Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, addresses the UN Security Council. CREDIT: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)

The war in Tigray, northern Ethiopian, led to sexual and gender-based violence against women, but when Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, appeared before the UN Security Council Open Debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict last year, and catalogued the problems that the victims of the war faced, it didn’t shock the world.

Giving a background, Degefa said, “When the war first started, Blen, a 21-year-old waitress from Badme, along with around 30 other Tigrayan women, was held against her will and subjected to sexual slavery, starvation, and gang rape by a group of Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers who took turns with her.”

“I documented many other stories like Blen’s during multiple visits to the Tigray region before June 2021. Sexual violence was used to terrorize communities and build camaraderie amongst allied forces of the Eritrean Defence Forces, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Amhara regional militia, and special forces through the shared experience of exploiting women’s bodies.

“The consistency across victims’ accounts shows that these crimes were committed with a degree of organization, planning, and intent to dehumanize individuals and communities,” she said.

Now, a new study has confirmed that 99 percent of the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence during the conflict have not received medical or psychological care because most health facilities were destroyed and looted.

Girmatsion Fisseha – Lead Author

The authors have, therefore, suggested the establishment of an urgent survivor centre approach with medical and psychological services, together with sustained community support, to reduce the lifelong impact on the behavioural, emotional, sexual, social, and economic fortunes of the victims.

Published by BMJ Global Health journal, the study, “War-related sexual and gender-based violence in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia: a community-based study,” is a survey conducted in six zones of Tigray after the Eritrean, Ethiopian and Amhara forces left Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.

The western zone of Tigray and the districts bordering Eritrea were not included for security reasons. Women of reproductive age (i.e., 15–49 years) recruited from the study communities were included as primary respondents in this survey. Information on girls under 15 years and women above 50 years of age was also collected from the primary respondents, and the period of the SGBV incidents covered from 4 November 2020 to 28 June 2021.

Findings from this study indicate a higher incidence, nearly 10 percent more of rape, than those reported in other studies during conflicts, such as in Northern Uganda, 4.2 percent; Sierra Leone, 8 percent and Ukraine, 2.6 percent. In the case of physical violence, 28.6 percent observed in this study was higher than the findings for East Timor, Indonesia, where 22.7 percent of the women were physically assaulted.

Co-author of the study, Kiros Berhane, professor at the Cynthia and Robert Citron-Roslyn and Leslie Goldstein, and Chair, Department of Biostatistics Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University in the U.S. told the IPS why they were motivated to conduct the study. “During the war period in Tigray, there were unprecedently high incidents of SGBV reported by various humanitarian agencies, local and international media, including gang-rape and other extreme types of abuses such as insertion of foreign objectives to the victims’ private parts.

Kiros Berhane Professor of Biostatistics at Columbia University

“Most of the reports were coming from health facilities around big towns. Health professionals working at university hospitals (including many on the author list of this manuscript) observed many rape survivors admitted to Mekelle Hospital and Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (one-stop centre),” he said.

Berhane said the main objective of the study was to scientifically and thoroughly document the level and severity of war-related SGBV in Tigray beyond the sporadic and incomplete (but still shocking) reports in hopes that policies and actions could be activated to help rape survivors and further prevent the rape incidence in the community, adding that, “this study provides first-of-its-kind objectively/carefully collected primary data on scale/level of SGBV in Tigray.”

Degefa gave a chilling account of a Tigrayan woman who was fleeing the conflict zone with her children, and encountered the Amhara militia, who separated her from her family, gang-raped her and inserted a hot metal rod into her uterus and declared that a Tigrayan should never give birth.”

“Similar incidents of rape with claims of cleansing “Tigrayan blood” and mutilating women’s bodies to prevent the birth of more generations of Tigrayans have been extensively covered by different human rights reports,” she said.

Degefa said sexual violence was also used to humiliate survivors and their families and cited a case of an Amhara woman who was beaten and raped in the presence of her husband and child by two members of Tigrayan forces. Men and boys were also sexually assaulted, she said, adding that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission found in Samre town, in Tigray, 600 men and boys who were stripped and forcibly paraded, some completely naked, while Eritrean female soldiers mocked them and took pictures.

She said women with disabilities and other vulnerable communities were also at particular risk during this conflict. “Many women with disabilities were specifically targeted in the Tigray region as they were presumed to be fighters in the previous war. Girls, older women, and women belonging to a minority or indigenous communities also faced higher risks, Degefa added.

The lack of access to the region for independent human rights monitoring means it has been tough to document the impact of the conflict in minority communities and especially those living in disputed areas on the Eritrean border, such as the Irob and Kunama in Tigray.

In her opinion, the conflict in Northern Ethiopia, and the effective siege of the Tigray region, in particular, has undermined women’s rights, including access to reproductive healthcare and psychosocial support, exacerbating the impacts of sexual violence.

Degefa said the lack of access to psychosocial support services means that the mental health of survivors of sexual violence hangs in the balance. Many have already died by suicide, adding that the story of a 50-year-old Amhara woman from Shewa-Robit in central Ethiopia, who was gang-raped by Tigrayan fighters in the presence of her son in the next room and later died of suicide.

Following their study, Berhane said he would expect the Ethiopian government and the international community “to provide immediate action such as supporting survivors, their children and provide the opportunity for medical, psychological and economic rehabilitation.”

In addition, there is a need for the supply of adequate medical supplies and medications to health facilities in the war zone. The government must also work with all partners and NGOs to try and trace survivors at the community level for further medical and psychological support.

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Governments low- and middle-income countries are encouraged to take note of a new story that finds cash transfers help with mental health of those living in poverty. Credit: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Mar 23 2023 (IPS)

Poverty alleviation policies, especially cash transfers, will not only improve the poor condition of the beneficiaries but can also play a role in strengthening the psychological health of people as well as improve the mental health of those living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICS), including Africa, a new study has said.

An example of these poverty alleviation programmes is the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), under Ghana’s ministry of gender, children and social protection for extremely poor and vulnerable households. This is made up of orphaned children, persons with severe disabilities without productive capacity as well as elderly persons who are 65 and above.

The aim is to improve, among other things, basic household consumption, and nutrition among children below two years of age and the aged. It is also intended to increase access to health care services among children below five years of age.

The study found more than 20,000 Africans, out of 26,794 people receiving these cash transfers under poverty alleviation programmes in six countries across Africa, admitted that this financial assistance does have some effect on their mental health.

A co-author of the study, Clara Wollburg, affiliated with the department of social policy and intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, told IPS, “13 out of the 17 studies were conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of those studies, four were located in Malawi, four in Kenya, two in South Africa, and one each in Zambia, Mali, and Uganda.”

The World Health Organization defines mental health as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” And in Africa, StrongMinds Uganda says “despite the high prevalence of mental illnesses across the continent, mental health remains under prioritized in many African countries.”

The study, “Do cash transfers alleviate common mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries? A systematic review and meta-analysis,” published in PLOS One journal on February 22, 2023, said their “findings lend weight to the hypothesis that poverty alleviation can play a role in strengthening psychological health of people living in poverty in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs.)”

It said their “analysis shows that providing populations living in poverty with cash transfers leads to improvements of depression and anxiety disorders. However, these benefits may not be sustained once the financial support ends,” the authors said.

Nigerian-born associate professor in psychiatry living in the US, Andrews O Newton, said the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) decision that has denied a lot of people access to cash could lead to depression. “Depression is the commonest form of mental illness. However, most people do not know because sufferers are not seen outside. The chronic stress caused by governmental policies makes it more severe, and one terrible consequence is suicide,” Newton said. The CBN has since been legally obliged to delay its deadlines to redesign the currency.

