic use,” Ackah told IPS.

Codjoe says that thanks to the technical assistance from the project, the community developed an action plan for restoration and is also enforcing local laws to prevent excessive mangrove harvesting.

The community has taken control of its future, and particularly its natural resources, and has established the Ankobra Mangrove Restoration Committee to guide and oversee how the mangrove is used and maintained.

To ensure that the re-planting is sustainable, Codjoe explains that the community has, in agreement, instituted a by-law that all trees within 50 meters of the river must not be harvested. Anyone doing so will have to replant them.

It is uncertain if indiscriminate felling of the mangroves continues to happen as many in the community acknowledge the positive results of the re-planting.

“We have seen positive signs because of the re-generation, the flooding has been drastically reduced,” says Ackah.

She has witnessed another direct improvement: the high volume and large size of the shrimp, one of the delicacies in Ghana, that they local community harvests. “This has really boosted our local business and improved our diet,” she says.

Codjoe says the fish stock in the river increased and agreed that a high volume of shrimp was harvested.

Ackah adds that the project donors SFMP and local implementer HM also helped them reduce dependence on the mangroves for their livelihoods and created a resilience plan in the form of a Village Savings and Loan Scheme.

The scheme, she explains, has financially empowered members to address social and economic challenges they face, thus reducing dependence on fisheries and mangroves in terms of the need for income.

In West Africa, the economic value of nature’s contributions to people per km2 per year is valued at 4,500 dollars for mangrove coastal protection services, 40,000 dollars for water purification services, and 2,800 dollars for coastal carbon sequestration services.

This is according to an Assessment Report on the state of biodiversity in Africa, and on global land degradation and restoration, conducted under the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Fiati says that Ghana’s new draft Coastal and Marine Habitat Regulation policy, which encapsulates the protection, management and sustainable use of mangroves, will be ready and sent to the Attorney General’s Department this month to be signed into law.

And the local fisherfolk of Sanwoma are assisting in sharing their experiences and knowledge.

In the meantime, the Sanwoma are ensuring that the importance of the preservation of their mangrove forests is passed down to young people.

“Because of a lack of knowledge about the importance of such a rich resource we were destroying it. And it was at a fast rate. Now I know we have a treasure. As a leader, I will use it to sustainably and protect it for the next generation. Also, I will make sure I educate children about such a resource so they will keep it safe,” Nkrumah told IPS.

Frempong Koranteng (left) learns how to weave a bamboo and rattan coffee table. About 100 of Ghana’s artisans are benefiting from a 30-day skills development training in bamboo and rattan processing given by trainers from the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR). Training is taking place in Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti Region, Ghana. Credit: Jamila Akweley Okertchiri/IPS

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
KUMASI, Ghana , Nov 12 2018 (IPS)

Yaw Owiredu Mintah from Ghana has been working as an all-round processor of bamboo and rattan since the 1980s. And while he says that he can do most things with bamboo like weaving, framing and finishing, he admits, “I need to improve my skills and designs because all of us are, most of the time, doing the same things.”

“That is why I am happy this training is taking place,” Mintah tells IPS.

Mintah is among the 100 local artisans selected to benefit from a 30-day skills development training in bamboo and rattan processing in Ejisu a suburb of Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti Region, Ghana.

According to research, Ghana has lost over 60 percent of its forests from 1950 to 2000. Since 2000, it has had a deforestation rate of three percent. A report by Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI), a past project of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, shows that the general depletion of forests has led to the reduced production of wooden furniture and reduced exports of plywood and flooring. However, the report noted, as bamboo grows in the wild in Ghana, there could be a market for bamboo furniture, plywood and flooring and other products generally manufactured from timber.

Bamboo and rattan have been identified as important commodities in the country. The processing of this – from raw material to finishing — employs thousands of people across the country.

Under tree canopies along Ghana’s major streets, you will find local artisans selling mostly baskets and furniture made from bamboo and rattan.

But many of these local artisans use outdated technology, which results in lower quality designs and less durable products. And this subsequently results in lower income.

Thus industrial manufacturing techniques like those being taught at the workshop Mintah is attending will equip artisans, over the course of a month, to produce a wide range of long-lasting, strong and inexpensive goods produced from bamboo and rattan. In turn this can contribute to long-term poverty alleviation and socio-economic development.

“I have learnt a lot of things that would improve my work when I leave here and go back to my place of work,” Mintah says.

Participants from all parts of the country, including two women from the Greater Accra Region, are currently involved in the transfer of knowledge and ideas from 7 technical trainers, 5 translators and 2 administrative support staff from the International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan (ICBR) headquartered in China.

Yaw Owiredu Mintah going through the finishing process of a bamboo and rattan chair with his trainer. Credit: Jamila Akweley Okertchiri/IPS

China-Ghana Cooperation

This training follows a request made by Ghana’s government to the Government of China under its South-South bilateral Cooperation Agreements. These agreements support the capacity building of people whose livelihoods depended on bamboo and rattan in this West African nation.

The cooperation was facilitated the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR), an independent, intergovernmental organisation that focuses on bilateral South-South cooperation and has over 44 members, 43 of which are in the global south.

INBAR proceeded with a collaboration with the Bamboo and Rattan Development Programme (BARADEP), an initiative in Ghana’s Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

The participants are leaning how to combine about 10 different designs through the use of innovation as well as the use of simple but effective tools to perfect the finishing of the bamboo and rattan products. The training began on Oct. 15, at the Forestry commission’s technical centre in Ejisu.

Dai Honghai, Director of the Foreign Aid Programme from ICBR, tells IPS that the training sessions has impacted greatly on the participants’ raw material handling, creativity and innovation and their application of tools to improve and enhance product processing and finishing.

“It is expected that this training will impact the market and marketing of the bamboo and rattan products to meet both local and international market and standard,” he says. “We have been here for three weeks and it is going well.”

Honghai says the participants are already mastering the use of the tools and are already making products.

“You can see the products, all together 150 products like bamboo flower stands, chairs and tables, rattan chairs and coffee tables are been made from bamboo rattan and wood materials for exhibition at the end of the training next week.

“We try to combine all the materials locally to make the product so that after we return to China they can still use the local material,” Honghai says to IPS. He adds that with the marketing strategy session that would be held within the final week of the workshop, participants will be equipped to properly market the bamboo and rattan products both locally and internationally.

Stephen Osafo Owusu, President of the National Association of Bamboo and Rattan Artisans of Ghana, and also a beneficiary of the training, wants the association’s members to produce products that can access the international market. “We need more of such trainings so our members can make better bamboo and rattan products to sell locally and even export to the international market like the Chinese,” he tells IPS.

Faustina Baffour Awuah, programmes manager from BARADEP, tells IPS the government of Ghana has a special interest in developing the bamboo and rattan industry and thereby improving the livelihoods of some 4,000 workers.

“We have been engaging them and we thought this will be a good programme for their skills development because with this they can create better products which will earn them better income and improve their lives,” she says.

And indeed the project has long-term goals that will benefit the artisans. Michael Kwaku, Country Director of INBAR Ghana, tells IPS bamboo and rattan are one of the fastest-growing species that have been identified in place of other sources of wood.

He said that because of their fast rates of maturity, bamboo and rattan had enormous environmental benefits and could be used for restoration of degraded lands and in supporting afforestation.

“We want them to have a common place where they can go and process their raw materials using these new tools. So once they have this training when the place is established they can go and use the modern tools at the facility to work and enhance their lives,” he explains.

In the meantime Mintah is learning a lot.

“One thing I have learnt from this training so far is the application of the simple tools to have a perfect finishing. You know the beauty and worth of a product is in its finishing,” Mintah says.

Paul Ayormah and his friends on his maize farm in Donkorkrom in the Kwahu Afram Plains District of Ghana’s Eastern Region. Credit: Jamila Akweley Okertchiri/IPS

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
ACCRA and DONKORKROM, Ghana, Aug 17 2018 (IPS)

Paul Ayormah and his fellow farmers make their way home after hours spent manually weeding a friend’s one-acre maize farm in Ghana’s Eastern Region.

“Tomorrow it will be the turn of my maize farm,” he tells IPS.

This year, Ayormah and his colleagues who live in Donkorkrom in the Kwahu Afram Plains District of the Eastern Region, have resorted to alternative means of cultivating their farms. The farmers group together and travel to each other’s farms, where they work to prepare and weed the farmland, taking turns to do the same for everyone else in the group. They have also resorted to using cattle dung to fertilise their crop.

“We are doing this to cut down on the cost involved in preparing our land for planting our maize,” Ayormah tells IPS.

Ayormah, a father of five, inherited his two-acre maize farm from his late father. And as the breadwinner in his family, Ayormah relies solely on his produce as a source of income.

Ayormah says that in a good season he is able to harvest 40 bags of maize, which he then sells in Koforidua, the capital of the Eastern Region, for an average of USD27 per bag.

“The money I make is what I use to take care of my family. Two of my children are in tertiary [education], one is in high school, and the other two are in junior high and primary school [respectively]. So there is hardly enough money at home,” he explains.

Ayormah believes he will have a good enough harvest this season, but says “I cannot promise a bumper harvest.”

Food Security

Ghana’s economy is predominately dependent on agriculture, particularly cocoa, though the government has taken steps to ensure that the cultivation of staples such as rice, maize and soya is also enhanced.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) says that 52 percent of the country’s labour force is engaged in agriculture, which contributes 54 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. However, it notes that the country’s agricultural sector is driven predominately by smallholder farmers, and about 60 percent of all farms are less than 1.2 hectares in size and are largely rain-fed.“Already our economy is not developing at the level we want it to and then we have this huge number of people depending on a small population for survival. So the little income or food must be shared among many people and this retards our economic growth and development.” -- Dr. Leticia Appiah, National Population Council director

Last April, president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched Ghana’s flagship agricultural policy, Planting for Food and Jobs, a five-year plan geared towards increasing food productivity and ensuring food security for the country. The policy’s long-term goal is to reduce food import bills to the barest minimum.

The programme also provides farmers who own two to three acres of land with a 50 percent subsidy of fertiliser and other farm inputs, such as improved seedlings.

Farmers who enrol in the programme enjoy a flexible repayment method where they pay their 50 percent towards the fertiliser cost in two instalments of 25 percent prior to and after harvest. Each payment is estimated to cost USD12.

Ayormah benefited from the programme last year, and had hoped that the use of chemical fertiliser would increase his farming yield and income. However, delayed rains and an armyworm infestation caused him to lose almost half of his produce.

He says although the programme was helpful, he cannot afford to pay the final USD12 he owes the government.

“With the little I will get from my farm produce this year, I will pay the money I owe the government so I can benefit [from the fertiliser] next year and get a bumper harvest,” he explains.

“If all goes well I hope to [harvest] my 40 bags. But this year is going to be a little difficult for my family because I am not getting the government fertiliser,” Ayormah laments.

A report by the ministry of food and agriculture assessing the one-year implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs policy, notes the negative impact of delayed rains and armyworm infestation on maize production in the country. So far, government interventions such as the routine pesticide spraying on farms is bringing the armyworm infestation under control. But 20,000 hectares of land have already been affected.

Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Ghana’s minister of food and agriculture, tells IPS the situation faced by farmers in other parts of the country, particularly the Northern Region, poses a potential threat to food security for this west African nation.

Agenda 2030

Hiroyuki Nagahama, vice chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP) at the Asian and African Parliamentarians, spoke with IPS during a three-day visit this August to learn the opportunities and challenges that Ghana faces.

Nagahama says that if the current grown rate on the continent, in excess of two percent, is not checked, U.N. Population estimates and projections put Africa at a risk of contributing 90 percent to the increase in the world’s population between 2020 to 2100.

He further notes that the population growth rate does not correspond with the food produced on the continent and this poses a threat to food security.

“According to calculations by the FAO, food security can be possible through cutting down on losses from food and engaging appropriately in farm management and production. But, economic principles compels us to ask difficult questions about how the population of Africa will have access to food supply,” Nagahama says.

A new project by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the JPFP, which focuses on enhancing national and global awareness of parliamentarians’ role as a pivotal pillar for achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, was launched this year. The project also supports parliamentarians as they implement necessary policy, legislative changes and mobilise resources for population-related issues.

It is a platform to examine the ways in which both developed and developing countries can, in equal partnership, serve as the driving force to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and create a world where no one is left behind.

Rashid Pelpou, chair of Ghana’s Parliamentary Caucus on Population and Development, tells IPS it is estimated that 1.2 million of Ghana’s 29.46 million people are currently food insecure.

And that a further two million Ghanaians are vulnerable to food insecurity nationwide. In the event of an unexpected natural or man-made shock, their pattern of food consumption can be greatly impacted.

He says that as representatives of the people, parliamentarians’ priorities are to ensure that laws and budget allocations translates into constituents having physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food.

Reproductive Health

In Ghana, the National Population Council (NPC) stated last August that the country’s current 2.5 percent population growth rate was high above the global rate of 1.5 percent, calling it a disturbing trend.

Dr. Leticia Appiah, NPC director, tells IPS that population management is an emergency that requires urgent action. She previously said that the “annual population increase is 700,000 to 800,000, which is quite alarming.”

Appiah tells IPS that when people give birth to more children than they can afford, not only does the family suffer in terms of its ability to care for these children, but the government becomes burdened as it provides social services.

“Already our economy is not developing at the level we want it to and then we have this huge number of people depending on a small population for survival. So the little income or food must be shared among many people and this retards our economic growth and development,” Appiah explains.

African Development Bank Group data shows that “economic growth fell from 14 percent in 2011 at the onset of oil production to 3.5 percent in 2016, the lowest in two decades.” In April the Ghana Statistical Service announced an 8.5 percent expansion in gross domestic product.

“We have to really focus on reproductive health otherwise we will miss the investment we have made in immunisation and create more problems for ourselves,” Appiah says.

Nagahama addresses the issue of Africa’s population growth: “It is an individual’s right to choose how many children they will have and at what interval. But in reality there are many children who are born from unwanted pregnancies and births.”

“To remove such plight, it is important for us parliamentarians to legislate, allocate funding and implement programmes for universal access to reproductive health services in ways that are culturally acceptable,”Nagahama says.

Niyi Ojoalape, the U.N. Population Fund’s Ghana representative, tells IPS that strong government coordination is the way to harness demographic dividend—the growth in an economy that is the resultant effect of a change in the age structure of a country’s population.

Ghana currently has a national population policy with strategies to manage the country’s population for long term benefit, but implementation of this has lacked political will over the years.

Ojoalape notes that without sustainable implementation over the long term, Ghana will not be able to reap the benefits.

Vendors pick up newspapers from a distribution center in Accra, Ghana. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Apr 30 2018 (IPS)

Ghana is a living contradiction, at least in the arena of freedom of expression, free speech and press freedom.

It is touted as one of the continent’s best atmospheres for media workers and does have a highly free media space, being ranked number one in Africa and number 23 in the World Press Freedom Index 2018 by Reporters Without Borders.

But that only gives half the picture of the culture of freedom of speech, information and the press in the country. Just last month a journalist from one of the country’s top media houses was beaten to near death by the police.

His crime was that he was doing his job as a journalist and had asked a police officer who had been deployed to disperse a demonstrating crowd the name of one of the anti-riot vehicles. That harmless question was enough to provoke the officer, who pounced on the journalist and was later joined by other officers who had no clue what crime the journalist had committed.

Latif Iddrisu suffered facial, neck and rib injuries and has been experiencing intermittent pain since. He was diagnosed with a fractured skull after four X-ray examinations and a CT Scan. The journalist, who has been recovering at home for close to a month now, says he’s been traumatized as he awaits doctors’ final verdict about whether “I will be in a position to work actively again”.

“For now, all that I have been praying for is a good outcome so that I can get back to work and do even much better, much more ground-braking documentaries and impactful investigative stories to help build the nation,” he told IPS.

Latif Iddrisu in the hospital after being assaulted by police. Photo Courtesy of Latif Iddrisu

The vicious attack on Iddrisu was not an isolated incident. It adds to a long list of attacks on journalists by politicians and their supporters as well as ordinary people, with personnel from the security forces, especially the police, leading the onslaught.

Such abuses against journalists are commonplace in the West African sub-region in particular and Africa in general. The Media Foundation for West Africa’s compilation of abuses against journalists in the region gives a very gloomy picture of press freedom culture. In the past 15 months alone, the Foundation has compiled 12 such assaults with a total of 17 journalist victims in Ghana. And these are just the cases that caught the attention of the Foundation.

In the sub-region, the Foundation says it recorded “nine violations in six countries during its monitoring of the freedom of expression environment in February 2018. Five incidents of physical assaults were recorded in four countries – Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Ghana. Mali, Togo and Nigeria recorded one incident each of arrests and detentions, while Benin recorded one incident of suspension of a media house. The violations affected ten journalists, 11 citizens and one media organisation”.

Colonial-era laws persist despite new constitutions

These abuses continue despite the embrace of democracy and the rule of law by all countries in the sub-region. New constitutions guaranteed basic human rights, including freedom of expression and, in many cases, freedom of the press. But many countries still maintain what some have described as colonial-era laws that restrict free press and expression which are inconsistent with their constitutions.

A typical example is the use of criminal defamation laws – laws which criminalise the publication of untrue statements, reports or rumors that are likely to alarm the public – in African countries to harass, detain and imprison journalists, as well as impose hefty fines.

In the sub-region, countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia have long promised to repeal the laws, but this is yet to happen. Liberia, for instance, attracted the world’s attention in 2013 in what is arguably the most infamous libel defamation judgment in West Africa. The Supreme Court on August 20, 2013, sentenced Rodney Sieh, the Managing Editor of the FrontPage Africa newspaper, to 5,000 years in prison after the journalist was unable to pay a fine of 1.5 million dollars in a civil suit for defamation brought by then Minister of Agriculture, Chris Toe.

Of course the jailing of two editors of the Independent Observer within hours of publishing a column comparing Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma’s behaviour to that of a rat also attracted global attention and condemnation. The 10-court-appearance case dragged out for six months (October 2013 to March 2014) and eventually saw the cautioning and discharge of the journalists after they were forced to plead guilty to conspiracy to defame the president as part of a deal to end the case.

Commenting on the case, Reporters Without Borders said, “The government’s policy of harassing the media is a threat to fundamental freedoms. The authorities use criminal defamation and sedition charges to intimidate journalists and then allow the proceedings to drag on in order to keep up the pressure.”

The story could only be worse in countries like Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria which have for a long time remained adamant in refusing to repeal criminal defamation laws.

And this is where Ghana stands tall. The West African country has distinguished itself on the continent and in the sub-region, having repealed its criminal libel law since 2001, beating its colonial master the United Kingdom which repealed its law in 2009. This accolade makes Ghana the only country in the sub-region to have done so with a clear 17-year margin. But even here, journalists and media houses are not out of the doghouse yet.

Ghana enjoys a thriving press and is ranked number one in Africa in terms of media freedom. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

Politicians, public office holders and businessmen can still press for civil charges, which may bring hefty fines. In February 2014 the General Secretary of the then political party in power, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, was awarded 250,000 dollars in defamation damages (25% of what Ntetia demanded) against the Daily Guide newspaper by an Accra Fast-Track High Court.

It was in respect to a story which alleged that Nketia used his position in government to divert building materials for his personal building project. In spite of this, it is still refreshing to note that no journalist would ever spend a day in prison for what they publish, a fact journalists Kweku Baako and Haruna Atta who were imprisoned in 1998 using the libel law will appreciate.

Lip service to RTI law

Ghana has not been able to consolidate its commitment to free press with a right to information (RTI) law which is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the country’s constitution. This is against the backdrop of several treaties and agreements the country has signed which require that such a law be passed.

In Africa, RTI is guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights; African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance; African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption; African Union Youth Charter; among others. For years CSOs, NGOs, academics, journalists have been advocating for an RTI law without success.

Ghana’s RTI bill was drafted and reviewed by government in 2003. Since then parliamentarians have discussed it, referred it, reviewed it and published it – anything but pass it. Interestingly parliamentarians have passed about 300 bills into law since 2003, with one of the latest being the special prosecutor law which was a campaign promise by President Akufo-Addo.

More than 15 African countries, including seven in West Africa, have passed the RTI law since Ghana first drafted its own in 2003. And yet the West African country ranks higher in press freedom among all these countries. The reluctance of politicians to pass the RTI bill has left many to conclude that successive governments dread what the passage of an RTI will mean for their corrupt deals.

The executive director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Braima, says “It is regrettable that we are hosting this global event without the RTI,” adding that “the absence of the law remains one of the darkest spots on our democracy, freedom and human rights credentials.”

Ghana hosts 2018 World Press Freedom Day

When Ghana was selected as the host of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, having beaten India and other prominent countries, there were some who thought the nonexistence of an RTI law was a big blot on an otherwise reputable event. But Ghana is not the first country to host the event on the continent.

It becomes the sixth country to host the event in African and the second in the West African sub-region (Uganda, Namibia, Senegal, Monzambigue, and Tunisia have all hosted the event in the past). It appears what determines a host country is not based solely on press freedom practices.

When Colombia hosted the event in 2007 it was in recognition of the 10th Anniversary of the establishment of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. Cano was a Colombian journalist who was killed by hired assassins in 1986. Since the inception of the Prize in 1997, two African journalists have won it (Christina Anyanwu, Nigeria in 1998 and Geoffrey Nyarota, Zimbabwe in 2002). Tunisia seem to have won the host in 2012 because of the theme: 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers, New Voices with the Arab Spring as a main focus.

And so with this year’s global theme: Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law, Ghana definitely fits in. Again, going by milestones and anniversaries it looks as if Ghana’s celebration of 25 years of uninterrupted democratic governance and the rule of law (1993 – 2018) has coincided with the 25th Anniversary of the establishment of the World Press Freedom Day. A good reason to celebrate it on Ghanaian soil.

Excerpt:

Nazir (left) and Usman both returned to Ghana from Libya in 2011, among some 19,000 Ghanaians who fled back home. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
KWAME DANSO, Ghana, Feb 6 2018 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Nazir Mohammed sits on one of the two sofas in his single room in Kwame Danso, a small town about 290 kilometres north of Ghana’s capital Accra, reflecting on life back in Libya.

“Libya offers great economic opportunities to West African migrants, but the human rights abuse, especially of dark-skinned Africans, is real. I will not advise even my enemy to go to Libya,” Mohammed says.“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

He is among some 19,000 Ghanaians who were repatriated from Libya about seven years ago. Mohammed left home at 23 after completing high school. Having lost his father a few months before, he felt the responsibility of taking care of his mother and four other siblings naturally fell on him as an older male child.

“I just heard that if I get about 500 cedis (about 100 dollars) I would be able to get to Libya. And that meant a lot of hard work. So I did some construction work to gather that money,” he said. “My mom and family only got to know of my intentions when I called and told her. I was already halfway on my journey. She cried but later prayed for me since there was nothing she could do.”

Most young people set off on the trip without telling family members, anticipating they wouldn’t be supportive because of the risks.

Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire all have a large number of their citizens among the almost one million migrants trapped in Libya. Mohammed’s home region, Brong Ahafo – which is in the middle belt of Ghana – has the highest number of people migrating to Libya. Most, like Mohammed, hope to use Libya as a transit point to Europe.

The Back Story

The history of Ghana–Libya migration dates back to the 1980s when the Ghanaian government signed a bilateral agreement with its Libyan counterpart to send some 200 Ghanaian teachers to teach English in Libya, according to researchers at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine Adiku.

This arrangement was also necessitated by the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, mostly from West African countries, including about two million Ghanaians, from Nigeria in 1983. In the initial stages, the Libyan authorities offered employment to only highly skilled Ghanaian immigrants.

But the availability of job opportunities for other low-skilled migrants attracted many more Ghanaians who entered Libya through informal routes such as the Sahara Desert. As a result, the Libyan authorities clamped down on illegal migration amidst forced repatriations.

Before the 2011 Libyan political crisis, the Libyan authorities were already dealing with illegal immigrants and concomitant attacks, especially on black migrants. In 2006, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) set up a voluntary return program to arrange for the return of stranded undocumented migrants from Libya to their countries of origin.

Statistics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration indicate that on Oct. 8, 2000, the first group of 238 Ghanaians fleeing attacks arrived in Ghana, with harrowing tales of gross human rights abuses. The influx has continued. Last year, 565 people returned with similar stories.

But the biggest evacuation of migrants happened in 2011 in the heat of the Libyan crisis, when IOM figures show that about 19,000 Ghanaians were evacuated back to Ghana. Many migrants attributed this exodus to increased hostility against black Africans. The political instability and challenge to the authority of Muammar Qaddafi offered a prime opportunity for some Libyan nationals – who see the Libyan leader as a shield for black Africans and have accused Qaddafi of using them as mercenaries – to attack dark-skinned people.

“It was very dangerous to be spotted as a black African,” said Mohammed. He said a lot of migrants left properties behind and several months of salary arrears from companies they worked for. Nazil says it is common practice for companies to pay migrant workers about two months’ salary after they have worked for six months. This means migrant workers always have their unpaid monies with the companies.

“I was lucky because I got help from a soldier friend whom I used to teach English to. He drove me and my friend all the way from Benghazi to neighboring Egypt where evacuation planes were. When I got to Ghana I had only 500 cedis left on me, but I had left about 7,000 cedis worth of money with my company, and that was very painful,” he added with bitterness.

A lack of job opportunities for young people in Kwame Danso, Ghana has led many to attempt the risky migration to Libya. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

The Journey

Most migrants from West Africa use the desert as an illegal route to enter Libya, and this leaves them vulnerable to human traffickers. Mohammed says thugs meet them at the border and take them to places which have now been dubbed slave camps. Once at the camps, migrants are held captive, fed just enough to keep them alive, and subjected to various forms of inhuman treatment in a bid to extort money.

Mohammed, who had hardly any money, was ordered to call his family and pressure them for a ransom.

“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

Mohammed says his stepfather coughed up 300 cedis and he was released. But he added that some captives had to pay more, sometimes thousands.

Once out of the slave camp, the next difficulty is gathering enough money to pay to be smuggled to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Making it to Tripoli is crucial for those who have hopes of reaching Europe because of the proximity the capital offers to Italy.

“I was engaged in very dangerous jobs such as lifting overly heavy concrete. I sneaked back to the ghetto [slave camp] and tipped some of the inmates for a place to sleep,” he recalled.

Mohammed says the journey to Tripoli was a nightmare as migrants were packed “like sardines in the back of a pick-up” covered with a tarpaulin tied down with a rope and driven on a hot, bumpy desert road for many kilometers.

“When we got to Tripoli I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought I had sunstroke,” he said.

When he couldn’t find a decent job in Tripoli, Mohammed left for Benghazi, where he shuffled between jobs with hopes of gathering enough money to pay for the perilous trip on a packed-to-the-brim boat across the Mediterranean Sea. But his hopes of making it to Europe were dashed when the civil war broke out.

The story of migrants being sold at slave camps, first exposed by CNN, has been denied by Libyan authorities who accuse the media of wrongly portraying Libya as a racist country. Asked whether he believes in the slave trade story, Mohammed said he wouldn’t doubt it.

A year after their repatriation in 2011, IOM offered training and other forms of support, including equipment, for some returnees in three districts in the Brong Ahafo region, the region with the highest number of returnees, to help them integrate into their communities.

Anita Jawadurovna Wadud, Project Manager for the Returns, Protection and Direct Assistance to Vulnerable Migrants Unit of IOM, said the UN agency carries out various activities in Brong Ahafo, including awareness raising and sensitization of the risks of irregular migration in communities including in schools, a Migration Information Centre in Sunyani, livelihood projects for returnees and potential migrants, as well as reintegration activities for Ghanaian returnees who return to the region through IOM’s assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes. IOM has been assisting Ghanaian returnees since 2002.

“Reintegration provides returnees with an opportunity to support their socio-economic reintegration, through counselling, psychosocial and medical support if needed, vocational/skills training and micro-business support,” she explained.

Mac Simpson, a Ghanaian teacher in Libya and expert on migration and human trafficking based in Tripoli, says out of the about 2,000 Ghanaian migrants who have died at sea in the past four years trying to make it to Europe, 1,600 are from the Brong Ahafo region.

Some advocates have used social media to share videos of maltreatment of migrants in Libya with the hope of discouraging hopefuls. But Simpson, who himself embarked on the deadly voyage more than two decades ago and has written three books about the migrant situation in Libya, says such videos have very little impact.

He says youth will continue to take the risk as long as they cannot find sustainable jobs in Ghana and Libya offers some hope.

“To convince someone from the Brong Ahafo Region not to go to Libya, you need to work some magic. My NGO went to the region to talk to some youth who had returned and when we asked what would make them stay, one said give me a taxi. So we got him one and as we talk he’s still in the country working as a taxi driver.”

Mac, who is currently in Ghana to engage in advocacy work, says he’s liaising with the Ministry of Education to adopt one of his books, The Cemetery Without Graves, among schoolchildren as he believes getting the message to people at a younger age can have some impact.

Finding something to do seem to be the factor that has kept Mohammed in Ghana. Even though his district wasn’t among those selected for intervention by IOM, he and other friends who returned to the Kwame Dano area have found their own ways back into society.

“I had good grades after Senior High School so I enrolled in a teacher training college. I’m now employed as a teacher in a junior high school… The pay isn’t too good but we are surviving,” he said, adding that since they came back, “some of us haven’t had any form of support from the government or anybody”.

Mohammed hopes to enter into politics where he believes he could influence policy and perhaps help to address this age-old Ghana-Libya migration canker. Until then, he believes a lot of uninformed youth will be making that treacherous journey in search of a better life.

Professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Ghana, Emmanuel Afoakwa, and other researchers at a cocoa farm. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Oct 5 2017 (IPS)

Ghana is home to the world’s favourite cocoa beans. They’re bigger in size, have a higher butter content and superior flavour – all qualities which make Ghana’s cocoa the world standard against which all cocoa is measured.

But while cocoa used to be the biggest foreign exchange earner for the West African country, contributing about 45 percent of the total foreign exchange earnings, now the commodity barely provides 25 percent.“They [farmers who sell their lands] don’t know what they are doing because cocoa is a legacy that can be left to children, unlike one-time cash.” --Nana Kwasi Ofori of the Cocoa Farmers Association

Farmers in Ghana follow a strict routine in the planting, harvesting and drying of cocoa, supported and monitored by the government regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board.

They employ natural drying of the beans in the sun (instead of heating), turning the beans at regular intervals for not less than a week. This natural and painstaking means of drying ensures the beans turn out their characteristic golden brown. The layers of monitoring at the time of purchase are all part of government’s intervention.

The country is the second biggest supplier of cocoa worldwide, beaten only by its West African neighbour, Cote D’Ivoire. But Ghana was once the world champion. It lost the first spot to its neighbour in the 1970s after government reduced the price given to farmers, thereby discouraging many from going into the venture.

Exchanging Golden Pods for Golden Nuggets

Several factors have contributed to the shortfall. Distribution of free or subsidized farm inputs such as fertilizers or chemicals have been fraught with several challenges.

“Not all of us were given the free fertilizers. And they were politicizing it. Someone with a small farm of four acres could be given 50 bags of fertilizer while others with very big farms were given less,” Abusuapanyin Kwabena Amankwaa, a cocoa farmer, told IPS.

Central Regional Chief Cocoa Farmer Nana Kwasi Ofori also said that “farmers who are not cultivating cocoa were given some of the inputs”.

CEO of the Cocoa Board Joseph Baidoo has said his interactions with farmers revealed that Ghana’s fertilizers – which are not supposed to be for sale – were in fact being sold in Nigeria, Gabon and other neighbouring African countries, adding that this meant the free fertilizers were given to political party loyalists who were not cocoa farmers.

Diseases such as black pod, swollen shoot, and capsids have had a field day as a result.

The new government decided to discontinue the free fertilizer programme following what it says were complaints from farmers. Instead, it wants to sell the fertilizer at subsidized prices.

Ghana has an annual cocoa production target of one million tonnes. That target was achieved in 2011. Since then government has struggled to maintain the target, with annual production hovering around 800,000 tonnes.

In previous years, government decided to absorb the cost and technical assistance needed to apply the right chemicals and fertilizers to cocoa farms nationwide – initiatives called the Mass Spraying Exercise and the Hi-tech Programme, respectively.

Government also created the Rehabilitation Programme where old, less productive trees were felled and replaced with new, more-yielding hybrid seedlings for free. This saw a big dividend in cocoa bean output, with the country recording its highest cocoa output of over 1 million tonnes in 2011. But government has not been able to sustain the programme.