He said, “extreme poverty dehumanizes,” adding that such a situation is likely to lead to “feeling sad and empty, poor concentration, lack of drive and motivation, poor sleep as well as lack of energy.

The study focused on people living in poverty, who are recipients of cash transfers, and participants in inactive control groups, who received no transfers or were enrolled at a later stage, served as a comparison group. Active control groups receiving alternative interventions were not included, as this makes a causal inference about the effects of the transfers difficult.

They included conditional and unconditional cash transfer programmes (CTPs) targeted at households living in poverty in LMICs but did not apply an absolute low-income/poverty threshold, relying only on the relative threshold for grant eligibility applied by the organizations administering the transfers.

“Our findings have important implications for policymakers in Africa as they show that providing cash transfers to people living in poverty not only improves poverty indicators and school attendance, for example, but also meaningfully impacts depression and anxiety outcomes of beneficiaries. This is especially true for unconditional cash transfers,” Wollburg said.

She said they analyzed cash transfer programs that were specifically targeted to low-income and/or deprived households as indicated by, e.g., low monthly household expenditure and consumption, inability to meet basic needs, food insecurity, low educational attainment and high HIV risk.

Esenam Abra Drah, a mental health advocate in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, said, “from personal experience if you don’t have money, it can be frustrating.” Esenam understands this because she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in August 2015 at the time she was studying Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Linguistics at the University of Ghana.

Currently serving as an executive member of Psychosocial Africa, a grassroots mental health support group set up by, and for people with lived experience of mental illness, Drah admitted as the study showed that her situation affected her schoolwork though she was able to graduate.

The study cautioned that policies aiming to address the poverty-mental health cycle should consider unconditional, longer-term support to populations living in poverty.

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Sierra Leone’s women are now guaranteed 30 percent of all political positions in national and local government, the civil service and in private enterprises that employ more than 25 employees. Credit: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

By Francis Kokutse
FREETOWN, Feb 14 2023 (IPS)

Sierra Leone’s new gender equality law will benefit women with political aspirations – as well as stimulate development, say analysts.

The country’s President, Julius Maada Bio, signed the new Gender Equality and Women Empowerment into law in January 2023. It has shaken the foundations of previously held ideologies that restricted females’ involvement in various aspects of the country’s life.

Reacting to the enactment of the law, Janet Bangoura, a 35-year-old administrative worker in the capital, Freetown, said: “A year ago, I only nursed the dream of ever becoming a politician because the playing field has never been equal for women. This has changed with the signing of the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment (GEWE Act 2022), which guarantees at least 30 percent of female participation in Parliament and at least 30 percent of all diplomatic appointments to be filled by women.”

In addition, the law stipulates that not less than 30 percent of all positions in Local Councils should be reserved for women, same with 30 percent of all jobs in the civil service and at least 30 percent of jobs in private institutions with 25 and more employees. It also extends maternal leave extended from 12 weeks to 14 weeks.

Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio, signing the Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Bill into law. Credit: Francis Kokutse/IPS

Bangoura sees this new law as “shaking the status quo because it has brought a change that women of my generation had not expected. Now, we do not have any excuse but to seek our dreams in the political field. I know things will not immediately change, but the foundation has been laid for those of us who want to break the political glass ceiling.”

It is not only the women who are happy that the country has achieved the “unthinkable”. With the coming into force by this law, Sierra Leoneans of all ages and sexes are glad their country has overtaken neighbouring countries in the West African region by taking the lead in giving equality to women. Though such a law has been talked about by the countries in the region, the head of the United Nations Women’s office in Sierra Leone, Setcheme Jeronime Mongbo, said the September 2022 data on women’s representation in English West Africa shows that Ghana has 14.8 percent of women in Parliament, Gambia, 11.6 percent, Liberia, 9.7 percent and Nigeria, 7,2 percent, adding that, “Sierra Leone is leading the way.”

Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Manty Tarawalli welcomed the law, which she said has been late in coming but noted that it was better late than never. She attributed the lateness in enacting the law to the lack of political will that existed before. This changed with the current President’s role, adding that, “The climate wasn’t right in terms of women’s readiness and men not being accommodating for this sort of growth until now.”

Tarawalli said Sierra Leone was a “typical” African society. “We know the way things are, and to effect that sort of change that really needs a transformation and what shakes the status quo, it required time and understanding from both men and women for the change to happen.”

She said there were initial challenges in discussing the Bill. So, they had to cross massive hurdles to be able to change “the conversation from rights-based to economic growth, and it changed organically from our consultation,” adding that “those who were opposed became willing and ready to have the conversation.”

Tarawalli was of the view that the law was about economic growth meant to move Sierra Leone to a middle-income country, adding that “this cannot happen when 52 percent of the country’s population who are women are outside the economy and leadership position.”

She identified the unwillingness of men to accommodate women when they start getting into companies and institutions as a challenge they anticipate and said there was, therefore, the need to put in place structures to create a network to support females who will be in elective positions to know there is help for them.

Tarawalli said they would educate women to understand that “economic empowerment does not mean neglecting their duties as mothers and wives at home by abandoning the care of their children and other things that are expected of them. We will also make the men understand that economic empowerment contributes to the community and contributes to Sierra Leone.”

Speaking just before he appended his signature to the Bill,  Bio said the law has come to address the gender imbalances in the country comprehensively, and among other things, the provisions under the law provide for “inclusion, representation, participation, and a more responsive posture on gender.”

Bio said his signature on the law was to announce that a change has come to “our great country” and assured the country’s girls that it is a license for them to “get quality education, work hard and aspire beyond their wildest imagination to be the best at anything they do.”

“With this law, we break barriers to parliamentary representation and look forward to a more vibrant and diverse parliament with greater numbers of women and women’s voices. When compiling their proportional representation lists, I urge political parties to go beyond the legal minimum of the number of women,” he said.

Bio said his assent to the GEWE Bill has put the country on an irreversible path to achieving a more inclusive, equal, more just, more resilient, more sustainable, and more prosperous society for generations to come, adding that “with more women on the ballots, women voting, more women winning, and more women in Parliament, the country’s politics and the future of Sierra Leone will improve.”

It was his hope that the law would see more women in leadership and politics and more men supporting and acknowledging the central status of women as we work together for a vibrant, prosperous, inclusive, and democratic Sierra Leone. In addition, he believes the law ensures women equal access to credit and other financial services. To make it effective, those who discriminate on the basis of gender could face up to five years in prison as well as fines.

“Women dominate the informal economy, and data has shown that they are better at doing business, managing investments, and managing proceeds from those investments. Beyond that, as a government, we are eager to work with the private sector to create more jobs for women, harness business cultures that promote diversity and inclusion, and invest in training programmes tailored to create more job opportunities for women,” Bio said.

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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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Africa’s laboratories need to step up testing to aid in fighting Anti-Microbial Resistance. This photo is a 3D computer-generated image of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, the pathogen responsible for causing the disease tuberculosis (TB). Credit: CDC/Unsplash

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Nov 3 2022 (IPS)

African countries must find a way of fighting Anti-Microbial Resistance in the healthcare system to avoid unnecessary deaths.

A few months ago, the President of the Ghana Public Health Association, Amofah George, narrated how he saw a patient die after failing to respond to all the available antibiotics used for managing her septicemic condition, blood poisoning, especially caused by bacteria or their toxins. He attributed the situation to antibiotic resistance, or Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) which he said has become a growing pandemic.