Probably the biggest threat to hit the cocoa industry in recent times is illegal mining, locally called galamsey. The upsurge in the search for gold between 2012 and 2016 has threatened the livelihoods of several cocoa farmers as galamsey takes over cocoa farms.

“Some chiefs are part of the problem which we are facing. They sell the land to the miners and collect the money so sometimes farmers are not even compensated,” said Nana Kwasi Ofori, an executive member of the Cocoa Farmers Association.

Most farmers are tenant farmers who work on lands owned by chiefs or families. Fifty-three-year-old Adwoa Oforiwaa, a cocoa farmer in the Central Region, says she was only given 500 cedis (about 112 dollars) as compensation when galamsey operators took over a good part of her farm.

“When they [galamsey operators] come, they tell you they have orders from the chiefs or even government, and they start the destruction,” she added.

A journalist in the Western Region – the leading cocoa-producing region in Ghana – Yaw Obrempong says some farmers willingly sell off their cocoa farms for ready cash.

“If the galamsey operator is here with a bag full of cash, why won’t I sell my land instead of staying in a queue for over two weeks only to be given a bag of fertilizer?” Obrempong noted.

He says some farmers claim they had to pay bribes in order to get farm inputs from the government. Other farmers sold their lands when the much-needed labour to work on the cocoa farms shifted into illegal mining.

But Nana Kwasi Ofori says, “They [farmers who sell their lands] don’t know what they are doing because cocoa is a legacy that can be left to children, unlike one-time cash.”

The galamsey invasion has affected a good part of the 1.7 million hectares of cocoa farms in the country.  The Government has launched an anti-galamsey crusade to flush out illegal miners. With the help of a taskforce including the military, several arrests and confiscation of galamsey equipment have been carried out.

The launch of the Media Coalition against Galamsey has also given government a shot in the arm. Government has moved the crusade a notch higher with the announcement by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources of its intention to procure drones at the cost of 3 million dollars for surveillance.

Guaranteed Pricing

Nonetheless, cocoa remains the most important economic crop for Ghana, raking in about 2 billion dollars annually, contributing to some 4.22 percent of the country’s GDP.  Such a feat has been achieved through government interventions such as price stability. For instance, the world price of cocoa beans has plummeted from about 3,122 dollars per tonne last year to about 1,900 dollars this year, yet the Cocoa Board maintained s producer price of 7,600 cedis per tonne (1,700 dollars).

The Board is able to cushion farmers with a Stabilization Fund established some ten years ago, as well as other sources of funds. This presents a big advantage for cocoa farmers in Ghana over other cocoa-producing countries on the continent this year.

For instance, the Ivorian government has slashed the prices of cocoa almost by a third, to 700 CFA per kg (about 1,300 dollars per tonne). Some Ghanaians have expressed concern that the development is likely to reverse the dreaded cross-border smuggling of cocoa (Ghana has in the past seen a lot of its cocoa smuggled to their neighbor countries because of price differences).

But professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Ghana, Emmanuel Afoakwa says “it is not likely because Ghana is bent on protecting its premium quality and so there is tight security to ensure cocoa does not move from Cote D’Ivoire and other countries into the country”.

He adds that “farmers must cherish that government is interested in their welfare because government now loses about 500 dollars on every tonne of cocoa bought from them”.

The Ghana Cocoa Board also has an arrangement to pay for the felling and replanting of old and diseased cocoa trees. The board has announced that it will be giving away about 60 million seedlings to farmers for replanting. The exercise, called rehabilitation, is meant to boost output.

The Government also has a programme to woo youth into the sector to replace aging cocoa farmers. The Board is providing support for all young cocoa farmers by giving them hybrid pods, improved seedlings, free fertilizer and inputs, a farmer business school programme, as well as extension support to boost cocoa production. Cocoa farmers are also pushing for a Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme which they believe will help attract the youth.

Cocoa Processing

To maximize revenue from cocoa, the government has its eyes on adding value to the cocoa it exports. The global cocoa market has an estimated value of 9 billion dollars for unprocessed cocoa beans, about 28 billion dollars for semi-processed/intermediate products and a whopping 87 billion dollars for fully processed/final products. In an attempt to get its share of the 87-billion-dollar cake, government has set a target of processing 50 percent of its exported cocoa.

Currently, the seven processing companies operating at various levels of value-addition process about 25 percent of the county’s exported cocoa. But most of the processed cocoa are exported in semi-processed form of cocoa paste.

Prof. Afoakwa says the huge capital requirement involved in processing cocoa into finished products fit for export could be a big hurdle for Ghana. Moreover, there are high tariff walls with regards to the export of processed products. For example, the European Union levies no duties on the import of raw cocoa beans, but levies a 7.7 percent and 15 percent duty on cocoa powder and cocoa cake, respectively.

He believes heightening the campaign on the consumption of cocoa products would be one way of tackling the issue.

“I’m working with Ghana Cocoa Board to conduct the cocoa product processing competition and we are bringing together ten different polytechnic institutions to develop new products using cocoa. We are going to invite high schools to come witness it. What we are trying to do is to advocate for higher consumption of cocoa products and this can be done when we know the kind of different products that we can make out of cocoa,” he added.

A graffiti artist in Accra creates an image of the leader of Ghana’s struggle for independence, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
ACCRA, Mar 9 2017 (IPS)

Ghana turned 60 years old this week. The West African country gained independence from Britain on Mar. 6, 1957, and remains a study in contradictions.

At 60, Ghana is viewed by many as a beacon of democracy and stability. But its current growth rate is just 3.6 percent — the lowest in 20 years — and its tax revenue to GDP ratio is 18 percent, which is one of the lowest among middle income economies.

At 60, it has a debt to GDP ratio of over 73 percent, one of the highest in the sub-region; the country is bedeviled with an erratic power supply, which has caused many businesses to collapse; and its informal sector is still not formalized enough to be able to widen the tax net.

At 60, Ghana still has schoolchildren who study under trees. 

Some of these economic indicators have sparked a national debate about whether it was prudent for the country to set aside 4.3 million dollars to celebrate the day. Many are of the view that such an amount could be better spent on projects that would bring some economic dividend than, as they describe it, to waste it on pomp and pageantry, parade and fanfare.

These criticisms may have informed President Nana Akufo-Addo when he announced that the budget for the commemoration would not be borne by the taxpayer but by corporate Ghana. The chairman of the 30-member committee planning the anniversary was quick to add that committee members would be doing their work on voluntary basis.

But there are some who take all this with a pinch of salt, perhaps taking a cue from what many perceive to be misappropriation of funds and plain corruption during the organization of the event ten years ago (the Ghana at 50 commemoration committee spent over 60 million dollars).

The head of the Centre for Economic Governance and Political Affairs at the policy think tank Imani-Ghana wants government to make public the names of all companies who committed and how much they committed, to ensure accountability and transparency. Patrick Stephenson believes this is “the only way we can ensure that a corporate body is not getting some undue advantage in the award of contracts just because of their affiliation to this event”.

The independence event is always commemorated with marching parades performed by security personnel, workers unions, traders and school children among others. The event, which typically starts with the lighting of a flame, also sees the president inspecting a guard mounted in his honour.

Stephenson wants organisers to think outside the box and use innovative means to project and develop certain aspects of the country’s economy and culture. “For instance, cocoa, one of our biggest cash crops, could be the year-long theme of one of the commemorations in which we will look at the history, the challenges, the current situation and set targets be achieved as to how to improve on its production,” he said.

It is a view shared by communications academic Dr Ete Skanku. He writes: “The parades are exciting but you don’t need to stand and take a salute. Spare the kids the unnecessary dehydration. Engage them in another way. They can be out there promoting a major nationals initiative practically or give a meaning/breathing life to a national project.”

The day is observed as a national holiday but most people within the informal sector, especially traders, couldn’t afford to stay at home. At the central business district in the capital, Accra traders were busily going about their business. But the traders believe that the day is worth celebrating as the budget statement given by the finance minister some four days ago seems to give some hope.

The Government has already abolished nine taxes, including a duty on importation of spare parts and the excise duty on petroleum, saying these are nuisance taxes that have “low revenue yielding potential and at the same time impose significant burden on the private sector and on the average Ghanaian”.

“These measures introduced by the government will help businesses a lot and the one-district-one-factory policy by the new administration, if implemented, will enable some of us to go back home for jobs because in Accra here we use a good part of our incomes on rent. If I were in my hometown I wouldn’t have to pay rent. I can use that rent money for something else,” says Francis Agyei, a 32-year-old second-hand clothing seller at Accra.

But a lecturer at the economics department of the University of Ghana, Owusu Adu Sarkodie, says Francis’s hopes and aspirations can only be achieved if managers of the economy and resources do things differently. He believes politicians should increase the revenue tax net to cover majority of people and move away from the borrowing mindset.

“We don’t have to keep borrowing for borrowing sake. Even if we have to borrow we need to use the money prudently. If you look at the public debt right now, the greater part of it was for consumption. For example, last year we borrowed 17 billion cedis, we only invested 7 billion, where did the rest go? Consumption,” he added.

If words were action then these words uttered by the President Nana Akufo-Addo in his maiden State of Nation address to parliament some two weeks ago should offer some hope to Ghanaians:

“We will put in place policies that will deliver sustainable growth and cut out corruption. We will set upon the path to build a Ghana that is not dependent on charity; a Ghana that is able to look after its people through intelligent management of the resources with which it has been endowed.

“This Ghana will be defined by integrity, sovereignty, a common ethos, discipline, and shared values. It is one where we aim to be masters of our own destiny, where we mobilise our own resources for the future, breaking the shackles of the “Guggisberg” colonial economy and a mind-set of dependency, bailouts and extraction.

“It is an economy where we look past commodities to position ourselves in a global marketplace. It is a country where we focus on trade, not aid, a hand-up, not a hand-out. It is a country with a strong private sector.

It is a Ghana beyond aid.”

Of the 69 journalists who died on the job in 2015, 40 per cent were killed by Islamic militant groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Startlingly more than two-thirds were targeted for murder, according to a special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its annual report that nine of those killings took place in France, second to Syria as the most dangerous country for the press in last year.

Globally 69 journalists were killed due to their vocation, including those slain for their reporting and those caught in crossfire or in conflict. The total for 2015 is higher than the 61 journalists killed in 2014.

The CPJ says it is investigating the deaths of a further 26 more journalists during the year to determine if they too were work-related.

In 2012, 2013, and 2014, those killed in Syria exceeded those than anywhere else in the world. But the fewer number this year dying on the job in Syria only means it is so dangerous that there are fewer journalists working there, said the report. Many international news agencies chose to withdraw staff anf local reporters were forced to flee, said the CPJ.

The report cited difficulties in researching cases in conflict including Libya, Yemen and Iraq. CPJ went on a research mission to Iraq last year investigating reports that some 35 journalists from the Mosul area had gone missing, were killed or being held by Islamic State.

The militant group has a grip on the city so the CPJ said it could only confirm the deaths of a few journalists. The committee’s report said it had received reports of dozens of other journalists killed but could not independently confirm the deaths or if indeed, journalism was the reason. It said several of these journalists are currently on CPJ’s missing list.

A mural for Avijit Roy in Dhaka, one of four bloggers murdered by extremists in Bangladesh this year. Credit: AP/A.M. Ahad

The Charlie Hebdo massacre that took place in Paris last January was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Eight journalists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were targeted.

Islamic State in October murdered two Syrian journalists living in exile in Turkey, Fares Hamadi and Ibrahim Abd al-Qader. Abd al-Qader was given CPJ’s 1015 International Press Freedom Award as he was an early member of Raqaa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a Syrian citizen journalist group.

“In Bangladesh, members of an Al-Qaeda affiliate or another local extremist group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, were suspected in the hacking or stabbing murders of a publisher and four bloggers, including U.S.-Bangladeshi writer Avijit Roy, who was attending a book fair when he was killed,”said the report.

The Taliban in Pakistan claimed responsibility for the shooting of Zaman Mehsud, president and secretary-general of the Tribal Union of Journalists’ South Waziristan chapter and reporter for the Urdu-language Daily Ummat and Daily Nai Baat newspapers.

A security officer investigates the murder of Somali journalist Hindia Haji Mohamed, who was killed by a car bomb in December. Credit: AFP/Mohamed Abdiwahab

In Somalia, Hindia Haji Mohamed, a journalist and the widow of another murdered journalist, was killed in December when a bomb blew up her car in an attack claimed by the Islamic militant group al-Shabaab.

Governments around the world were jailing at least 110 journalists on anti-state charges. This is out of 199 total jailed, according to CPJ’s most recent annual prison census.—It shows how the press is being cornered and targeted by terrorists and also squeezed by the squeezed by authorities saying there were committed to fighting terror as well, it said.

More than two thirds of the journalists killed in 2015 were targeted and murdered as a direct result of their work.

The report said about one third of journalists’ deaths worldwide were carried out by criminal groups, government officials, or local residents who were, in most cases, drug traffickers or those involved in organized crime. They included Brazilian Gleydson Carvalho, shot dead by two men while he was presenting his afternoon radio show. He was often critical of politicians and police Brazil had six killings last year, the highest since CPJ began keeping records in 1992.

But Brazilian judicial authorities have made headway in combating impunity by getting six convictions in murder cases in the last two years, said the report.

South Sudan registered for the first time on CPJ’s index of slain journalists when unidentified gunmen attacked an official convoy killing five journalists traveling with a county official. The motive is still unknown but there have been various accusations. Some say this could have been the result of the power struggle between former Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir which set off the civil war in 2013.

The murders of the five landed South Sudan on CPJ’s Global Impunity Index, which highlights countries where journalists are murdered and there is no one held responsible so their killers go free.

South Sudan, Poland and Ghana appeared on CPJ’s killed database for the first time. In Poland, Łukasz Masiak, was fatally assaulted in a bowling alley after telling colleagues he feared for his life. He was the founder and editor of a news website and reported on crime and drugs and pollution. In Ghana, radio reporter George Abanga, was shot dead on his way back from covering a cocoa farmers dispute.

CPJ cites these trends from its research:

• Seventeen journalists worldwide were killed in combat or crossfire. Five were killed on a dangerous assignment.
• At least 28 of the 47 murder victims received threats before they were killed.
• Broadcast reporting was the most dangerous job, with 25 killed. Twenty-nine victims worked online.
• The most common type of reporting by victims was politics, followed by war and human rights.

CPJ, in 1992, began compiling detailed records on all journalist deaths. If motives in a killing are unclear, it is possible that a journalist died in relation to his or her work and CPJ classifies the case as “unconfirmed” and continues to investigate. CPJ said its list does not include journalists who died of illness or natural causes or were killed in car or plane accidents unless the crash considered hostile action.

(End)

Africa's children still stand as the number one victims of suffering and destitution across the continent. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Aug 26 2015 (IPS)

“Poverty has become part of me,” says 13-year-old Aminata Kabangele from the Democratic Republic of Congo. “I have learned to live with the reality that nobody cares for me.”

Aminata, who fled her war-torn country after the rest of her family was killed by armed rebels and now lives as a as a refugee in Zimbabwe’s Tongogara refugee camp in Chipinge on the country’s eastern border, told IPS that she has had no option but to resign her fate to poverty.

Despite the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, African children still stand as the number one victims of suffering and destitution across the continent.“Poverty has become part of me. I have learned to live with the reality that nobody cares for me” – Aminata Kabangele, a 13-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo

“In every country you may turn to here in Africa, children are at the receiving end of poverty, with high numbers of them becoming orphans,” Melody Nhemachena, an independent social worker in Zimbabwe, told IPS.

Based on a 2013 UNICEF report, the World Bank has estimated that up to 400 million children under the age of 17 worldwide live in extreme poverty, the majority of them in Africa and Asia.

According to human rights activists, the growing poverty facing many African families is also directly responsible for the fate of 200,000 African children that the United Nations estimates are sold into slavery every year.

“Many families in Africa are living in abject poverty, forcing them to trade their children for a meal to persons purporting to employ or take care of them (the children), but it is often not the case as the children end up in forced labour, earning almost nothing at the end of the day,” Amukusana Kalenga, a child rights activist based in Zambia, told IPS.

West Africa is one of the continent’s regions where modern-day slavery has not spared children.

According to Mike Sheil, who was sent by British charity and lobby group Anti-Slavery International to West Africa to photograph the lives of children trafficked as slaves and forced into marriage, for many families in Benin – one of the world’s poorest countries – “if someone offers to take their child away … it is almost a relief.”

Global March Against Child Labour, a worldwide network of trade unions, teachers’ and civil society organisations working to eliminate and prevent all forms of child labour, has reported that a 2010 study showed that “a staggering 1.8 million children aged 5 to 17 years worked in cocoa farms of Ivory Coast and Ghana at the cost of their physical, emotional, cognitive and moral well-being.”

“Trafficking in children is real. Gabon, for example, is considered an Eldorado and draws a lot of West African immigrants who traffic children,” Gabon’s Social Affairs Director-General Mélanie Mbadinga Matsanga told a conference on preventing child trafficking held in Congo’s southern city of Pointe Noire in 2012.

Gabon is primarily a destination and transit country for children and women who are subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2011 human trafficking report.

In Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, a study of child poverty showed that over 70 percent of children are not registered at birth while more than 30 percent experience severe educational deprivation. According to UNICEF Nigeria, about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.

“These boys and girls, some as young as 13-years-old, serve in the ranks of terror groups like Boko Haram, often participating  in suicide operations, and act as spies,” Hillary Akingbade, a Nigerian independent conflict management expert, told IPS.

“Girls here are often forced into sexual slavery while many other African children are abducted or recruited by force, with others joining out of desperation, believing that armed groups offer their best chance for survival,” she added.

Akingbade’s remarks echo the reality of poverty which also faces children in the Central African Republic, where an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 boys and girls became members of armed groups following an outbreak of a bloody civil war in the central African nation in December 2012, according to Save the Children.

Violence plagued the Central African Republic when the country’s Muslim Seleka rebels seized control of the country’s capital Bangui in March 2013, prompting a backlash by the largely Christian militia.

A 2013 report by Save the Children stated that in the Central African Republic, children as young as eight were being recruited by the country’s warring parties, with some of the children forcibly conscripted while others were impelled by poverty.

Last year, the United Nations reported that the recruitment of children in South Sudan’s on-going civil war was “rampant”, estimating that there were 11,000 children serving in both rebel and government armies, some of who had volunteered but others forced by their parents to join armed groups with the hopes of changing their economic fortunes for the better.

Meanwhile, back in the Tongogara refugee camp, Aminata has resigned herself. “I have descended into worse poverty since I came here in the company of other fleeing Congolese and, for many children like me here at the camp, poverty remains the order of the day.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

Zambian cotton grower sitting on his bales. Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market. Credit: Nebert Mulenga/IPS

By Haidee Swanby
MELVILLE, South Africa, Jun 15 2015 (IPS)

Genetically modified (GM) cotton has been produced globally for almost two decades, yet to date only three African countries have grown GM cotton on a commercial basis – South Africa, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

African governments have been sceptical of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for decades and have played a key role historically in ensuring that international law – the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety – takes a precautionary stance towards genetic engineering in food and agriculture.

They have also imposed various restrictions and bans on the cultivation and importation of GMOs, including on genetically modified (GM) food aid.

But now resistance to GM cultivation is crumbling as a number of other African countries such as Malawi, Ghana, Swaziland and Cameroon appear to be on the verge of allowing their first cultivation of GM cotton, with Nigeria and Ethiopia planning to follow suit in the next two to three years.“Scrutiny of actual experiences [with GM cotton] reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production”

Some African governments and local cotton producers have high hopes that GM technology will boost African competitiveness in the dog-eat-dog world that characterises the global cotton market.

At the moment African cotton productivity is declining – it now stands at only half the world average – while global productivity is increasing. The promise of improving productivity and reducing pesticide use through the adoption of GM cotton is thus compelling.

However, African leaders and cotton producers need to take a close look at how GM cotton has fared in South Africa and Burkina Faso to date, particularly its socioeconomic impact on smallholder farmers.

Scrutiny of actual experiences reveals a tragic tale of crippling debt, appalling market prices and a technology prone to failure in the absence of very specific and onerous management techniques, which are not suited to smallholder production.

As stated by a farmer during a Malian public consultation on GMOs, “What’s the point of encouraging us to increase yields with GMOs when we can’t get a decent price for what we already produce?”

In Burkina Faso, the tide turned against GM cotton after just five seasons as low yields and low quality fibres persisted. In South Africa, GM cotton brought devastating debts to smallholders and the local credit institution went bust. Last season, smallholders contributed to less than three percent of South Africa’s total production.

In Malawi, Monsanto has already applied to the government for a permit to commercialise Bollgard II, its GM pest resistant cotton, to which there has been a strong reaction from civil society and an alliance of organisations has submitted substantive objections.

Even Malawi’s cotton industry, the Cotton Development Trust (CDT), has publically voiced its concerns over a number of issues, including inadequate field trials, the high cost of GM seed and related inputs, and blurred intellectual property arrangements.

In addition, CDT has expressed unease over the potential development of pest resistance and the inevitable applications of herbicide chemicals.

Regional economic communities (RECs), such as the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), are also key players in readying their member states for the commercialisation of and trade in GM cotton, through harmonised biosafety policies. Together COMESA and ECOWAS incorporate 34 countries in Africa.

The COMESA Policy on Biotechnology and Biosafety was adopted in February 2014 and member states validated the implementation plan in March 2015.

The ECOWAS Biosafety Policy has been through an arduous process for more than a decade now and pronounced conflicts between trade imperatives and safety checks have stalled agreement between stakeholders. However, recent reports indicate that agreement between member states and donor parties has been reached and a final draft of the Biosafety Policy will soon be published.

Experiments and open field trials with GM cotton have been running for many years in a number of African countries and are increasingly at a stage where applications for commercial release are imminent.

However, there are many obstacles to the birth of a new GM era in Africa, chief among them the fact that this high-end technology is simply not appropriate to resource-poor farmers operating on tiny pieces of land, together with fierce opposition from civil society and sometimes also from governments.

Attempts by the biotech industry to impose policies that pander to investors’ desires at the expense of environmental and human safety may be easier to realise at the regional level, through the trade-friendly RECs. This is where many biotech industry resources and efforts are currently being channelled.

Despite whatever legal environments may be implemented to enable the introduction of GM cotton regionally or nationally, the fact remains that Africa’s cotton farmers are operating in a difficult global sector – prices are erratic and distorted by unfair subsidies in the North, institutional support for their activities is often lacking, and high input costs are already annihilating profit margins.

Fighting for the introduction of more expensive technologies that have already proven themselves technologically unsound in a smallholder environment is deeply irresponsible and short-sighted.

It is time that African governments turn their resources to improving the local environments in which cotton producers operate, including institutional and infrastructural support that can bring long-term sustainability to the sector, without placing further burdens and vulnerability on some of the most marginalised people in the world.

Civil society actions will continue to vehemently oppose and challenge the false solutions promised by GM cotton and will insist on just trading environments and true and sustainable upliftment for African cotton producers.

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

* This opinion piece is based on the author’s more extensive paper titled Cottoning on to the Lie, published by the African Centre for Biodiversity, June 2015

Excerpt:

In a collaborative effort between the University of Michigan, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, a teaching hospital and other medical groups, Ghana has launched its first-ever training programme in emergency medicine and nursing.

Some 15 specialist-emergency physicians, trained in the programme, are already working in hospitals in the Ashanti, Greater Accra and Northern regions. Some 35 trained nurses have been posted to facilities across eight regions in the country.

The project emerged in response to the Accra Sports Stadium disaster of May 9, 2001 at the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium. Two popular teams were scheduled to play and trouble was anticipated. After the home side scored two late goals, the losing team’s fans began tossing plastic seats and bottles onto the pitch. Police responded by throwing tear gas into the crowd, sparking a stampede which led to the deaths from compressive asphyxia of 127 people.

Some gates were locked, preventing escape. The medical staff at the stadium had already gone home. “It was the longest and darkest night in Africa soccer history,” wrote Kent Mensah in goal.com

Authorities were blamed in an official inquiry with over-reacting, reckless behavior and indiscriminate firing of plastic bullets and tear gas. Six officers were accused of dishonesty and failure to take quick action.

A hearing on the incident failed to find any guilty parties but Ghanaians remember the disaster on May 9 each year. A monument “I Am My Brother’s Keeper”, mounted at the stadium, recalls the 127 lives that were lost.

In response to public pressure, a national Accident and Emergency Center was built in Kumasi. The Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons approached the Department of Emergency Medicine at Michigan University and a partnership was developed.

Prior to this new programme, most emergency care centers were staffed by medical officers with no formal training in Emergency Medicine. There were “casualty departments” in the larger hospitals but staffing was inadequate and relatively junior. Ambulance services are confined to regional capitals and are virtually non-existent in rural areas.

The training will “improve the provision of emergency medical care in Ghana through innovative and sustainable physician, nursing, and medical student training programs,” Michigan University wrote on its website. “These programs will increase the number of qualified emergency health care workers retained over time in areas where they are most needed. “

Funding for the project comes from the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center which is reported to be investing 130 million dollars in emergency medicine capacity across the continent.

Fifty 50 emergency nursing trainees are expected to complete their training by 2016, with 20 emergency medical technicians having been trained in triaging, resuscitation and acute care management.

The steady nation of Ghana could be heading for a painful train wreck as government borrowing raises the level of foreign debt to sky-high levels.

Last month it was announced that President John Mahama had signed on to a nearly one-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund. To service the loan, the government will be forced to impose austerity measures very likely to hurt Ghanaian citizens. These include increases in fuel prices, a freeze on hiring public sector workers and an end to energy subsidies.

The plan will be presented to the IMF’s board for approval in April, with the first payment of about $100 million to be made shortly after.

According to Akwasi Sarpong, analyst for BBC Africa, the bailout was considered necessary for the restoration of investor confidence in a struggling economy beset by crippling electricity black-outs.

Then, on the heels of the IMF bailout, more borrowing was announced. State-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) is close to signing a 700-million-dollar loan from private commercial lenders led by commodity trader Trafigura as part of plans to recapitalize for expansion, its chief executive said.

It’s the largest loan by the GNPC since the start of oil production in 2010 which many had cheered as a harbinger of prosperity for all.

Unfortunately for Ghana, the world is awash with oil at some of the lowest prices per barrel seen in years. In fact, the world is running out of storage for the oil that has already been pumped.

The mountainous borrowing was defended by Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur who pooh-poohed the figure of one billion as insignificant. “940 million dollars over a three year period is not a lot of money, it is just about 300 million dollars a year,” he told regional ministers at a conference in Cape-Coast.

“Now our infrastructure requirements are in the region of about five billion a year, so infrastructure alone in overwhelmingly bigger than the resources we are receiving from the IMF.”

But critics of the mounting loans are worried.

At a press conference in early January, Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu attacked the ballooning of the public debt stock going from 2.6 billion in 2008 to 19.7 billion today.

“Last year at this time the burden for every Ghanaian was 582 dollars. One year on, the debt per capita has increased by 40 percent. No thanks to “yentie obi ara” (we are not listening to anyone) government.

What is the most important issue in Ghana today? asked Stephen Nyarko in Ghanaweb. “It is four letters long. Yes it is DEBT, and it is the unsustainable type.”

Nyarko went on: “Not long ago Ghana had a positive economic future according to the World Bank and IMF. The narrative of Ghana Rising was all over the international financial press. Ghana’s once mighty Ghana new Cedi has now achieved infamy as the worse performing currency in the world. The slumping currency is fuelling inflation. The impact on citizens economic wellbeing has become so that well-meaning citizens who invested in the new Ghana Cedi in 2007, have seen their wealth and savings totally wiped out.

“If we are to get over our current unsustainable debt burden we need to restart the debate about the break neck speed at which Ghana has been borrowing money and using its natural resources, oil, gold, Cocoa, as collateral The old models of just borrowing yourself out of poverty and inefficiencies do not fit.”

40-year-old Alima Asigri stands by a shea tree with logs ready to be transported for processing into charcoal. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
TAMALE, Ghana, Jul 10 2014 (IPS)

The shea tree, a traditional African food plant, represents a major source of income for women in Ghana’s Northern, Upper West and Upper East regions, but they are helping to destroy the very resource that gives them money by cutting it down to produce charcoal.

An estimated 900,000 rural women are involved in the shea sector in northern Ghana, mostly collecting the tree’s fruit to transform it into butter. Shea butter production contributes about 18 million dollars annually to the country’s economy.

One such woman is 40-year-old Alima Asigri from Bagrugu, a community in the Karaka district of the northern region of Ghana, who, together with her four children, is fully engaged in the harvesting of shea fruit which she turns into butter for eating and cooking because it is rich in vitamins A, E and F. The butter is also used as a body cream.

On average, the family produces more than 20 kg of butter every two weeks during the peak season from April to August, earning 1,100 cedi (394 dollars) which go towards the family’s upkeep and the children’s educational needs.“Sometimes I think about how fast the resource [shea] is depleting but I have no income-generating venture other than that. It’s my livelihood, especially during the off-farming season” – Alima Asigri

Today, the shea tree is increasingly being used for its wood and not its fruit. “We also cut shea trees and process its wood into charcoal. The charcoal business is booming because of buyer demand for charcoal from shea trees rather than ordinary trees. They believe it is robust, lasts longer and is cheaper than liquefied petroleum gas (LPG),” Asigri explained.

A United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report on ‘Woodfuel Use in Ghana: An Outlook for the Future’, indicated that about 69 percent of all urban households in Ghana use charcoal for cooking and heating, and the annual per capita consumption is around 180 kg.

According to the report, total annual consumption is about 700,000 tonnes, 30 percent of which is consumed in the country’s capital Accra. Fuel wood accounts for about 71 percent of total primary energy supply and about 60 percent of final energy demand. An estimated 2.2 million families depend on charcoal for household chores and some 600,000 small-scale enterprises depend on fuel wood or charcoal as their main sources of energy.

However, this is taking its toll on the country’s trees. In an interview with IPS, Iddi Zakaria, Coordinator of Shea Network Ghana (SNG) recalled that some 40 years ago in the Salaga district of the Northern Region, shea trees covered the entire area but now, due to constant usage and no conscious attempt  to replant, the natural resource has been depleted.

“It used to be a taboo to cut shea and other economic trees. One needed to seek permission from the chief’s palace before, but it’s different now”, he said.

He noted that a recent study by the Savanna Alliance research company had revealed that Act 571, which established the Forestry Commission of Ghana as a corporate body and mandated the commission to protect and regulate the utilisation of forest and timber resources, failed to include shea, dawadawa and baobab trees.

“The policy and institutional shortfall in the management and conservation of the sector has led to continued harvesting of shea trees indiscriminately for fuel wood and charcoal,” Zakaria told IPS, adding that even though laudable efforts are being made by stakeholders to reap the benefits from the shea sector, the future sustainability of the raw material is questionable.

“What players are asking of government are legal reforms to protect resources,” he said.

Ebenezer Djaney Djagletey, Northern Regional Director of the Forestry Commission confirmed that shea trees are not among the protected tree species listed in the forestry regulations.

Djagletey said that he was concerned about the depletion of resources due to activities such as infrastructure development, sand weaning, bush burning and farming, all of which involve the clearing of vegetation.

“Some 80 out of 100 sacks of charcoal produced are from the shea tree, the other 20 come from the neem tree and the dawadawa tree, the fruit of which is used as a cooking spice”, he said.

To discourage people from using charcoal and other fuel wood, the Ghanaian government has announced plans to distribute 50,000 six-kilogramme gas cylinders and cooking stoves to some rural areas under its Rural Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Promotion programme. According to

Ghana’s Minister of Energy and Petroleum Armah Kofi Buah, 1,500 cylinders have already been delivered.

However, Collins Kyei Boafoh, an outreach specialist with ACDI/VOCA (Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance) described the government policy as a “bad” policy and expressed scepticism about the initiative because of periodic increases in the price of LPG.

“The question is who refills the gas cylinder when it is finished. It cost about 10 cedi (3.59 dollars) to buy gas and relatively few rural folk have enough money and will opt for charcoal or fuel wood instead of gas,” he said.

He advises the government and development partners to support women with alternative livelihood skills, such as soap-making, and build more shea processing centres with guaranteed prices for shea butter to reduce the charcoal business.

Alima Asigri in Bagrugu could be one of the women to benefit if such support were to materialise and she is already aware of the harm her activity is causing to the environment.