The problem is simple: Africa’s healthcare system does not routinely rely on laboratories to produce tests for treatment. AMR programme manager of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), Edwin Shumba, told IPS, “Ghana, like other countries on the continent, rely on a few medical laboratories to conduct bacteriology testing as part of the routine clinical services.”

“This means that doctors are flying blind when prescribing a treatment to their patients, and public health experts do not have an insight of what is ongoing in terms of AMR, at hospital and national level,” Shumba said.

“The growing threat of AMR has implications for patient care: the antibiotics that used to work will not be able to cure the infections caused by resistant bacteria anymore. This means more that infections might take longer to cure, might be more severe (mortality, morbidity), and will cost more to the society.”

Worried by the increasing cases of AMR, the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) has spearheaded a study, and data from 14 sub-Saharan countries show that only five out of the 15 antibiotic-resistant pathogens – a bacterium, virus, or other microorganisms that can cause disease –designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a priority are being consistently tested, and that all five demonstrated high resistance.

Across the 14 countries, clinical and treatment data are not being linked to laboratory results, making it hard to understand what’s driving AMR. Out of almost 187,000 samples tested for AMR, around 88% had no information on patients’ clinical profile, including diagnosis/origin of infection, presence of indwelling devices (such as urinary catheters, feeding tubes, and wound drains) often associated with development of healthcare-associated infection, comorbidities, or antimicrobial usage. The remaining 12% had incomplete information.

The multi-year, multi-country study was carried out by the Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial use Partnership (MAAP), a consortium spearheaded by the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM), with partners including the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the One Health Trust, the West African Health Organization (WAHO), the East, Central, and Southern Africa Health Community (ECSA-HC), Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters, and IQVIA. It provides stark insights into the under-reported depth of the AMR crisis across Africa and lays out urgent policy recommendations to address the emergency.

MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016 to 2019 from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Eswatini, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Gabon, and Cameroon. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets.

The researchers found that most African laboratories are not ready for AMR testing. Only 1.3% of the 50,000 medical laboratories forming the laboratory networks of the 14 participating countries conduct bacteriology testing. And of those, only a fraction can handle the scientific processes needed to evaluate AMR. Researchers also found that in eight of the 14 countries, more than half of the population is out of reach of any bacteriology laboratory.

The study results provide insights into the AMR burden and antimicrobial consumption in the 14 countries where most available AMR data is based only on statistical modeling. The effort by MAAP is the first of its kind to systematically collect, process, and evaluate large quantities of AMR and antimicrobial consumption (AMC) data in Africa.

The WHO has repeatedly stated that AMR is a global health priority—and is, in fact, one of the leading public health threats of the 21st century. A recent study estimated that, in 2019, nearly 1.3 million deaths globally were attributed to antimicrobial-resistant bacterial infections. Africa was found to have the highest mortality rate from AMR infections in the world, with 24 deaths per 100,000 attributable to AMR.

ASLM’s director of science and new initiatives, Pascale Ondoa, said, “Africa is struggling to fight drug-resistant pathogens, just like the rest of the world, but our struggle is compounded by the fact that we don’t have an accurate picture of how antimicrobial resistance is impacting our citizens and health systems.”

The research also found that only four drugs comprised more than two-thirds (67%) of all the antibiotics used in healthcare settings. Stronger medicines to treat more resistant infections (such as severe pneumonia, sepsis, and complicated intra-abdominal infections) were unavailable, suggesting limited access to some groups of antibiotics.

ASLM’s chief executive Nqobile Ndlovu said, “Across Africa, even where data on antimicrobial resistance is collected, it is not always accessible, often recorded by hand, and rarely consolidated or shared with policymakers; as a result, health experts are flying blind and cannot develop and deploy policies that would limit or curtail antimicrobial resistance.”

“The disconnect between patient data and antimicrobial resistance results, coupled with the extreme antimicrobial resistance burden, makes it incredibly difficult to provide accurate guidelines for patient care and wider public health policies,” said Dr Yewande Alimi, Africa CDC AMR programme coordinator. “Hence, collecting and connecting laboratory, pharmacy, and clinical data will be essential to provide a baseline and a reference for public health actions.”

“Collectively, the data highlights a dual problem of limited access to antibiotics and irrational use of those that are available,” said IQVIA’s head of Public Health (Africa and Middle East) and Real-World Evidence (Middle East), Deepak Batra.

“As a result, people don’t get the right treatment for severe infections, and irrational use of antibiotics drives antimicrobial resistance for existing available treatment options. Routine monitoring of antimicrobial consumption could help monitor the limited access and irrational use,” he added.

Based on the findings, MAAP calls for a drastic increase in the quality and quantity of AMR and AMC data being collected across the continent, along with revised AMR control strategies and research priorities.

For Shumba, Ghana, like the rest of Africa, can fight AMR by including critical interventions in revised versions of the national AMR Action plans, essential medicine Lists, laboratory strategies, and standard treatment guidelines.

“This heavy toll on the health systems poses a major threat to progress made in health and in the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals,” he added.

Shumba said the AMR coordinating committee of Ghana could assist other policymakers in using the evidence gathered by the MAAP project to refine their strategies for AMR containment. In addition, they can plan to increase the number and capacity of medical laboratories to conduct bacteriology testing in the country.

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Gabon’s Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Lee White reflects on forest conservation, carbon credits and challenges with a burgeoning elephant population.

By Francis Kokutse
Libreville, Oct 18 2022 (IPS)

Over the past few years, Gabon has been successful in its forest conservation efforts. The country has also been able to work hard to achieve the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to the 1.5-degree target. Minister of Water, Forests, the Sea, and Environment, Lee White, talks to IPS Correspondent Francis Kokutse:

IPS: Gabon is being touted for its success story in forest conservation. When did this begin, and what are the results so far?

Minister Lee White (LW): In 1972, the late President Omar Bongo went to Stockholm for the first major political summit on the environment. On his return, he created a Ministry of Environment. After Rio in 1992. He signed Gabon’s first environmental law in 1993 and initiated a review that led to the new forestry law in 2001 – which made sustainable forestry obligatory. In 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Rio plus 10, he announced the creation of 13 National Parks covering 11% of Gabon. This led to the National Parks Law of 2007, which created the National Parks Agency (ANPN). In 2006/ 2007, he also created six Ramsar (wetland) sites.

In 2009, President Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected on a Gabon Green – Gabon Industrial – Services Gabon – platform: a sustainable development manifesto. He further developed his collaboration with the Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) and attended the climate COP in Copenhagen, where he represented forestry in Africa in the small group of 20 Heads of State and Government who wrote the Copenhagen Agreement. He subsequently strengthened ANPN, increasing staffing and budget levels ten times, created our Climate Council, the Climate Plan, the Plan Strategic Gabon Emergent (PSGE) sustainable economy plan, the Gabonese Agency for Space Studies and Observation (AGEOS) to monitor forests and 20 marine protected areas covering 27% of our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – extending our forest conservation and management model into the ocean. As a result, we have had five decades of deforestation below 0.1%/year (closer to 0.05%) and are the country net absorbing the most CO2, over 100 million tons annually.

IPS: The conservation efforts surely have some problems. What were these?

LW: Two types of problems – one is external – cross-border poaching, especially for ivory, by organised criminal groups; the same for illegal gold mining; illegal pirate fishing boats; illegal forestry – sometimes cross-border. So, this has to be fought with strong, motivated, professional armed rangers. Gabon has been successful – while forest elephant numbers across the region have fallen by 70%, in Gabon, they went from 60,000 in 1990 to 95,000 in 2020.