“Sometimes I think about how fast the resource is depleting but I have no income-generating venture other than that. It’s my livelihood, especially during the off-farming season,” she told IPS. “Besides, thanks to the shea business, I have been able to educate my first son through university education and he’s now doing his further studies in Belgium.”

By Miriam Gathigah
MEXICO CITY, Jun 9 2014 (IPS)

Africa’s climate change legislative frameworks, though a step in the right direction, have come under fire for not being ambitious enough to meet the challenge of a changing climate.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an emerging global actor in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), has been criticised because its REDD+ projects are not supported by a legally binding framework, leaving forest communities in a legal void and vulnerable to economic exploitation.

But Jean-Claude Atningamu, a legislator in the DRC, admitted that while his country may have strategies and policies in place, a law on REDD+ is yet to be developed.

“We have just begun these processes and we are grappling with many challenges,” he told IPS.

He said that although indigenous communities were not benefiting from climate change financing, it was not because of a lack of political goodwill to do so.

“We do not have the full support from the international community who are not providing the funding necessary to help the people of the DRC meet the economic challenges that they are facing,” he said at the conclusion of the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE International) summit that was held in Mexico from Jun. 6 to 8.

He said that while the DRC has the second-largest forest cover in the world “we are yet to receive REDD+ financing.”

“We are expecting to receive the first 60 million dollars from REDD+. With our expansive forest cover we should be receiving at least one billion dollars in a year.

“We need to have mechanisms set up by parliament to help African countries to access REDD+ financing. Without access to this fund, we cannot implement the policies that we are discussing at this GLOBE Summit,” Atningamu added.

He pointed out that in Africa the forest was the wealth of the people, “we need it to feed our people, to get heat, to cook. You cannot tell your wife to stop using firewood and not provide an alternative source of energy.”

But a lack of access to climate financing is not the only issue of concern for the African block of legislators.

The resolutions agreed upon at the summit also raised concerns. These include an agreement to deliver robust legislation in support of sustainable development, particularly climate change, natural capital and forest/REDD as well as strengthening legislators´ capacity to effectively exercise their oversight responsibilities, especially over the executive.

Simon Asimah, chair of the African block at the summit and also GLOBE International vice-president for Africa, said that the resolutions were not comprehensive enough to meet the legislative gaps that Africa is facing.

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The Ghanaian legislator said that “a few clauses will be added to the final resolution to ensure that the African region the position of Africa in climate security is fully represented.”

These recommendations were accepted and clauses include the suggestion that all countries in Africa should have GLOBE chapters in their respective national legislatures and establish an African regional secretariat at GLOBE International to be founded in one of the countries of Africa. There are currently only  four globe international chapters in Africa – in Ghana, Nigeria, the DRC and South Africa,

This is key for coordination purposes, as well as to enhance the sharing of best practices on climate change mitigation and adaptation across Africa, according to the legislators.

Although the summit resolutions encouraged the development of legislation on natural capital, Asimah said that the African block had pushed to have “all countries, particularly those in Africa, to legislate on effective climate change laws, and in these laws, recognise and incorporate natural capital accounting concepts in accounting for their natural resources as part of their total national capital.”

Joyce Laboso, Kenya’s deputy speaker in the national assembly, also raised concerns over changing global perspectives and the impact they were having on Africa.

Laboso told IPS that fossil fuel is increasingly being discouraged at a time when many African countries such as Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola are discovering oil “and now we are being told that we are now moving into renewable energy that is going to be subsidised. How are we then going to achieve sustainable development if Africa cannot rely on its natural wealth?”

The Ghanaian delegation emphasised that developed nations such as the United States and emerging economies like China and Mexico were emitting the most carbon yet Africa was not expected to exploit its forests and become industrialised in the same way Brazil had.

Asimah said that Africa was also not being compensated enough or in some cases not at all for its efforts to keep people from exploiting the forests. “Africa must find a way to develop. But this is not a blame game, climate change is a global problem and it requires global solutions,” he said.

But Jacob F. Mudenda, speaker of Zimbabwe’s national assembly said: “Industrialised countries must submit themselves to climate change conventions, without which there will not be any global synergies.”

The African legislators from countries including, Nigeria, Cape Verde Islands, Sudan and Uganda, said that they were considering making significant financial demands on multinationals that were exploiting Africa’s natural wealth without impacting significantly on their GDP.

In Zimbabwe, Mudenda said that environment laws have now been anchored in the constitution as human rights “anyone who feels that they are being exploited can file a case at the constitutional courts.”

Mudenda further said that besides Zimbabwe, other countries like Botswana are learning from Norway and imposing revenue clauses on multinationals investing in their countries that they must improve the wealth of these African countries through a 51 to 49 percent benefit sharing ratio where the host takes the majority.

In spite of the concerns raised, African legislators have said that the summit was a step in the right direction, particularly as they continued to forge global partnerships on natural resources now that various global processes and goals were coming to an end, especially the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, and new ones were beginning to take shape.

Community-based volunteer Zainab Abubakar (r) administers the first dose of amodiaqune to one-year-old Inusa as he sits on his mother, Ayishetu Hamdellah. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
ZANDUA, Ghana, Apr 29 2014 (IPS)

Zainab Abubakar saves children’s lives. A few years ago she was just an ordinary woman with no medical training living in rural Kpilo in Ghana’s Northern Region. 

Here the nearest medical clinic is a 12-km walk away and serves the 20 to 40 communities within this electoral area. Across Northern Region, less than 10 percent of communities have a local clinic. However, in the region’s capital, Tamale, 19.4 percent of communities have local clinics.

Now, instead of making the long journey to a crowded health centre, mothers bring their sick children to Abubakar. When she sees children with symptoms of sweating, weakness and a high temperature she’s able to differentiate between a case of pneumonia and malaria. She’s also able to correctly treat and provide medication for these illnesses. “Since these CBVs started working in this community the health of children here has improved. We no longer record deaths.” -- chief of Kpilo, Mahama Abdullah

“In a situation like that I bathe the child and then I dissolve one tablet of amodiaquine in a small clean cup and give it to the child to drink,” Abubakar tells IPS.

She then provides the mother with medication. “In order that the medication is administered at the right time, I do a follow-up to ensure that the child is given the drug,” she adds.

Abubakar is one of 16,500 community-based volunteers (CBVs) trained by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to manage common childhood diseases in their communities which lack access to healthcare facilities. GHS also supplies them with medication to treat these illnesses. While medication is free, most people pay about 20 cents as a token payment for the drug administered.

This rural health initiative, called the Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM), is supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

Since 2007, volunteers from the four provinces here that have limited healthcare facilities — Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Central Regions — have been trained to reduce the high rate of child mortality. Pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria account for two out of five child mortality cases.

Alhassan Abukari, ICCM assistant project coordinator in GHS’s Northern Regional Health Directorate, says they are unable to provide medical care to most communities due to lack of resources and personnel.

In Ghana’s Northern Region it was harder to provide services, Abukari says, because communities are hard to reach and usually are cut off because of flooding during the rainy season.

“A sizeable number of people in peri-urban communities of the region do not have access to health facilities so these volunteers are really bridging the very wide gap that existed,” he tells IPS.

“We seriously lack personnel; for instance in the case of a community in Saboba district in the Northern Region of Ghana, there is only one community health nurse taking care of 20 communities and she is supposed to visit these communities,” he says. 

The CBVs promote health literacy and behaviour during house-to-house visits. During the visits Abubakar explains the importance of exclusive breastfeeding, sleeping under a mosquito net, and washing one’s hands with soap. She refers all severe or complicated cases to the nearest health facility.

Abubakar and the other volunteers are not paid for their work. But, she says, she feels happy saving lives. She says she is motivated by the fact that every child belongs to the community and it’s her passion to serve the community.

According to UNICEF, community management of childhood pneumonia could result in a 70 percent reduction in under-five mortality.

ICCM believes that malaria can also be reduced through the initiative. It is estimated that malaria-specific under-five mortality can be brought down by 40 to 60 percent, and severe malaria morbidity by 53 percent.

Abukari says that the timely intervention of these volunteers, who serve as “doctors” in their various communities, has helped prevent cases of child deaths.

Ayishetu Hamdellah, a widow and mother of four, from Kpilo says having Abubakar around is a huge assistance. It means she no longer has to walk long distances to get treatment for her one-year-old son, Inusa, who used to contract malaria frequently.

Now, Inusa is able to receive immediate treatment if he gets malaria.

The chief of Kpilo, Mahama Abdullah, tells IPS that initiative is so successful he would like it extended to include treatment for adults as well.

“Since these CBVs started working in this community the health of children here has improved.

“We no longer record deaths.”

Dunwaa Soayare, 45, shows her savings book that tracks her weekly contributions to the Asong-taaba Women’s Group, a cooperative in Denugu, Upper East Region, northern Ghana. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
DENUGU, Ghana, Feb 28 2014 (IPS)

Dunwaa Soayare, 45, a smallholder farmer, widow and mother of five had the sort of economic profile that meant she was denied access to credit from Ghana’s mainstream banking institutions.

She had no collateral, no bank account and found it impossible to provide three meals a day for her children, let alone ensure that they stayed in school.

But after joining the Asong-taaba Women’s Group, a cooperative in Denugu, Upper East Region, northern Ghana, her life has changed dramatically. Not only has she been able to provide for her family by moving them from their mud hut into the brick house she built, she’s also been able to provide tertiary education for children and has seen two of them qualify as teachers.  “This is a small project with a big impact…even though we are poor we can save." -- Solomon Atinga, programme manager of the Presbyterian Agricultural Station at Garu Tempane

“Aside from taking care of my children’s education I have expanded my farming from half a hectare to two hectares. I now cultivate one hectare of maize, half a hectare of millet as well as half a hectare of groundnut,” she told IPS.

Soayare explained that from one hectare of land she harvests 15  bags of 84 kilograms each, which she sells for 70,000 Ghana Cedis (380 dollars) – a huge sum.

The group, which started in 2008, raised 5,000 dollars at the end of 2013 from the weekly contribution of its 25 members – almost all smallholder farmers and the breadwinners in their families.

Every Monday, the women meet under a shea tree and pay their contributions of between 50 cents to five dollars. They are allowed to apply for a loan, which many use to fund alternative businesses if their crops fail.

For Soayare it’s meant that she and her family are no longer vulnerable during the lean season. In Upper East Region the rainy season usually starts in May and ends in October. However, changes in the weather pattern now mean that the rains fall much later.

So when the rains don’t come, instead of suffering through a crop failure, Soayare borrows money from the group and makes soap and buys vegetables for resale.

“I don’t know what I would have done without this savings initiative,” Soayare said.

But Asong-taaba is one of 500 groups in the district that involve almost 12,000 people, mostly women, scattered across the Garu Tempane district in Upper East Region. These cooperatives were started under a Care International project called Enhanced Savings and Credit Association for Poverty Eradication.

Soayare and these thousands of women are living better lives thanks to the savings cooperatives.

A Ghana Statistics Services 2011 survey shows that 31 percent of households in Ghana are headed by women. Regional director of the National Population Council, Zangbalum-Bomahe Amadu, said that due to polygamous practices in northern Ghana some men refuse to take care of their children, often leaving the burden to the women.

“The situation becomes bad if the man dies…most women, who are mostly illiterate in the rural areas strive to take care of almost all the needs of their children,” he told IPS.

Musah Abubakari, deputy coordinating director of Garu Tempane district, told IPS that the cooperatives have helped reduce poverty among many families in the area.

“Most of them are engaged in different forms of economic activities. Many of them are concerned about the education of their children, so school enrolment has also increased in the last three years,” he said.

Collins Kyei Boafoh, an outreach specialist at the Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA), told IPS that the village savings and loans concept played a critical role in the livelihoods of women and was also a climate change adaptation measure.

“It is an open secret that for the past five years the savannah belt of Ghana, consisting of Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions, continue to experience low rains and long drought periods. This is not supportive of farming, which employs about 80 percent of people in the region,” he explained.

Boafoh said the women’s cooperatives are now using their funds to venture into other activities like petty trading to supplement their incomes.

“After the short farming periods, the women gather their monies in the form of community savings and offer themselves petty loans for trading, aggregation and processing. This gives them a sustained income and job security,” he said.

Boafoh suggested that the initiative must be adopted, modernised and expanded by the government as a poverty-reduction initiative in the four poorest regions in the country namely Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Central Regions.

Solomon Atinga is programme manager of the Presbyterian Agricultural Station at Garu Tempane – another Care International cooperative.

He said the initiative, which extends to about 100 communities in the district, has had a positive impact on the lives of women here. They are able to take care of their children and support their extended family members.

“In fact the living standard of the women and their families has improved tremendously,” he added.

“This is a small project with a big impact…even though we are poor, we can save. The least amount a group usually raises at the end of the year is 2,000 dollars,” he said.

Model of Hope activist Sulemana Sulley lives positively with HIV and teaches others how to do it. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
TAMALE, Feb 19 2014 (IPS)

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Zainab Salifu queued at the fevers unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital in northern Ghana. Earlier in the day, the 18-year-old had been diagnosed HIV positive.

Despite the kind counselling offered by senior nurse Felicity Bampo, Salifu felt her world was crumbling. She wanted to die.

As Salifu told IPS, she began sobbing hysterically and dropped to the floor. People gawked at her. Then a middle-aged man approached her, took her hand and led her to a quiet corner.

“This is not the time for weeping,” he told Salifu. “Accept your condition. HIV is not a death warrant. Concentrate on taking your ARVs, eat well and exercise.”

“You are not alone, anyone can get the virus. Look at me,” he added.

Sulley works for Model of Hope, a volunteer group set up by Catholic Relief Services. Its 19 members in Tamale were trained as community counsellors by the Ghana AIDS Commission.

With a population of 540,000, bustling Tamale, 600 kms north of Accra, the capital, is the country’s fourth-largest city and hub of the northern region.

Every Tuesday and Friday, designated days at Tamale Hospital for HIV testing and ARV collection, volunteers are at hand to help people deal with a fresh diagnosis and check how patients on treatment are coping.

Bampo tests and counsels an average of six to 10 young people daily, most through doctors’ referrals. Few come by their own choice, she told IPS.

“Voluntary testing is not popular among young people because they fear being stigmatised”, she said.

Among sexually active youth aged 15-24, just four out of 10 women and only two out of 10 men have ever been tested, according to the 2011 Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).

“Most people are aware of HIV and some of its symptoms but few know that ARVs will boost their immune system so they can live long,” said Bampo.

Low prevalence, high stigma

Ghana has a relatively low HIV prevalence of 1.4 percent, down from 2.3 percent in 2001.

Low prevalence brings its own problems: lack of familiarity with managing the disease, high levels of stigma and low levels of tolerance.

Just six percent of women and 15 percent of men aged 15 and above accept people living with HIV, according to the MICS.

Salifu, a final year trainee at a vocational school, told IPS that she was infected by her one and only boyfriend. She broke up with him but has not yet mustered the courage to tell him or her family about testing HIV positive in December 2013.

Like Salifu, seven out of 10 women would hide that a family member is infected with the AIDS virus.

Sulley blames the widespread perception that the virus brings immediate death and that one can contract HIV by associating with infected persons.

“We have stopped all our free testing events because the test kits have been directed to pregnant women.” -- Nuhu Musah, coordinator of the HIV and AIDS Support Unit
In 2013, Sulley counselled about 200 young people newly diagnosed, most of them students. Many had suicidal thoughts, and Sulley and his colleagues work hard to teach them to live positively and happily.

Sulley told IPS that several teenagers have committed suicide in recent years after learning they were HIV positive.

Nuhu Musah, coordinator of the HIV and AIDS Support Unit in Ghana’s northern region, regrets that the youth-oriented Know Your Status Campaign has been halted for lack of test kits.

“We have stopped all our free testing events because the test kits have been directed to pregnant women,” he told IPS.

The campaign held monthly outreach programmes in communities and at national events, like Independence Day, to encourage testing.

According to Musah, the northern region has four youth-friendly centres for HIV testing and sexual health but for lack of resources they are not working.

This will not improve the dismal figures of HIV testing and knowledge among young people.

Nationwide, only four out of 10 young men and women aged 15-24 have comprehensive knowledge about AIDS, the MICS found.

Northern Ghana has the lowest comprehensive knowledge for men and women, 17 percent, compared to 47 percent in Greater Accra.

MICS data show that Ghana is falling short of its target of having 95 percent of youth aged 15-24 fully informed about HIV by 2015.