The other is internal: Human-elephant conflict (is complex, but basically, there are more elephants; poaching in remote forests drives them toward people, and climate change has resulted in less fruit in the rain forest, and even in parks (so) the elephants are thinner today than they were 30 years ago. (As a result) hungry elephants are leaving the forests to feed on crops. This is on the rise and erodes the support of the Gabonese people. Also, when the economy is tight, as it has been since 2015 – the Government is able to spend less money on the parks.

IPS: Gabon has benefitted from its efforts with increased Carbon Credits. What has this come to?

LW: We signed an agreement with Norway for results-based payments of up to 150 million US dollars, of which we have received 17 million US dollars to date. This is a modest amount of funding. But will allow us to better manage the forest and thereby generate more credits in the future. Just yesterday (October 3, 2022), we got notification from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of the validation of 187 million tons of REDD+ credits . . . which will be made official next week. All pre-Glasgow COP 26 REDD+. Carbon credits are voluntary, so there is a guarantee we will be able to sell them. We have a first offer to buy about 100,000 tons at $30 . . . so the real answer to your question is that we will see over the next 2-3 years what this will come to.

IPS: How will ordinary people benefit from all these efforts?

LW: My expectation is that in the post-Glasgow world, Gabon will generate 100 million tons of net sequestration carbon credits per year and sell them for a price of $20-30. These funds will be distributed as follows: 10% reinvested in forest management; 15% for rural communities; 25% for the Sovereign Fund to reinvest for future generations; 25% to service Gabon’s debt load; 25% in the national budget for education, health, and climate resilience . . . the funds will make our economy more viable and resilient and reduce our debt servicing payments making more money available for the Gabonese people.

IPS: Have these forest conservation efforts led to the relocation of ordinary people? If so, what was done to them?

LW: Never, no – this is not our policy. We have a small population – about 200 people – who live within the parks. We map out their traditional areas and formalize their rights in our park management plans.

IPS: The more you try to conserve the forest, the more you increase the animal population, is that not opening up the country to zoonotic diseases?

LW: No – the wildlife in the parks is in equilibrium – it is when you cut the forests and animals come into contact with people that there is a risk of cross infection – as a general rule, if nature is healthy, so are people.

IPS: Media reports say the country’s elephant population has increased dramatically. Has that also not affected farming, and what is the Government doing to save farms?

LW: I mentioned that human-elephant conflict is higher. This year we are investing about 10 million US dollars in compensation and building electric barriers to protect peoples’ crops.

IPS: With Gabon’s success so far, what is the country presenting at COP27?

LW: We will present our 187 million carbon credits to the world. We will also present our model of exploiting the forest in a sustainable manner to save the forests. In general terms, this is a Conference of Parties (COP), where negotiators are progressing. Not concluding negotiations – so the focus will be more on thematic issues.

IPS: How can other African countries learn from Gabon’s experience?

LW: I believe our forestry model – banning export to promote local jobs and the local economy can work for Congo Basin countries. Also, our national carbon accounting in different ecosystems could be applied in many African countries, not just rainforest countries, to create nature-based carbon credits in the future.

IPS: What has been the response from other countries in the Congo Basin on what Gabon is doing so far?

LW: Thus far, it is probably fair to say their response is a “wait and see” response – they are interested but not yet convinced it will work. That said, Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) countries have announced they will follow Gabon’s example and ban log exports from January 1, 2023.

What is the future of Gabon’s conservation effort?

LW: Time will tell. We are a member of the High Ambition for Nature and People Alliance, pushing for a global standard of 30% protected lands and oceans by 2030 – in Gabon, we are currently at 21% on land and 27% in the ocean.

It is my belief that if we can continue the transition in the forestry sector towards 3rd and 4th level transformation and if a global carbon market emerges to reward Gabon’s net carbon sequestration that the wise and sustainable use and conservation of natural resources in Gabon can become a sustainable model, such as is the case in Costa Rica.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Francis Kokutse and - -
ACCRA, Aug 25 2011 (IPS)

Counterfeit medicines have flooded the market in Ghana and have even made their way into government hospitals as the country’s drug regulator struggles to control the importation of drugs.

The president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana, Alex Dodoo, said the country’s Food and Drugs Board (FDB) is not a stringent regulator when it comes to the care and management of medicines in Ghana.

Dodoo said fake medicines have found their way into public hospitals as there have been instances where patients on effective antibiotics did not get well until there was a change in the brand of drug administered. This clearly showed that the first line of treatment used had been counterfeit drugs.

He says this has happened because the gangs smuggling the counterfeit drugs into the country have even been able to infiltrate the hospital supply chain.

However, Dodoo says he has no statistics of the number of times this has occurred.

“Unfortunately, these things are not being documented to find out what went wrong so that a clear picture could be seen of the extent of the damage that fake medicines have on patients in the health care delivery system,” he added.

“Importation of medicines is only allowed through the Kotoka International Airport in Accra and the Tema Harbour near Accra, to ensure that only quality medicines enter the country,” the Ministry of Health’s Director of Pharmaceutical Services Martha Gyansa-Lutterodt said of the country’s drug import laws.

“But we have realised that a lot of fake medicines, especially from Nigeria, have found their way into the country because of the porous nature of our land borders,” Gyansa-Lutterodt admitted.

The situation is becoming serious as the FDB, has been forced, over the past two years, to intensify raids on pharmacies to eliminate the sale of counterfeit medicine.

The country’s Pharmacy Board also ensures that only approved pharmacies sell medication. However, there have been cases where both approved and unapproved pharmacies have been found selling fake medicine.

Last year, when Issac Akologo had malaria, he was prescribed Fansidar (a first line treatment against the disease). He bought it at a pharmacy in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region of Ghana, but after taking the full course, Akologo still did not feel well. He returned to his health centre and was described a different course of treatment.

“It was not until I read in the newspapers that the FDB had arrested the pharmacy owner … that I realised the Fansidar I bought might have been fake,” Akologo told IPS. The FDB has confirmed that the pharmacy in question sold counterfeit Fansidar tablets.

The trade in fake medicines is known to be widespread in pharmacies throughout the country and some have even found their way onto local market stalls.

But it is difficult for consumers to tell the difference between a fake and the real thing.

One hospital pharmacist told IPS that the packaging of the counterfeit medicines was expertly copied and it was difficult to identify a fake.

However, Gyansa-Lutterodt said the ministry of health has no data on the extent of sale and use in the country of counterfeit medicines. It is using a World Health Organisation study estimate that 30 percent of medicines on the market in Ghana are fake.

She said the ministry was aware of the problem and that procedures were in place to ensure that “fake medicines do not enter the public system, because we want public access to medicine to be without any taint.”

The system, Gyansa-Lutterodt said, was buying from approved sources only, strictly following the procedures, which she said were not new. But she did not clarify why this procurement process was not followed in the past.

Charles Allotey of the Health Access Network, a non-governmental organisation that aims to ensure that the public gets healthcare and proper medicines at an affordable cost, says that the ministry has had a difficult job detecting counterfeit medicines.

“It is a technical problem that is difficult to detect and it would be harsh to say the ministry had not done any work on this issue. Suspicion arises only when a particular medicine is used and produces no result and this must be proved by analysis.”

Gyansa-Lutterodt was concerned that the use of counterfeit medicines will have serious implications on people’s health, as many believe they are taking the legitimate drugs to treat their illnesses.

Thomas Amedzro, head of the FDB’s drug post market surveillance, agrees with Gyansa-Lutterodt that the sale and use of fake medicines has a serious impact on the health of Ghanaians.

“We have found out that some fake antibiotics have found their way into the country, and any patient that is given them could die because of the poor efficacy of the drug – this shows that we are battling a real problem.