“Comprehensive knowledge of HIV prevention and transmission is still low in Ghana, despite the many years of public sensitisation,” concluded the survey. “Concerted efforts should be directed at young people as many continue to get infected due to low levels of comprehensive HIV knowledge.”

Jose Ricardo is one of the few sweet potato breeders in Mozambique. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
ACCRA, Ghana, Jan 2 2014 (IPS)

For the few plant breeders in Africa like Vivian Oduro, working for an international research institution is an obvious choice, with prestige and benefits any agricultural scientist would find hard to decline.

But Oduro – a sweet potato breeder – is staying put. She will use her expertise in Africa for the farmers with whom she now shares a special bond because she understands their challenges intimately."We have to transform African agriculture by training our scientists who can solve the problems of food crops, and by training them well in Africa for Africa." -- Prof. Eric Danquah

A PhD student at the prestigious West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) in the Ghanaian capital, Oduro is part of a group of new thinkers in crop breeding who see fresh opportunities in Africa.

“Working overseas is attractive, but so is Africa when you understand what needs to be done,” Oduro told IPS.

She said her passion for breeding sweet potatoes has led her to develop 30 different strains after consulting smallholder farmers in Ghana. By end of 2014, Oduro anticipates the completion of field trials leading to the development of 50 varieties for multiplication and release to farmers.

“When you handle a crop for a long time, you develop love for it. I call my progenies my babies and would not want to leave this for something else or go elsewhere. My training made me better understand the challenges faced by African farmers, something I could have missed had I trained elsewhere,” said Oduro.

Accelerating Africa’s food production has brought more farmland into play, but often without a matching increase in crop yields, a problem scientists blame on climate change, low adaptation of high-yield crop varieties, poor soils and more importantly, lack of plant and seed breeders with an intimate knowledge of what Africa needs, says Prof. Eric Danquah, the director of WACCI.

Established in 2007 to train plant breeders over a 10-year period following a grant from AGRA, WACCI is aiming to become the foremost centre for the training of plant breeders for Africa. It may not be far from its goal, having made history by graduating eight PhD students in a single discipline – plant breeding – on the same day in July 2013. Currently, 54 students are at various stages of PhD training in plant breeding.

“We need political will to get the training right. We cannot adopt a partisan approach to this because this is too important to toy with. We have for too long paid lip service to agriculture,” said Danquah. “Our scientists can think like any other plant breeders anywhere in the world and a number of people around the world are looking for collaborators to access grants. Our scientists are there because they are strategic thinkers and team players, and are results-driven.”

Data on the number of plant breeders in Africa is outdated. Ideally, Danquah said, for every crop in every agro-ecological region, a country requires two well-trained plant breeders who can use both conventional and modern techniques to develop new crops.

It costs up to 140,000 dollars to train a plant breeder to PhD level (a four-year programme) at WACCI, a cost Danquah said has been criticised as too high but is justified in keeping to high standards that produce high-quality scientists.

Africa, Danquah told IPS, will continue to lose its few seed breeders to foreign institutions at the expense of its agricultural productivity and competitiveness unless there is investment in the training and retention of plant and seed technology specialists.

“We have to transform African agriculture by training our scientists who can solve the problems of food crops, and by training them well in Africa for Africa,” Danquah told IPS, lamenting that while African governments have agreed to invest at least one percent of their budgets in agriculture, many have not followed through.

“Unless we invest at least one percent of our budgets into science and development to train plant breeders Africa needs urgently, we are bound to fail,” Danquah said, calling for national research funds instituted by law and governed by independent apolitical institutions and not by politicians.

WACCI, recently named a beneficiary of the World Bank’s Africa Centres of Excellence project, has launched a 30-million-dollar endowment to bankroll the future training of plant breeders in Africa.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has for more than five years funded more than 500 MSc and PhD students in various agricultural disciplines in 15 universities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

AGRA’s president, Jane Karuku, said the graduates have to date released 66 improved varieties of beans, cowpeas, maize, cassava, sorghum and groundnuts. Using a north-south, south-south collaboration approach, the training has ensured scientists are familiar with local tastes and preferences to develop crop varieties suitable for farmers and consumers.

“The benefits of this approach are manifold. It is considerably cheaper than it is to send the scientists over to Europe or to the U.S., ” Karuku said, adding “These students are well-versed in local problems and can offer viable as well as sustainable solutions, be it crop breeding, soil health management, policy or enterprise development.”

AGRA has invested in a programme to increase the number of crop breeders in Africa. Mozambique is one of the beneficiary countries, where Jose Ricardo is one of the few sweet potato breeders. Ricardo has helped develop and release 15 sweet potato varieties suited for Mozambique, where sweet potatoes are the third most important crop after maize and cassava.

According to AGRA’s inaugural Africa Agriculture Status Report (AASR), launched in September 2013 in Mozambique, there is a serious lack of data on existing agricultural skills capacity in Africa. The AASR seeks to provide a more accurate picture of agriculture statistics in Africa. The report shows that Africa has the lowest research capacity of any part of the world, with only 70 researchers per million population compared to 2,640 researchers and 4,380 researchers in North America and Japan, respectively.

“It is not only the numbers that are needed, the quality of scientists has to improve to match the changes in the agriculture landscape,” the report noted.

Maize breeder Pedro Fato, who works for the Agricultural Research Institute of Mozambique (IIAM), returned to Mozambique after earning his PhD because he believes his skills are critical for his country. Fato has worked on a maize variety tolerant to diseases and limited water, in a nation where droughts and floods are a recurrent problem for farmers.

A confined field trial of genetically modified cowpeas in Ghana. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
SAVELUGU, Ghana, Dec 26 2013 (IPS)

A battle over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is building in Ghana after the government recently completed regulations that could allow modified cowpeas and other selected crops to be grown following confined field trials (CFT).

Civil society groups and at least one opposition party have positioned themselves to fight against the introduction of GMOs."The state should support sustainable farming by providing the necessary resources, infrastructure and enough technical personnel." -- Dr. Wilson Dogbe

The BT Cowpea is among three other crops – cotton, rice and sweet potatoes – which have been cleared for confined trials and evaluation. Scientists will seek to create a cowpea variety resistant to the pod borer or maruca, a species of moth that targets bean crops.

The choice of cowpeas, known elsewhere as blackeyed peas, is important because the legume plays a vital role in the nutritional needs of Ghanaians, especially those in the Northern Region. Rural families make use of the entire plant, from its leaf to the dry grain.

Ibrahim Amando, 35, a subsistence farmer at Pong-Tamale in the Savelugu district of the Northern Region of Ghana, told IPS his household depends on the crop because of its robust nature and nutritional value. He has become one of roughly 200 million people on the African continent, particularly in dry savanna areas, who cultivate and rely on the crop.

Amando complained that he spends 60 dollars to buy insecticide to spray his two-acre cowpea farm the necessary 10 times before harvest. Cymetox Super and Sumitex, the pest control products he uses, each cost six dollars for a litre.

“I spray the farm every week to reduce pests and insects, especially the maruca, and I harvest four 84-kilogramme sacks during a good season,” he said.

Ghana’s production of cowpeas, the second most important legume after groundnut, stands to increase by about 50 percent if the CFTs are successful. Crop losses could decrease by between 30 and 90 percent when the evaluation of pod borer-resistance cowpeas, also known as Barceló’s Thurigensis (BT) cowpea, is completed in the next three years.

Dr. Ibrahim Dzido Kwasi Atokple, project coordinator of the government’s CFTs, said that the project seeks to contribute to food security and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers by reducing the pod’s damage, promote grain quality and reduce seasonal crop loss.

“Pod borer infestation is a major constraint to cowpea production in Africa,” Atokple told IPS.

“In the absence of resistance genes in the cowpea germplasm, a new [biotechnological] innovation has identified a resistance gene from a bacteria species [Bacillus thuringensis]. This has been transferred into the local cowpea variety to kill the pod borer and also reduce the harmful effect of many insecticide sprays the farmers are exposed to.”

Atokple said the innovation was developed and evaluated through a joint public-private partnership with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, the African Agriculture Technology Foundation (AATF) in Kenya and the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana, as well as other institutions in Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

“From the trial the identified pod borer-resistant cowpea lines will be crossed with the commercial cowpea varieties in Ghana, such as Apagbala, Songotra, Padituya and given to farmers,” he said.

Atokple is convinced that the national annual production of cowpea – today around 205,000 metric tonnes – could be increased by 30 percent with a new GMO crop.

Dr. Prince Addae, project manager of AATF, said fears surrounding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) such as the pod borer-resistant cowpea project should be dispelled, because research suggests GMO-related products convey no ill side effects.

“I think some people do not understand the issue of GMO very well and this is because it is just an innovation to address challenges. There are many countries that had adopted and are using GMO foods,” Addae told IPS.

The plant, said Adde, would continue to be a major staple crop among Ghanaians who cannot afford to buy meat and fish.

Eric Amaning Okoree, secretary of the National Bio-Safety Committee and a deputy director of environment at the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology, said GMO technology was important to stay apace with demographic growth and counteract some effects of climate change, such as lower rainfall.

Addae said a technical advisory committee has been formed to conduct risk assessment into all GMO applications in the country.

But doubts remain.

Ali-Masmadi Jehu-Appiah, chairperson of Food Sovereignty Ghana, a civil society organisation, has called on the government to place an immediate moratorium on the cultivation, importation and consumption of genetically modified foods.

“We are making this appeal as a Ghanaian grassroots food advocacy movement, after credible reports of the start of cultivation of GM seeds in the country. Our group calls for the need for Ghanaians to clearly understand the full implications associated with the cultivation of genetically modified foods before embracing the technology,” he said.

“If [we] Africans fail to get our act together, GM patent domination of our agriculture could be far worse than the combined effects of apartheid, colonialism and slavery. Remember the words of [U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger, ‘Food is a weapon’.”

The Convention People’s Party (CPP), a smaller opposition party, has also spoken out publically against the GMO initiative.

“We are waiting some way, somehow to become guinea pigs in the hands of some scientific experimentation by people elsewhere before we think, before we come together,” said Ernesto Yeboah, a member of the party’s anti-GMO campaign.

He says research in the U.S., EU and other advanced countries has linked GMOs to sterility, cancer and birth defects.

Yeboah claims GMOs have wreaked havoc in countries like India, where he cites estimates of 125,000 suicides among rural farmers who in recent years allegedly were overcome by insurmountable debt from the purchase of expensive GMO seeds and the promise of bountiful crops.

Dr. Wilson Dogbe, a research scientist at the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, told IPS that Ghana does not need to start cultivating GMOs, because the population can feed itself by exploring other agricultural opportunities.

“There are some fundamental things we are not getting right as a country,” he said. “The state should support sustainable farming by providing the necessary resources, infrastructure and enough technical personnel.

“For example, the issue of the current farmer-agriculture extension officers’ ratio, which is currently one Agricultural Extension Officers to about 1,300 farmers, should be addressed before thinking about starting GMO,” he said.

Children and adults from Northern Region who migrate to southern Ghana in search of a living usually take up work as “Kayayeis” or porters. Courtesy: Albert Oppong-Ansah

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
ACCRA, Dec 13 2013 (IPS)

It was 20-year-old Fizer Boa who first migrated south to Ghana’s capital, Accra, to work in the local Abobloshie market as a porter or “Kayayei”.

“I agreed with my mother when she advised me to go join my friend who was working as a Kayayei in Accra. I did not object to the idea because … we hardly had three square meals a day,” she told IPS. Reduced rainfall in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo district in Ghana’s Northern Region, where Boa comes from, has resulted in low yields for the past two years, leaving her family barely able to survive.

In the city, Boa’s job involves carrying loads of goods on her head or back from one place to another for fees as low as 50 cents or as high as six dollars.

Soon after she came here, her two sisters dropped out of school and left their home to follow her and also work as Kayayeis."It is evident ... that land scarcity and soil infertility are one of the main elements pushing people off the land to seek a safe-haven in the south.” -- research scientist Dr. Wilson Dogbe

“My other siblings dropped out of school to join me in Accra because my mother could no longer pay for additional school levies, such as Parent Teachers Association fees, and school materials,” Boa said. Schooling is usually free in this West African nation, though each school charges its own additional costs and administration fees.

Combined, the sisters earn up to 30 dollars on a good day.

Kayayei is a trade often taken up by children and adults from the Northern Region who migrate to southern Ghana in search of a living. And according to Dr. Wilson Dogbe, a research scientist at the Savannah Agriculture Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, one of the major causes of this migration is the changing environment in the north.

The Northern Region is a predominantly rural-based community, and farmers there have become vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

“The problem is that the Northern Region currently is experiencing low rainfall, soil infertility, and increased temperatures as high as 47 degrees Celsius. It is evident from research conducted over the past few years that land scarcity and soil infertility are one of the main elements pushing people off the land to seek a safe-haven in the south,” he said.

The Northern Sector Action on Awareness Centre (NORSAAC), an NGO based in the Northern Region’s capital Tamale, estimates the number of Kayayei in Accra and Kumasi, a city in southern Ghana, is over 80,000.

Some of these climate refugees, who are mostly young girls between the ages of 18 and 30 sent by their families to earn an income, fetch water for people, work in chop-bars (local restaurants), and as hawkers and shop attendants.

But their existence is a precarious one. Mohammed Awal, NORSAAC’s director, told IPS that the young girls were the most vulnerable of these climate refugees as they had no place to live and mostly slept in open-air truck stops at the mercy of the weather and other threats. 

“A lot of these migrants, especially girls, return home to their families with sexually transmitted diseases,” he said, adding that many of the young women who fell pregnant were unable to trace the fathers, or experienced problems with illegal abortions.

Boa said she sometimes faced “life-threating situations like sexual harassment from men” and said she too was forced to sleep in open-air truck stops.

Dogbe said the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), established in 2010 by the government to alleviate poverty in Ghana’s north and address the north-south youth migration, had not done much to reduce migration.

“It was supposed to provide opportunities for poor peasants, especially women, to own assets … sustain their food crop production and protect the fragile eco-system of the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone. But much has not been done,” he said.

He said that 80 percent of the roads in Northern Region remained impassable and farmers still did not have the necessary machines like tractors and harvesters to make their jobs easier. He added that farmers also needed soft loans to be able to purchase the right inputs and seeds.

However, Ghana’s deputy minister of food and agriculture Ahmed Yakubu Alhassan told IPS that SADA and the Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project would ensure the region once again became Ghana’s breadbasket.

The World Bank and the U.S Agency for International Development have funded the agricultural project to the tune of 145 million dollars to develop infrastructure, such as roads and irrigation schemes, in order to improve agriculture productivity in the Accra Plains and the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.

But until this happens Boa and her sisters will keep trying to find ways to earn a living far from home.

“Hopefully, we will work hard to save money and send some to our parents,” she said. But she and her sisters dream of having a better life and being more than just porters. They hope to be able to enroll in vocational training “such as fashion design, hair dressing to be able to earn a decent as well as sustainable income.”

With a growing population and a lack of housing to meet the demand, Accra’s rental market is not a level playing field. Credit: Selorm Kwame Attikpo/IPS

By Billie McTernan
ACCRA, Dec 4 2013 (IPS)

Across Accra, Ghana’s capital city, adverts for letting property can be found all over. But for as many placards there are, you will get just as many verbal warnings from locals cautioning people to beware of swindling agents.

With a growing population and a lack of housing to meet the demand, Accra’s rental market is not a level playing field. The majority of renters struggle to keep up with the pace as they try to scrape together hundreds of dollars in rent to secure a roof over their heads.

Elvina Quaison is a marketing manager who came to this West African nation from London in 2011 hoping to start her own business. Aged 32 at the time, Quaison knew she did not want to live with family but had not anticipated just how expensive living in Accra could be.

She stayed with a friend when she first arrived and began her search after a couple of months.

“Very quickly my budget went from 200 dollars per month to 400,” Quaison tells IPS.

The daily minimum wage in Ghana is 2.50 dollars – roughly 87 dollars per month – and the average Ghanaian salary is around 400 dollars per month.

Nana Osei, a 25-year-old recent graduate, currently lives with his aunt and is looking for a place of his own.

“Rents are too high, I can only afford 150 cedis [about 75 dollars] per month,” he tells IPS.

Rental rates for a two-bedroom apartment or self-compound house close to the centre of the city can start at 200 dollars and reach as high as 2,000 dollars in more upmarket areas. Such properties are usually reserved for expat workers whose rent is paid for by their companies.