“It is a serious threat … we have come across some aphrodisiacs being sold in the country that contain 10 times (the approved level of) active ingredients and impurities.”

Amedzro said as a regulator, the FDB’s duty is to ensure that products are safe for use by the public.

“We do this by ensuring that manufacturers register their products as well as packaging. In the case of importers, we send our officers to the countries of origin to ensure that the manufacturing site really exits,” he said. He explained this usually happens when suppliers of generic drugs apply to sell medicine in Ghana.

“The FDB does not have the personnel to patrol our vast land borders and it is this problem that we now encounter,” he added, referring to the way counterfeit medication was entering the country.

Amedzro said: “There is also the need to educate the people first so that they understand what fake medicines mean to their health.

“We also need to encourage the public to stop buying just from any place of sale. In addition, there is the need for the public to report those who sell medicine without registration,” he added.  

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 18 2011 (IPS)

When Andrew Poku’s mother passed away he needed help to pay for her funeral. So the 35-year-old teacher from Accra turned to one of the country’s several loan companies for a 670-dollar loan.

There are no laws to regulate the activities of microfinance companies in Ghana. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

“That was one of the biggest mistakes in life,” Poku told IPS.

He called the number advertised on a poster and met with a man from the loan agency to show him his pay slips and other documents at a local food outlet. As far as Poku knows, the loan company did not even have an office.

Within minutes everything was settled. Poku signed forms to authorise the Accountants General, where his government salary is processed, to deduct the monthly repayments.

Poku’s loan of 1,000 Ghana Cedis (670 dollars) meant he had to pay back 200 Ghana Cedis every month. Or he could opt to pay the entire sum back in one payment.

“After five months, l realised that l had paid back what l owed but I still had to pay more,” he said. It was because he was charged an exorbitant interest rate. It took him 10 months to pay back the money he owed.

But Poku’s story is a common one in the west African country where there are no laws to regulate the activities of microfinance companies. As a result they have mushroomed all over the country. Some even charge interest rates as high as 400 percent.

The only law in place that refers to microfinance companies is an old colonial law, the Money Lenders’ Ordinance, which simply requires individual moneylenders to register with the police. However, companies that loan money have to register at the Registrar General.

“We have also noticed the springing up of several companies ostensibly to provide finance to small and medium size enterprises just because there are no laws to regulate them effectively. All that such companies have to do is to simply register their companies with the Registrar General and then start operating,” said Yvonne Quansah, a director in the ministry of finance.

“After the registration, there is no legal framework to monitor the way they operate,” assistant director of the Bank of Ghana, Andrew Boye-Doe told IPS.

The Bank of Ghana has developed new guidelines under which it hopes to regulate the operations of moneylenders and loan companies.

Under the guidelines, which were issued under the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Act, the activities of individuals and companies that engage in microfinance have been categorised into four tiers. This divides the different types of loan operators according to the capital they are required to have.

The guidelines cover cooperative saving groups, locally referred to as susu companies, moneylenders and financial non-governmental organisations, which operate outside the supervision of the banking regulator. It is expected that these guidelines will take effect within six months.

“Susu companies taking deposits and making profits shall hold an initial minimum paid-up capital of not less than 67,000 dollars for one unit office; and the opening of branch(es) shall be subject to higher capital requirements,” the guideline said. This is to ensure that they have the necessary capital to back their level of operations.

Individual susu collectors, susu enterprises, individual moneylenders and moneylending enterprises will have to belong to an umbrella body.

They would, however, not have a minimum capital requirement but must contribute into an insurance fund to be set up by the umbrella body.

The guidelines do not mention the high interest rates charged by some moneylenders as authorities claim the guidelines will clean up the sector and prevent them from taking advantage of lenders.

“The situation is a complex one,” said Clara Osei-Boateng, a researcher at the Ghana Trades Union Congress who has studied the microfinance industry and the effect it has on workers in the informal sector.

She found that borrowers were not the only ones who were ripped off, but moneylenders too.

“They were instances where some of the borrowers decorated their rooms with household goods they took from others in order to impress the loan operators and then after they obtained the loans they vanished into thin air,” she said.

Osei-Boateng said the absence of regulations is the cause of the problems in the sector.

“For example, the repayment rate is not clear,” she said adding that it placed borrowers at the mercy of lenders.

“Though we found some cases of borrowers providing excellent services. The activities of many others were appalling as some workers simply have been reduced to just working to service the loans they took without knowing when they would finish paying it back because of the conditions attached to the money they borrowed,” Osei-Boateng said.

Boye-Doe said under the new guidelines no one would be allowed to operate a loan and savings business in the country without a licence from the Bank of Ghana.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Apr 6 2010 (IPS)

There are growing fears that lack of transparency on how political parties are being funded has given rise to corruption.

The U.S. anti-corruption Global Integrity Report recently stated in its findings that the country “has made no significant improvement on its anti-corruption agenda in the past year” and cited the lack of transparency of political funding as an issue.

Government’s “failure to implement a formal freedom of information regime or to exercise controls over the funding of political parties and candidates” was cited as a major challenge.

Unfortunately, as a result of a legal twist – two different legislations on how parties should report their funding – the process has not been transparent. Whilst one piece of legislation states that the onus on the parties to publish their financial report for the public, another simply requires them to submit their reports to the Electoral Commission (EC). Parties are also not allowed to receive foreign funding.

The major parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the main opposition party, the New Patriotic Party filed their records up to 2006, according to information provided by officials of the EC.

However, this information is not available to the public, IPS discovered. “We serve only as the registrars of the parties. If you want the information on their accounting records, you would have to apply in writing for this to be provided,” an EC official told IPS. But the officer claims he could not remember anyone making such an application.

Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, general secretary of the ruling NDC admitted to IPS that there was a possibility that some parties received foreign funding. However, he would not say if his party has been a beneficiary from such sources. “This is like the 11th commandment, thou shall not be caught,” he added.

He said that the issue of tranparency in the funding of political parties is one that has to be tackled at its source. “Weak political parties can attract anyone with money. Cocaine barons would be able to take over parties that are weak and this would lead to the parties selecting people who would sing to the tunes of those who fund them,” Asiedu-Nketia said.

He said if government partially or totally funded political parties, government would be better placed to demand accountability and this would allow the public a say on how the funding is being used. This, he said, would eventually lead to checking corruption.

Affail Monney, vice-president of the Ghana Journalists Association and a member of the Coalition on the Freedom of Information Bill told IPS that even though it is very difficult to establish a link between freedom of information and how it affects corruption with political funding, a freedom to information regime would enable the public quick access to information on how political parties are funded.

“For now funding of the political parties is shrouded in secrecy and there are some suggestions that some people, especially businessmen, get rewarded for their contributions to the various parties,” Monney added.

Others do not see the funding of political parties as a major corruption issue. Victus Azeem, executive secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative said that, “this is a tiny area when it comes to corruption in the country.”

Azeem said the main area of corruption in Ghana is with public procurement. “This is where much of the corruption takes place,” he added.

Aaron Boateng of the Open Citizens Group agreed with Azeem. “There is a link between the procurement business and political party funding. The big boys who provide the money expect to be rewarded after the elections when the parties they supported win. That is the reason why there is the need for transparency in how we fund our parties, it would reveal clearly those who benefit from their funding to the political parties,” Boateng said.

“There is no transparency in the way political parties file their audited accounts,” director of public affairs of the EC, Christian Owusu-Parry told IPS.