The minority leader in parliament from the New Patriotic Party, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, tells IPS: “Families in regular employment can get [rent] advances from their work places. And they survive on shoestring budgets … it’s at the [expense] of providing good schooling for their kids and providing square meals for the family.”

According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the official population in greater Accra has grown from 2.9 million in 2000 to four million in 2010, as a result of people flocking to the capital in search of better work prospects. However, the actual number of people living in the city is thought to be at least eight million.

The country has a housing deficit of approximately 1.5 to 1.7 million units. And in a city with a lack of decent accommodation available for rent, it is a homeowners market.

And accommodation is becoming more difficult for ordinary people to afford. With a rapidly growing economy – GDP growth was 15 percent in 2011 – prices are increasing at a quicker rate than wages and salaries.

In July, fuel subsidies were removed and in October there was an increase in utility prices with electricity going up by 78.9 percent and water by 52 percent. November saw a 2.5 percent increase in value added tax to 15 percent.

“Every year we are only able to deliver to the market about 40,000 [housing units],” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says. “Per year we require about 110,000, which is about 30 percent of housing needs. So there is always a deficit of about 60,000 to 70,000 per year.”

“Given that situation, demand certainly outstrips supply. In the basic law of economics wherever demand outstrips supply, the price of the commodity will shoot up,” adds Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who is also an urban planner.

“It is not as if anyone wants it that way, but it is the reality of the times.”

In 1963 a rent control act was first passed to protect tenants from unfair evictions and high rents. In July, members of parliament called on the assembly to amend the act in accordance with the current housing climate.

The move came after Salifu Ameen, MP for Wa East District in Upper West region, urged the government to initiate the national housing policy that aims to address the deficit and provide a range of housing units across the country as well as regulate prices. It has been in draft for seven years.

“For those in the middle, the new professional class, it makes your position more uncomfortable because yes now you’ve got that new white collar job and that car with air conditioning, but you can’t afford to live less than 35 to 40 minutes from your work,” Quaison points out. “You’re going to have to move further out because your rent and your living costs won’t equate to your salary.”

Practically unregulated, rents are left to the proprietor to set accordingly. It is common for renters to have to cough up one to two years’ rent in advance. “It has become a convention,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says.

According to Johnet Darpoh – whose family owns lower-cost units on the outskirts of Accra that they have been renting out for 30 to 40 years – landlords in any given area form an association and decide amongst themselves at what price to set their rents. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu also notes that rental agents gauge how prices are faring in a given area and set rent accordingly, including their commission fee in the final price.

In the meantime Quaison’s search for a property continues, only this time with a larger budget, as she has experienced how quickly expenses can accumulate. The country’s irregular water flow means that one has to buy a back-up water tank and – if they can afford it – a generator for times of electricity load-shedding.

“Suddenly a gated community [that comes with a service charge] sounded really appealing,” Quaison says.

But those that cannot afford to pay such high rents are left at a loss.

“There are some people who can’t rent a place of their own. Some are staying with friends or in a family house with a lot of people in one room,” Darpoh tells IPS.

“[There are places] where people are sleeping outside, with their kids on the floor. If the government could help them it would be better.”

Until then, the city’s more modest and lower-income earners will lose out when it comes to finding decent housing.

“People with very low incomes mostly stay in either uncompleted buildings,” Osei says. “Or in a building that lacks water, electricity or a toilet.”

Entrepreneur Edward Tagoe is co-founder of the software company, Nandimobile. However, research shows that of the 250,000 young people who enter Ghana’s job market annually, only two percent find employment in the formal sector. Credit: Billie McTernan/IPS

By Billie McTernan
ACCRA, Sep 19 2013 (IPS)

Ghana’s economy registered 7.1 percent growth last year but 23-year-old Jennifer Esi Avemee has had difficulty securing a permanent job since graduating in 2011. “It’s very stressful,” she laments. “It’s very hard to sustain yourself.”

Avemee studied public relations at the Ghanaian Institute of Journalism and had hoped to secure a job in the field after completing her national service at the Ghanaian Tourism Board in 2012. In previous years it was not uncommon for graduates to be kept on at the institution where they did their service.

However, in 2008 the International Monetary Fund advised the Ghanaian government to put a freeze on public sector recruitment – except in the areas of health and education – to curb the public sector wage bill, putting a strain on school-leavers and graduates looking for work. The freeze lasted two years and ended in 2011.

Avemee tells IPS that the situation has become so dire that some of her counterparts have taken to prostitution and “sakawa”, internet fraud.

Data and statistics on employment in Ghana is sparse.

In 2012 then minister of employment and social welfare Moses Asaga admitted that the government had no up-to-date or reliable data on the labour market.

Information available from the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana in Legon suggests that approximately 250,000 young people enter the job market annually of which two percent, or about 5,000, find employment in the formal sector.

According to research being carried out by the ISSER, 23 percent of youth aged between 15 and 24 and 28.8 percent of graduates between the ages of 25 and 35 wait two years or more before they are employed.

Dr William Baah-Boateng, one of the researchers of the ISSER study, says that over the last 20 years Ghana’s growth has averaged 5.1 percent, and this has not been reflected in an increase in employment.

According to the African Development Bank, this West African nation registered 7.1 percent growth in 2012, thanks to revenue from oil production, the services sector and export of gold and cocoa. This was a drop from the 14.4 percent growth registered in 2011, which was attributed to the start-up of oil production here.

A further report by the International Labour Organisation says that the public sector accounts for six percent of employment in Ghana, and that of the informal private sector stands at 86 percent.

“You can’t manage what you can’t control,” 30-year-old Edward Tagoe, co-founder of the software company Nandimobile tells IPS.

Tagoe himself graduated in 2007 from the University of Ghana and started Nandimobile in 2010 having run a small business whilst studying. After university Tagoe completed a two-year entrepreneurship training programme at Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, a not-for-profit organisation in Accra that helps to train and mentor budding Ghanaian entrepreneurs.

“I suppose I fall into the category of people [graduates] that took matters into their own hands,” he laughs.

When young people leave school or university it is likely that they have not had any kind of formal work experience.

“We don’t really have an internship [or] part-time work culture here,” says Tagoe.

For Avemee finding a job has been trying not least because many positions require five years experience, which she does not have.

Gameli Adzaho, 27, who after graduating wanted to further his studies but needed money to fund it, found himself in a similar situation.

“When I graduated in 2007 I was interested in going into health research, but with just the first degree you don’t usually get that opportunity or you would need some years of work experience…so there was a catch 22,” he tells IPS.

Adzaho has since been able to find a job as a science teacher at Keta High School in the Volta Region. In August he won a scholarship to study for an MSc in Environment and Human Health at the University of Exeter as part of a joint initiative by Tullow Oil and the British Council in Ghana. The programme awards 50 young Ghanaians scholarships to study in the United Kingdom with the aim to develop a good human resource base for the oil industry and other areas of development in Ghana.

In 2006 Ghana’s previous government, the National Patriotic Party, set up the National Youth Employment Programme in a bid to boost employment opportunities for young people. The programme was rebranded in 2012 by the current government, the National Democratic Congress, as the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA).

GYEEDA’s reputation came into disrepute when an August report monitoring its progress revealed that funds allocated to youth job creation had been misappropriated.

During a state visit to Benin earlier this month, Ghanaian President John Mahama admitted that GYEEDA had not carried out its duties as effectively as it should.

“There have been a few problems, loopholes that people took advantage off but we are working on that,” he said.

Minister of employment and social welfare Nii Armah Ashietey, Asaga’s replacement following a cabinet reshuffle in April, has since appointed a taskforce to establish a Labour Market Information System to collate useable statistics.

In July, Ashitey urged young people to develop vocational skills and avoid relocating to the cities for white-collar jobs that do not exist. He said 92,000 dollars had been earmarked for skill development programmes and that a Graduates Unemployment Support Scheme had been put in place to address issues of unemployment.

Despite such initiatives Avemee is not convinced. “They [the government] just give empty promises,” she says.

Lack of employment has left many young people questioning whether Ghana is the place for them if they want to get their foot on the job ladder.

Avemee has returned to school in the hope that it will give her a better chance when applying for a job and perhaps help her leave the country. “I would like to go to France… in the next five years,” she confesses.

But Adzaho has his sights firmly set on Ghana. “I will return after the year … I’m 100 percent committed to returning back to Ghana.”

Large-scale farmer, Alhaji Alhassan Gunda Zakaria of the Gunda Producing Company in Tamale, northern Ghana holds up an agriculture insurance certificate from the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Programme. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
TAMALE, Ghana, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

Smallholder farmer Suleman Mustapha Simbia, 40, is pleased with the introduction of an insurance initiative called the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Programme. The programme is being implemented in this West African nation to help farmers who had been suffering from loss of income as a result of the bad weather conditions that affect their yields. 

“I no longer think of losing my yield due to the low or high rainfall. My confidence and love for farming has grown. And this year, I have increased the number of acreages I cultivate from 1.2 to 2.4 hectares,” he told IPS.

The system is fairly straightforward. A farmer pays one-tenth of the total cost of their crops at the beginning of the farming season to GAIP. And if there is no rain for 12 consecutive days, the system triggers a payout.

This is the second year of its operation, and to date a total of 136 smallholder farmers received payouts on claims from the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Programme (GAIP) because of the drought in northern Ghana. While no exact figures are available for how much was paid out, the programme pays farmers depending on the size of their land and the amount they invested in inputs. On average, farmers who invest 150 dollars in inputs for half a hectare of land could be paid out between 200 to 300 dollars, depending on how severely they were affected by the weather.

But the scheme is dependent on automatic weather stations (AWS). AWS is a map-based system that records daily climatic data including wind, rainfall, relative humidity and temperature. The insurance programme uses data from AWS to ascertain when farmers are affected by the weather, and payouts are made based on this data.

Agro meteorologist at GAIP Evelyn Debrah told IPS that the programme benefits farmers by protecting them from the cost of production during extreme weather patterns and allows them to remain in production following the disaster.

“For example, if there are more than 12 consecutive dry days (less than 2.5 mm of rain) within 20 km of a GMet weather station, it will automatically trigger a payout to policy holders,” she said.

The initiative is funded by the German government under the Innovative Insurance Products for the Adaptation to Climate Change project. It is implemented through a public private partnership between the National Insurance Commission, the Ghana Insurance Association and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).

But Simbia is concerned that not enough farmers are able to sign up to the insurance scheme as only those who cultivate crops within the vicinity of 18 existing AWS in the country’s Northern Upper West and Upper East Regions can do so.

“It is my fear that many farmers in the country, especially in Ghana’s north, who are vulnerable are not benefiting from the initiative due the challenge of limited weather stations,” he said.

For the past four years smallholder farmers in Ghana’s Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions have been affected by low rains, which resulted in their most-cultivated crops like maize, rice and yams withering before they could mature.

Statistics from the Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) indicate that across the country there has been a decline below the long-term mean of 6,550 mm, which was the normal rainfall pattern at the beginning of the 2000s.

Mathias Fosu, principal research scientist at the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute, told IPS that studies conducted by the institute indicate that climate change has impacted on rainfall patterns in the northern part of the country.

The amount of rainfall recorded annually varies between 800 mm and 1,600 mm. However, the rainfall trend for Tamale from the period 1960 to 2010 suggests a slight decrease in rainfall over the six decades, he said.

A 2012 survey conducted in 38 districts in the Northern, Upper West and Upper East Regions by the United Nations World Food Programme, with Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Ghana Statistical Service, showed that food insecurity was rife in those areas.

The survey, titled the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis, revealed that 140,000 people out of 680,000 interviewed were experiencing severe food insecurity, and women, mainly widows, headed the majority of these households.

The situation was attributed to general poverty and poor agriculture performance. A decline in crop production, low soil fertility and limited pesticide use and the lack of irrigation are some of the factors affecting this. The report recommended increased investment in adaptation measures to sustain agricultural production and make households resilient to climate change.

Simbia thinks GAIP and the government should do this by expanding the scope of the initiative from the current 18 automatic weather stations to cover a total of 50 districts in the three northern provinces.

But Debrah pointed out that the number of AWS had increased countrywide.

“In the last two years GIZ purchased and installed a total of 36 automatic weather stations for GMet … with the aim of helping GAIP improve and expand their service to famers,” Debrah said. She added that five additional AWS were purchased and installed by the Agricultural Development and Value Chain Enhancement Programme, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development, bringing the total to 41 AWS nationwide.

One large-scale farmer, Alhaji Alhassan Gunda Zakaria who owns and runs the Gunda Producing Company in Tamale, thinks that the insurance is a good thing.

Aside from farming himself, he provides farming inputs like seeds and fertiliser to smallholders on credit, which they pay back in produce at the end of the harvest season. Last year, he paid for the insurance for 20 of the smallholder farmers he works with, and this year he added 50 more.

Zakaria said he manages about 3,000 smallholder farmers in the region and he was one of the first beneficiaries of the insurance.

“I think I will have peace of mind to work because I will not need to worry much about low rains. I want to insure most of my farmers, but the worry now is the limited coverage of the weather stations in the region,” he told IPS.

Debrah said GAIP plans to develop and roll out a broad range of agriculture insurance products starting with Weather Index Insurance, whereby payouts are determined by rainfall levels during key phases of crop development.

“Banks are likely to expand their agriculture leading portfolios once the risk of default is reduced via locally relevant insurance products increasing their profitability in the process,” Debrah said.

“Insurance coverage will allow greater access to credit and inputs for more farmers and encourage greater investment in agriculture as farmers increase in confidence and aim to further commercialise their farming activities access to broader and even international markets,” she added.

Musah Razark Adams, 13, (r) shows the sling shot that he uses to hit birds with when he works in a local rice field. Adams and his brother, Seidu, 15, (l) work to so that they can pay for school materials and levies. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS

By Albert Oppong-Ansah
WUBA, Northern Ghana, May 30 2013 (IPS)

It is a school day but 13-year-old Musah Razark Adams, a Grade 5 primary school pupil in Wuba, northern Ghana, is standing in a rice field wielding a “koglung” – a sling shot to hit birds with.

He is not being a naughty boy. For a month of working from 7am to 6pm he is paid 10 dollars and given a 25-kg bag of rice or maize for every half hectare of land he protects by scaring the birds away.

Adams and other pupils like him have to engage in the arduous task popularly known in northern Ghana as “Away” – which means keeping birds from feeding on paddy farms. And this is usually done during school hours.

Schooling is nominally free in this West African nation, though each school charges its own additional costs. And children, ironically, are employed in “Away” in order to pay these additional school levies, such as Parent Teachers Association fees, and to buy school materials.“Although I feel ashamed forcing the children to engage in ‘Away’, I have no alternative means of getting money to care for them.” -- Iddrisu Adams

“When school started this year I asked my father to give me money to buy my educational materials and he told me to do what other people do to acquire the necessary items for school. He said he did not have money. So I have to do this (scare away birds) because all our farm produce has been sold to take care of feeding our family,” Adams tells IPS.

He dreams of being able to earn money for shoes and his basic educational needs – a school uniform, books and pencils. But right now, that seems like a far-fetched dream, since he does not have the 60 Ghana Cedi or 30 dollars to pay for them.

“Away” is a common cultural practice in Ghana’s Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions that keeps children out of school for at least a month from April to May, and then again from August to September.

Adams’ father, Iddrisu Adams, 45, has five other children and tells IPS that he is not financially stable enough to provide for them, which is why his sons engage in “Away”. Adams’ 15-year-old brother, Seidu, also works to scare birds.

“Although I feel ashamed forcing the children to engage in ‘Away’, I have no alternative means of getting money to care for them,” he says.

Robert Owusu, a rice farmer in Nyanpkala, Northern Region, tells IPS: “If people are not stationed to man the farm throughout the day the birds will eat the entire rice paddy.”

“Currently we don’t have any other method of scaring the birds although we know the children’s education is at stake,” he says, adding that adults are not employed to do this, as their labour is too expensive.

Though parents do not see it as being against the law, this practice is part of the many instances of child labour in northern Ghana.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development. This includes work that interferes with their schooling.

The Department of Social Welfare, Department of Children and ILO have initiated measures over the years to reduce child labour here, but they say these strategies are hampered by poverty in many communities.