“I am not sure if sanctions have ever been applied to any political party for non-compliance with disclosure of its donors,” Owusu-Parry added.

Azeem said currently the only way to hold political parties accountable is for civil society to continue to pressure politicians to disclose the source of their funding. He said the public needed to be made more aware of the situation in order to demand accountability from their political parties.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
STOCKHOLM, Oct 27 2009 (IPS)

From Algeria to Zimbabwe, there have been calls to develop the private sector. But some governments regard independent private sectors as a threat to their power and have even actively blocked business. Meanwhile African women have had a particularly raw deal in business. Some Africans question whether the private sector or the state should drive development.

The African Development Bank’s president, Donald Kaberuka, told IPS on the sidelines of the European Development Days event in Stockholm that, “the private sector is very important to Africa because it can provide the required push that the continent needs to bring about development for its people”.

The annual event took place on Oct 22-24 and was hosted by the European Union Presidency and Commission to “showcase the European Union’s continuing and enduring commitment to development”.

Kaberuka noted that even though some efforts have been put in place across the continent, there was the need to ensure that the required mechanisms needed by the private sector to flourish are developed.

“Among other things, what we need now is a stable environment for the sector to propel much-needed growth across the continent. It also means that rules for fair participation by all must be put in place,” he added.

Kaberuka believes that, with the spread of democracy across the continent, the stage is now set for the development of the private sector, which can only survive without upheavals in society. Investors should no longer fear to put in their capital into ventures. This would depend largely on the establishment of the necessary rules to protect the sector.

Peter Bill Kisitu, chief executive officer of a Brussels-based consulting firm, told IPS that, “Africa needs the private sector because it would assist the continent in its drive to attain development for the people. Unfortunately for Africa, politicians across the continent have feared the development of the private sector and have not shown interest to develop it.”

In order to develop the private sector, African countries should put in place institutions to protect businesspeople from government control. “A number of African governments see successful businessmen as threats to their power and would do everything to clip the wings of any individual who succeeds in business beyond a certain limit.

“In Uganda we have seen it in the banking sector where individuals tried to build successful banks, only to have the government clip their wings using all sorts of state interventions,” Kisitu explained.

There is another element that frequently gets lost: “Women across the continent have for so many years engaged in small-scale trade but when the private sector is mentioned, no one takes note of them,” advocacy officer of Women of Uganda Network Berna Ngolobe told IPS.

The private sector is not just big business, she said. “These women have contributed so much to the private sector across the continent but no one bothers to help them grow, which is a clear sign of the marginalisation that women face on the continent.”

Citing the example of women in the information technology and communication sector in Uganda, Ngolobe said that when it comes to bidding for small contracts most women lack the money to bid and are thus by-passed for work they are capable of doing.

“It means that when we talk about developing the private sector, there is the need to look at the entire sector in order to correct the anomalies that exist. Otherwise, women would be left out,” she added.

But Otive Igbuzor, ActionAid’s head of international campaigns, had a totally different take: “We do not need the private sector in Africa.”

He told IPS in an interview that the private sector “is ill-equipped and dependent on government. Success in business has always depended on governments and the extent of one’s connections with the ruling class.

“The major concern for the African continent now is not how to develop the private sector but rather how to develop the capacity of the state to propel the development effort.” Evidence over the past two decades has shown that, around the globe, countries that have demonstrated real growth are not those who left their economies in the hands of the private sector, he added.

“Brazil and China have developed tremendously because they allowed the state to play strong roles to direct the development process.” These two countries focussed on bridging the gap between the poor and the rich.

“For the past six years, China has lifted 58 million people out of poverty while India, which is touted as using the private sector to develop its economy, has put 30 million into poverty,” he concluded.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
STOCKHOLM, Oct 26 2009 (IPS)

It seems that, once again, Africa and the rest of the developing world have been short-changed, given the broken promises in the wake of the global economic implosion.

The developed world has not acted in good faith towards with Africa and other developing regions in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Much of the stimulus packages promised have gone to benefit banks in those countries, rather than to help those who have become victims of a problem they did not cause, argued Josef Berger, policy officer at CONCORD, the European Non-governmental (NGO) Confederation for Relief Aid and Development.

IPS interviewed him in Stockholm on the fringe of the European Development Days conference (Oct 22-24), an event held by the European Union Presidency and Commission to "showcase the European Union’s continuing and enduring commitment to development".

Berger pointed out that when the global financial crisis erupted, leaders in the West promised significant assistance. Unfortunately, "these promises are yet to be rolled out. The response has so far not been helpful.

"What we have seen, in general, is the provision of huge sums of money to bail out banks in their respective countries, rather than protect countries that have been made to suffer because of what these banks have done," he added. CONCORD represents more than 1,600 developmental NGOs across Europe and seeks to enhance their influence vis-a-vis European institutions.

Berger believes that civil society organisations in the developing world need to be strengthened to hold their governments accountable so that they would be able to speak out on behalf of their citizenries on issues like this.

Otive Igbuzor, ActionAid’s head of campaigns, told the plenary during the session on the global response to the economic downturn that whilst Group of 20 (G20) countries "were stuttering back to life, millions of people in the developing world are sinking deeper into poverty, reeling from a global crisis they did not cause." ActionAid is a progressive international non-governmental organisation fighting poverty.

"Over one billion people go hungry every day and, this year alone, up to 100 million people will fall below the one-dollar-a-day poverty line. The poorest people have been hardest hit, yet there is no bail out for the poor," added Igbuzor.

According to him, as the prognosis for developed countries improves, millions of people in the developing world are still struggling to keep their heads above water. But over 150 billion dollars was mobilised for banks such as Northern Rock, Dexia and Commerzbank. "This is more than double the amount of EU development aid in 2009."

Igbuzor noted that the EU countries have slashed their aid budgets, with deeper cuts expected in 2010.

Instead, the international community should have delivered financial reforms and clamped down on financial outflows from developing countries, including tax evasion and avoidance, he added.

The African Development Bank's president, Donald Kaberuka, sketched a grim picture: "The crisis has wiped out 10 years of economic growth in Botswana and Mauritius."

When the crisis started, some thought Africa would be buffered because of its marginalised status in the global economy, he continued. But it has been worst hit, which is why the continent should be part of all the reforms that have been instituted to fight the crisis.

International financier and philanthropist George Soros told the plenary that the crisis was different from all others since the end of World War Two. "It originated in the centre and affected the periphery."

Governments had to effectively guarantee that no other institution at risk of endangering the system would be allowed to fail, added Soros. "Countries at the periphery could not provide credible guarantees therefore financial capital took refuge in the centre."

He suggested that developed countries offer some of their International Monetary Fund (IMF) resources to poor countries to compensate for the fall in development aid. The IMF could use its gold reserves to pay the interest that became due when countries' special drawing rights are converted into hard currency.

Managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, sounded amenable to the suggestion. He stated that "the IMF has changed and is still changing and would be changing in the forthcoming months". The Fund has moved away from its past which was an "accumulation of conditions rather than solution". It has put behind it one-size-fits-all policies.

"We are now flexible, taking into account the realities of countries," he added.

He suggested that low-income countries must have a voice on bodies that make decisions on global problems that need global solutions.

Maybe with these suggested changes, a way out could be found from the current crisis. And, perhaps, the globe could be changed from what Igbuzor described as "a world of contrasts: opulence and poverty, obesity and malnutrition, bail-out and out-in-the-cold".

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 28 2009 (IPS)

Research into an initiative to improve the lot of Ghanaian farmers shows how important it is that farmers organise themselves to improve their bargaining power with buyers.