Sanday Iddrisu, acting northern regional director for the Department of Children, tells IPS that the Children’s Act of Ghana states that no child should be deprived of access to education and prohibits parents and other individuals from subjecting a child to exploitative labour.

“Basically both international and national regulations are against such practices that expose children to this form of labour, which prevents them from having an education as any ordinary child,” he says.

He adds that many of the campaigns embarked on by his department and the Department of Social Welfare have proved futile. He says parents of children who work often use poverty as an excuse, stating that they cannot provide for their children’s needs without making them work.

While there is a National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Child Labour in Ghana, a survey by the Child Protection Unit at the Department of Labour says the nation has done little to eradicate the practice. About 1.27 million children between the ages of five and 17 in this country of 25 million people are engaged in activities classified as child labour, Emmanuel Otoo, an ILO representative in Ghana, tells IPS.

“Our focus and resources must now be on the operationalisation of the details of the many international and local conventions and laws Ghana has ratified, including the ILO Convention, the African Union Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, the Ghanaian Constitution and the Ghana Children’s Act of 1998,” he says.

Naa Alhassan Issahaku Amadu, the northern regional Ghanaian population officer, says the practice of child labour affects the intellectual, social and physical growth and development of children.

“Children need six universally-accepted teacher-student contact hours. And if they are kept out of class due to ‘Away’ they will miss out on all that has been taught,” he tells IPS.

Adams’ principal, Abdul-Salam Hamza Fataw, says children who engage in the practice are not able to follow lessons to their logical conclusion because of their absenteeism.

Fataw says that during “Away”, between April and May, a class of 50 children shrinks to about eight.

Umal Mohammed Farhim, the Kumbungu District Circuit supervisor of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Northern Region, tells IPS that children have the right to an education.

“Available statistics from Wuba Primary School for instance indicate that last year less than 40 percent of students passed their end of term exams,” he says.

A formal report will be sent to the GES head office in Tamale, the Northern Region’s capital, if a behavioural change approach for the next academic year fails to address the issue.

However, Afua Ayisibea Ohene-Ampofo, a project manager of the Northern Ghana office of the International Fertilizer Development Center, a public international organisation that addresses food security, tells IPS that the practice may not end due to its cultural dimension. She says the issue of child labour is closely linked to traditions that see no issue in encouraging children to work to meet their needs.

Ohene-Ampofo, who has worked as a development officer on various projects in the region for the past 10 years, says the poverty which was making parents force their children to continue the vicious cycle of “Away” could be reduced if parents were equipped with alternative livelihood skills such as bread baking, fashion designing, bee keeping or soap making.

Until then, Adams has to continue working.

“My dream of becoming a teacher may be dashed if I don’t support myself like this. I feel shy and bad engaging in such work, but I have to do it to secure my future … I don’t have a choice.”

Young Bangladeshi women raise their fists at a protest in Shahbagh. Credit: Kajal Hazra/IPS

By Stella Paul
KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 2013 (IPS)

“If I am thirsty and want a bottle of Coca-Cola I can get it, no matter where in the world I am. Why can’t I get contraceptives or sexual heathcare?” asked Carlos Jimmy Macazana Quispe, a youth representative from Peru currently in Kuala Lumpur for the third edition of the Women Deliver global conference on the “health and well-being of women and girls.”

A member of the Lima-based Instituto Peruano de Paternidad Responsable (INPPARES), a non-profit organisation that helps young Peruvians learn about sexual and reproductive rights, Quispe was expressing frustration that 36 percent of sexually active Peruvians – the majority of them youth – do not have access to contraceptives.

There are over a hundred youth like Quispe participating in the three-day conference that started on May 28, most of them from developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America where “contraceptives” are equated with condoms, teen pregnancy is on the rise and child marriage is often considered a social norm.

One of these ambassadors is Shreejana Bajracharya, a youth consultant from the Nepal-based Ipas, an NGO working to prevent deaths and disease from unsafe abortions in a country where 21 percent of all mothers are aged below 18 years.

Bajrachayra, who counsels young married and unmarried women factory workers about safe sex, says that over 80 percent of sexually active young women practice unsafe sex and risk pregnancy because they fear that contraceptives could cause them physical harm.

“I meet youth who tell me that…(birth control) pills could damage their kidneys or their heart,” she told IPS, adding incredulously: “And these are women who live in the capital (Kathmandu). If awareness levels in the capital are so low, imagine what youth in rural areas are experiencing.”

According to Pablo Aguilera, head of the New York-based HIV Young Leaders Fund, the situation is particularly bad for minority communities like those who identify as transgender, or people living with HIV/AIDS.

Aguilera, himself a young person living with HIV, identified two simultaneous problems: not only are at-risk populations unaware of the most basic information regarding safe sex and reproductive health, but they are also unaccounted for, passing under the radar of surveys or other attempts to identify target populations.

“We need to engage more youth from marginalised and stigmatised communities, such as transgender (people),” he told IPS, adding that vulnerable youth must be included in studies and surveys “not as interviewees but as interviewer. This will not only help them receive information firsthand, but will also sensitise them on the issue instantly.”

Leading experts in the field are keenly aware of the need to step up efforts. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), admits that there is a lack of hard data on sexual and reproductive health, but says the UNFPA is helping government agencies across the world recognise the need to overcome this.

Even in cases where data exists, governments do not utilise it for “practical purposes such as planning, and that is a big challenge,” Osotimehin told IPS.

Jyoti Shreshtha, a post-graduate student from Kathmandu, says the Nepali government “does not make a conscious effort to educate” youth on issues like HIV/AIDS and sexual rights.

In countries like Bangladesh, says student leader Umme Mahbuba, events and conferences around pregnancy, early motherhood, safe sex and contraceptives are targeted mostly at professionals, experts or academics. “Youth often stay away from these forums thinking ‘this issue is not for me’,” Mahbuba told IPS.

This can be attributed partly to the jargon that surrounds conversations about sexual health. According to Faustina Fynn-Nyame, country director for Marie Stopes International (MSI) in Ghana, young people are put off by “incomprehensible literature” and terms like “family planning”, which they cannot identify with.

“There is a need to take communication more seriously and coin terms that are youth-friendly,” she said.

But none of these tactics on youth engagement will go far without massive investment in this global effort.

“There is an urgent need to invest more (in)…creating effective tools of communication and building communication skills,” said Aguilera.

Some countries are feeling the financial crunch more than others. Sinthuka Vive, a student from the war-ravaged town of Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, says the state is struggling to fund reproductive health services.

“During the war, many hospitals were damaged,” she told IPS. “The few that survived are struggling to provide care to married women. Youth, meanwhile, have nowhere to go, no one to provide them with counseling or information.”

The issue of funds has been a major topic of debate at the conference underway in Malaysia, particularly with regards to promises made at the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, where global leaders pledged a total of 2.6 billion dollars to provide 120 million more women and girls in the world’s poorest countries with voluntary access to contraceptive services, supplies and information by 2020.

It remains to be seen whether or not these funds will be leveraged to improve the sexual health and reproductive rights of youth around the world.

With an initial focus on oil-producing Nigeria and mineral-rich Ghana, Ottawa is bolstering its trade strategy in Africa, but some within the international development and economic communities have expressed concerns about Canada’s approach.

The Canadian government was criticised for cutting foreign aid a few years ago, and in particular when Africa amassed some of the greatest hits.

The Canadian International Development Agency ended bilateral programming in countries where aid efforts are hindered by high operating costs, including Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Niger. The agency also decided to reduce and concentrate its bilateral programming in five states, including Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Yet last month, after years of viewing the continent as mainly a foreign aid recipient, the Conservative government announced a trade mission slated for next January encompassing the extractive resource industries and the infrastructure sectors related to energy, power generation and mining.

The new-found attention is not that surprising, given that Africa appears to be in the midst of an upswing.

Between 1995 and 2010, Africa’s annual average GDP growth was 4.3 percent a year, making the continent one of the fastest-growing regions of the world, Rudy Husny, press secretary to Ed Fast, the Canadian minister of international trade, wrote in an email to IPS. Solid economic growth is expected to continue this year and in 2013, he noted.

Roughly 100 Canadian companies operate in Ghana, which offers a politically stable business climate and respect for the rule of law, according to the trade ministry. The two countries reported 321 million dollars in bilateral merchandise trade in 2011, a 61-percent increase over 2010, Husny said.

In 2011, bilateral merchandise trade between Canada and Nigeria, Canada’s largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and the continent’s most-populous state, equaled more than 2.7 billion dollars, a rise of 44 percent since 2010, the ministry states.

The fledgling Nigerian Canadian Business Association aims to assist Canadian and Nigerian companies in doubling trade to six billion dollars by 2015.

Is trade, not aid, the answer in Africa?

Without a doubt, there is growing attention on “the very interesting economic growth rates in Africa and also the wealth of natural resources that is very attractive for Canadian companies,” acknowledged Sylvie Perras, the Africa-Canada Forum coordinator at the Canadian Council for International Cooperation in Ottawa.

The government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is shifting from aid toward trade, Perras told IPS, conceding that Canadian private sector development strategies for Africa are important but must be consistent with poverty reduction and the development goals of African countries themselves.

On the whole, she said, a developing country is constrained from enhancing the potential social, economic and environmental benefits of outside investment and trade and from minimising the potential damage that this funding may bring.

This is why, she said, her organisation is pushing for the inclusion of a human rights impact assessment in all trade and investment agreements Ottawa strikes with foreign governments.

Last month, Canada concluded an investment promotion deal with Tanzania, a country which will see increased Canadian investment in several sectors including mining, oil and gas and transportation. Ottawa has also forged trade and investment initiatives with Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Tunisia, Zambia and Senegal.

As the Canadian trade minister and his delegation head to West Africa early next year to unearth opportunities in the extractive resource industry and infrastructure sector, the CCIC, Perras’ group, is also continuing to seek the strengthening of Canadian companies’ corporate social responsibility policies, especially in relation to African mining activities.

“This has very rarely been beneficial for African countries,” Perras argued. “We say that it creates jobs, or it creates revenue, but when we look at it more closely, it’s not necessarily the case.”

Mineral-heavy countries have not spurred economic development for their local populations, according to a CCIC backgrounder, as high unemployment rates, debt and poverty are widespread in mining communities.

According to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issued earlier this year, the drop in Canada’s overseas development assistance since 2011, as well as a decision to zero in on fewer countries that are predominantly middle income, “may undermine the support (Canada) has given in recent years to poor countries with weak capacity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.”

In 2011, Canada’s net overseas development assistance fell to 5.3 billion dollars, a decrease of 5.3 percent from 2010, states the peer review published by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee.

In the report, the OECD advised that Canada and other nations must ensure that development objectives and partner country ownership are key to the programmes it supports, and that there is “no confusion” between development aims and the promotion of commercial interests.

Moreover, Canada’s Official Development Assistance Accountability Act, which was enacted in 2008, directs that aid money should consider the perspective of the poor, human rights obligations and environmental standards, Perras added.

Although Canadian foreign aid is still extremely important to Africa’s funding of health, governance, education and NGO development, conceded Lucien Bradet, president and CEO of the Ottawa-based Canadian Council on Africa, “what we have neglected in the past is being part of the economic development of Africa in a sizeable manner”.

“We are not doing a good job,” Bradet told IPS.

Canada’s bilateral trade with Africa jumped from an annual two billion dollars at the beginning of the 21st century to 13 billion dollars, but it would be feasible to increase these numbers by 15 percent to 20 percent a year, he said.

In comparison, China, India, Turkey and Brazil are boosting by 25 percent to 40 percent a year their trade and technology relationships with Africa, he noted, with China’s trade growth dramatically leaping from 10 billion dollars a decade ago to 160 billion dollars.

Economic development offers an improved standard of living to developing-country populations through investment and trade, and allows locals to manufacture, export and establish their own enterprises, Bradet said.

The more Canada facilitates these activities, the more it will be perceived as a “significant partner in Africa, not only in aid but in economic development”, he added.

Ghana’s bamboo frames for bicycles are being exported to Austria. Credit: Portia Crowe/IPS

By Portia Crowe
KUMASI, Ghana, Aug 23 2012 (IPS)

In Ghana, a country burgeoning with traffic congestion, increasing economic growth, and a stark urban-rural divide, making frames of bicycles out of bamboo could be the key to promoting sustainable development. It also makes stronger, longer-lasting bikes.

This is according to Bernice Dapaah, the executive director of Bamboo Bikes Initiative, which trains young Ghanaians to build, fix, and market bamboo-framed bicycles.

“We are into women, children, and youth’s empowerment. And the project reduces carbon emissions and contributes to traffic decongestion, so using it is also a form of reducing climate change,” she said in an interview with IPS.

Bamboo Bikes works in partnership with Ibrahim Djan Nyampong, the owner of Africa Items Co Ltd in Accra, and the frames are sold abroad for 350 dollars each. They cost nearly 200 dollars to build, and Nyampong — also Bamboo Bikes’ technical advisor — pays the young apprentices an additional 30 dollars per frame for their labour.

Nyampong described some of the technical advantages that bamboo frames hold over their carbon fibre or metal counterparts.

“It lasts longer than the metal frame,” he said. “You know a bamboo bike doesn’t break – it’s very durable.”

He said a control test run in Germany proved bamboo frames to be 10 times lighter than metal frames, and noted their heavy load-bearing capacity. Indeed bamboo’s tensile strength — meaning the maximum stress it can withstand while being stretched — is much higher than that of steel.

Bamboo is fibrous, and therefore shock-absorbent. It naturally dampens vibrations, so the frames do not require steel or titanium springs.

“The bamboo has also been treated against splitting and termites, so it’s very strong,” Nyampong explained.

He said the bamboo is treated for three to six months before being used for production. It is then coated in a clear lacquer to protect it against rain and other damage.

These elements have enhanced the frames’ international marketability, and BambooRide, an Austrian company, has begun importing them for sale in Europe.

“At first, we were developing the frames together with (Nyampong), because they were good, but they had to fit a certain European standard,” said Matthias Schmidt, BambooRide’s sales manager.

“So it was like a partnership, a knowledge transfer in both directions,” he told IPS.

The Austrian importers also provided Nyampong’s team with new equipment, including their first jig, to improve precision and reduce the margin of error.

Now, the Austrian company imports up to 10 frames per month, and Schmidt said he looks forward to the initiative’s continued expansion.

“Their capacity is limited… and in the case that we need more frames… we’ll need other sources. So we’re supporting Dapaah’s efforts to improve the equipment and technology,” he said.

Ensuring Environmental Sustainability 

Using bamboo rather than metal to build bicycle frames also holds several advantages for producers – and for the environment.

According to Dapaah, bamboo’s availability as a local material not only enables producers to avoid expensive import costs, but also eliminates the carbon emissions that would arise from the transport of imported materials into the country.

Bamboo is also organic and recyclable, and, unlike metal materials, does not require high levels of energy during extraction and manufacturing.

“The bamboo bicycle is environmentally friendly… because we are also fighting against climate change,” explained Dapaah.

She said the initiative also commits to ecological sustainability by working with bamboo farmers in rural communities to harvest new bamboo crops, and conserve already existent ones.

“If we cut one bamboo, we make sure to plant at least three or five more,” she said.

In addition, bamboo bicycle frames promote sustainable transportation as an alternative to motor vehicles and fossil fuels.

According to Isaac Osei, the regional director for Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency, this is important.

“The traffic situation in the country in general is increasing, and when traffic increases it has its associated environmental issues,” he told IPS.

There are 30 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people in Ghana, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority registers hundreds more each day. Data suggests that vehicle ownership will continue to rise, as the country hits record levels of GDP growth per capita. Ghana has the largest GDP per capita in West Africa at 402.3 dollars in 2011.

Osei noted some of the harmful impacts of increased vehicle use, including carbon dioxide emissions and pollution from dust particles on dirt roads.

“To actually educate people to use bicycles rather than vehicles, I think it is good for the country and the world as a whole,” he said.

By employing and providing young people with technical skills, the initiative is designed to reduce unemployment and, consequently, rural poverty.

“So far I’ve trained about 10 boys,” Nyampong said. “They can build the bikes, but it’s not up to the quality control level, so we are still training them.”

In addition, Bamboo Bikes will help graduated trainees establish their own workshops, and begin to train more young people.

In 2009, Bamboo Bikes won the Clinton Global Initiative Award, and in 2010, the United Nations Environment Programme Seed Initiative award. It also garnered international attention in June when it received a World Business and Development Award at the 2012 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.