The initiative comes from the local Guinness Ghana Brewery Ltd’s decision to substitute malt with locally produced sorghum. The next step was to contract a number of farmers at Garu in the Upper East Region in northern Ghana to farm and sell sorghum to the company.

A team of researchers has investigated the successes and failures of the project. Francis Kokutse spoke to Comfort Kudadjie Freeman, one of the researchers and a lecturer in agriculture extension at the University of Ghana.

IPS: What exactly is “contract farming”? Comfort Kudadjie Freeman (CKF): Contract farming is a system of farming where production and marketing of the produce is arranged between the farmer and the buyer who is interested in the final product. The buyer sets out certain conditions which could involve many things.

It could take the form of a production contract which sets certain conditions under which the produce is cultivated; and the technology, types of seed and inputs such as chemicals and fertilisers to be utilised on the farm. It could also be a marketing contract.

The contracts are arrived at during negotiations between the farmers and the buyers. The beauty of it all is that risks are shared. For the producers, the marketing risks are reduced as they are borne by the buyers.

IPS: Which crops are involved with contract farming in Ghana? CKF: From the 1970s, palm fruit producers were organised to produce for the Ghana Oil Palm Production Company. There has also been contract farming by pineapple farmers. The latest is the sorghum contract farming at Garu in the Upper East Region.

IPS: What kind of technology is made available to the farmers? CKF: Improved seeds, in the case of farm produce. For animals, it may come in the form of good breeds. In addition to this, new technologies in farming are introduced to the farmers as well as inputs in the form of chemicals and fertilisers to enhance their yields.

IPS: How has it worked? CKF: The idea is to use a non-governmental organisation, in this case Techno-Serve, to manage the coordination between the farmers. The sorghum was to be sourced from small-holders. Techno-Serve would then ensure that the brewery gets the sorghum.

IPS: Do farmers benefit more from this kind of farming than others? CKF: Ordinarily, the farmer is handicapped. Most farmers do not have access to capital, technology and inputs to enhance their yields. Under contract farming, these are provided because the buyer needs the products and ensures that everything is provided to make the farmer deliver.

IPS: What is the economic relationship between the buyers and the farmers? CKF: This invariably depends on the contract that is signed between the farmers and the buyers. Most farmers in the country are illiterate and as such do not understand how negotiations are done. If, at the time of signing, the terms are not spelt out, it would be to the disadvantage of the farmers.

That is why, in the case of the sorghum farmers, Techno-Serve was mandated to negotiate on their behalf and coordinate the entire project from start to finish.

IPS: What were the failures of the project and what were the reasons for these? CKF: During the first and second year the farmers lost out because they could not raise enough money from their sales to pay back credit that they had been given to support their farming activities. As a result, most of them became indebted.

This is because the farmers did not meet the demands of the buyers. This was found to be due to several factors. First was the seed variety that the farmers used. It was realised that these were susceptible to some pests. Then it was noted that the weather was not favourable to the farmers at the time.

It was found that there was so much rain that affected the use to which the produce could be put to.

IPS: Are these schemes sustainable? CKF: Yes, they can be sustained but the first thing that must be looked at is the contract. If this is not done properly, it can lead to problems of buyers taking advantage of the farmers. This means that farmer groups who want to get into contract farming must be organised in order to have a strong voice to negotiate.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ADA, Ghana , Aug 19 2009 (IPS)

In the past physically challenged Theophilus Ayim would have been kept behind closed doors by his family because they feared he would be scorned and ridiculed by the community.

And if it had not been for a small volunteer-run community radio station things would have stayed that way.

But now, instead of spending his days closeted away from a harsh world, 24-year-old Ayim is free to manoeuvre his wheel-chair around Ada. He conducts interviews with a community that now accepts his physical challenges, and reports on stories around the area for the station.

"That is the change that Ada Radio has brought to the community when we hit the airwaves some 10 years ago," station manager Kofi Larweh said.

In the mainly fishing and farming areas along the eastern coast of Ghana, communities are believed to be over 65 percent illiterate. The farmers, fishmongers, fishermen, drivers and traders of these areas have little education or understanding for physically challenged people.

But since Ada Radio went on air in 1999, broadcasting to an estimated audience of half a million people, it has been unique in many ways. It was manned by volunteers drawn from the community and was the first station to broadcast solely in the local language of the people, Dangme.

Larweh said that the success of the station was largely due to the programmes it broadcast. "We cover the environment, issues on women, farming and fishing issues that affect the community as well international news."

All programmes are locally sourced and produced by the volunteer members of the community it broadcasts to. The programming also includes a half-hour weekly programmes produced in towns and villages and with contributions by the local fishmongers, farmers and other main occupational groups.

Four years ago Ada Radio tackled the poor treatment of physically challenged people through the "Advocacy through Radio" project. This was an initiative financed by the Danish International Development Agency and contributed largely to the changing of attitudes towards the disabled in the community.

"The fact that parents no longer keep their physically challenged children away from the public shows that we have been able to change attitudes in the community," said Emily Amerdzoe, a social worker and one of the volunteers at the station.

The station included the Ghana Association of the Blind and the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled Persons in the advocacy project and trained 12 people in broadcasting.

"They went back to the community to mobilise their colleagues for drama and discussion programmes involving their lives," Amerdzoe said.

Ayim was one of those 12 people. He agrees that perceptions towards physically challenged people are now changing.

"The local authority administration now sees the physically challenged people as part of the community and consults them."

He said that before the project began, no one knew what happened to a percentage of a common fund for the physically challenged. The funds are used to improve the lives of the physically challenged and are allocated to the district by central government.

"Now, the authorities consult us on what projects they want funds to be used for. That is a big change in the community."

Seth Amarnotey, a driver working in Ada, told IPS that these programmes largely changed his perception towards the physically challenged, though he admits that initially he was not so receptive to the idea.

"When the station started its programmes, l did not take them serious(ly) because the first time l listened there was a drama programme on blindness. But, there was a follow up not long after that and l have since kept listening. This has educated me to treat physically challenged people better. I stop for the blind who want to cross the road when l am driving, which is something l never used to do. l even give free rides to some."

Amerdzoe said the change in the attitude by the community towards the physically challenged has been overwhelming. But that is not the only area in which Radio Ada has made a difference.

"One of our main successes has also been with conflict resolution in the community. We bring out burning issues that create conflict and discuss them. People call in (to the station) with their views and it helps to bring about peace." Amerdzoe said the station also resolved conflicts between churches and traditional worshippers in the district over cultural issues.

The success of Ada Radio has been recognised throughout the country and Larweh, who is now chairman of the Network of Community Radio Stations, has become a sought out person to help train other communities to set up their stations.

He said: "We have 10 such stations operating in the country currently. However, all these have their peculiar strength and it is therefore a difficult thing to compare how they work."

Radio Peace in Winneba in the Central Region has been able to solve a protracted chieftaincy problem in the community.

"The station has involved the community to talk about what they want for (themselves) and settled on peace. (They) have worked on that, so we can say they have used the medium of community radio to solve a communal problem," Larweh explained.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 13 2009 (IPS)

The European Union has pressurised Ghana to sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) despite civil society concerns being raised about the detrimental effects further trade liberalisation will have on development in the West African country.

IPS’s Francis Kokutse fired some questions at Dick Naezer, head of the macro-economic trade section of the European Union delegation in Ghana, to understand why he directed this call at Ghana’s government.

IPS: You say that the EPA "trade agreements aim at facilitating the successful integration of ACP countries in the global economy and the multilateral trading system". Ghana has been trading with Europe for decades in terms of the Lome Conventions. Why would the EPAs involve more "successful integration" than the Lome Conventions? Dick Naezer (DN): After more than 30 years of bilateral trade with Europe, the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries) still exports just a few basic commodities, most of which fetch lower prices than they did 20 years ago. Old recipes have not promoted diversification, competitiveness, growth.

And they are no longer compatible with WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules on non-discrimination and have been successfully challenged. New solutions are necessary and urgent.

The EPAs are the agreements that the EU is negotiating with the ACP that are meant to replace the trade chapters of the Cotonou Agreement as the trade preferences of this agreement expired in 2007. We had until that date to negotiate new agreements that are WTO compatible.

The EPAs are intended to be broad agreements, helping first of all to build increased, balanced and sustainable trade between the two regions. They will change our relationship from one that offers tariff preferences – an eroding lifeline – to one that builds lasting and more efficient regional and international markets for the ACP.

EPAs will integrate the ACP economies into the global economy and the multilateral trading system by strongly improving their supply side characteristics and their international competitiveness, by opening up their markets and by improving the business and the investment climate.

IPS: The EU also says that EPAs will promote development. Can you give specific examples of this? DN: Financial development aid should promote the development of the ACP states. Financial development aid is programmed in parallel with the EPAs in accordance with the Cotonou Agreement and the negotiating directives given to the EU Commission by its member states.

The regional preparatory task forces in each EPA region have the job of linking the negotiations and the aid (development) requirements they throw up.

Development financing will stimulate industry and help companies in fields such as to comply with EU sanitary and phyto-sanitary and quality standards. But the development component of the EPA is much more than just extra money: they offer a way to improve the business environment and diversify the economies of ACP countries.

To this end a substantial increase in development aid is foreseen. The 10th European Development Fund (EDF 2008 – 2013), the instrument for development aid for the ACP states, is 355 bigger than the ninth EDF and stands at almost 23 billion euros.

The 10th EDF regional programmes, which by definition support regional integration and therefore the EPAs, have been allocated 1,75 billion euros – twice as much as under the ninth EDF.

Thanks to this overall increase in resources, our focus on other priorities such as health and education can be maintained while investment under the EPAs in economic structures and economic governance can be boosted, which should prevent the ACP countries from being sidelined in the world economy.

Total development aid from the EU member states to the ACP states stood at more than 12 billion euros in 2005 and this will rise considerably if the member states fulfil the commitments they have often repeated.

IPS: What exactly does the EU want in return for 100 percent market access for certain Ghanaian export products? DN: The ACP trade preferences are incompatible with WTO rules because they’re discriminatory in relation to other non-ACP developing countries, such as Indonesia, Thailand, India and China.

It was therefore decided by the EU and its ACP partners that, when the WTO derogation for the trade provisions of the Cotonou Agreement expired, a system would be set up which was fully compatible with the WTO so as to retain and even improve the EU preferences granted to the ACP compared with other developing countries.

This system takes the form of regional trade agreements in accordance with Article XXIV of GATT concerning free-trade areas.

This requires trade liberalisation between the EU and the ACP regions, but the opening up of the ACP market will be very gradual (with a long transition period), controlled (asymmetric commitments accepted) and mutually advantageous in order to attain development objectives.

As stated, the opening up of the ACP markets will be very gradual and will afford enough flexibility to protect sensitive sectors, especially agriculture, and offer safeguard mechanisms for coping with unforeseen problems.

IPS: The EU has negotiated with Ghana on a one-to-one basis. This does not make sense. Not only does Ghana not have the trade expertise to compete by itself in trade talks with the EU but this is bad for regional integration. The EU has alleged in the past that the EPAs will promote regional integration but this action did the opposite. Why has the EU persisted with this approach? DN: ACP and EU negotiators faced a difficult decision when it became clear that full regional EPAs would not be agreed in all ACP regions by the end of 2007.

In just a few months they had to agree on a new legally secure trade regime for 36 ACP non-LDCs (non-least developed countries) such as Kenya, Mauritius, Ghana and others and ensure that relevant legislation was in place by Jan 1, 2008 in 27 EU member states.

To add to the difficulties, the non-LDCs are scattered across six ACP regions, each of which has a unique regional integration process with their LDC neighbours. Without a new trade regime the non-LDCs, because of WTO requirements, would have had to pay additional import duties under the EU generalised system of preferences from Jan 1, 2008.

Some faced trade disruption and job losses in key sectors like cocoa, horticulture, fruit and fisheries. This is why EU member states gave their full backing to the European Commission to negotiate interim agreements at national level for non-LDCs, based on new terms for goods trade.

These interim agreements will gradually be replaced by comprehensive regional EPAs as full negotiations with the various ACP regions will be concluded. So the interim agreements have not replaced the original commitment to regional integration – they are a necessary step on the road to final regional agreements.

IPS: Why has the EU threatened African countries with trade disruption? Isn't that blackmail? DN: The EU never threatened with trade disruption but has on the contrary done everything possible, together with its ACP non-LDC partners, to avoid trade disruption caused by a legal vacuum.

IPS: Civil society organisations like Third World Network Africa say the EPA would not in any way increase exports from Ghana to the EU, so what do you mean when you that it would benefit Ghana? DN: When you open up completely the EU market; you help resolve supply-side constraints in the ACP countries; and give massive development aid in order to improve elements like transport infrastructure and the business and investment climate through technical assistance to standard and quality requirements, putting in place of trade facilitation and the simplification of administrative procedures, I would normally expect better export opportunities.

But the ACP countries have to act, they have to call a halt to the negative trends of the past and grab the opportunities of the future.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
CAPE TOWN and ACCRA, Jul 11 2009 (IPS)

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans," U.S. president Barack Obama told Ghana's parliament. And the keys to that future, as outlined in his speech, include democratic elections, accountability, good governance and strong institutions.

Barrack Obama: 'Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way.' Credit: U.S. Govt

Previous visits by U.S. leaders had drawn huge crowds, and there was some disappointment when a late decision over security led to Obama's key address being shifted from Independence Square, where Bill Clinton addressed an enormous crowd in 2002, to the more restricted surroundings of the Accra International Convention Centre.

Alfred Quansah, a civil servant,told IPS, "I watched President Obama on television and it was not like he had really come to Ghana."

But his message – celebrating Ghana's success with elections and the economy, calling for Africans to take hold of their destiny in the 21st century – was well received. Obama said his administration will work to strengthen Africa.

"What we will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance – on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard; on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved; and on concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting, automating services, strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability," he said.

Africa, yes we can

Ghana will join the ranks of African oil producers next year, and Obama cautioned that this resource will need to be handled carefully, because dependence on export of a single commodity has been a trap for African countries in the past.

"As so many Ghanaians know, oil cannot simply become the new cocoa.

"From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and in their infrastructure; when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled workforce, and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs."

The U.S. president spoke of the need for a changed relationship between the Rich World and Africa.

"Now, America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. That will be a commitment of my administration.

"And where there is good governance, we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity; capacity-building that trains people to grow a business; financial services that reach not just the cities but also the poor and rural areas.

"This is also in our own interests – for if people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, guess what? New markets will open up for our own goods. So it's good for both."

How does history matter?

Obama also extended a theme of Africa's responsibility for its own fate, acknowledging the past injustices of slavery and colonialism while stressing that Africa's own leadership has often failed its people.

But Africa's leaders and their policies have not stood or fallen in a vacuum; and U.S. involvement on the continent has been less than distinguished.

In terms of governance and the peaceful transfer of power, the coup that toppled Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of an independent Ghana, was closely monitored by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and preceded by a strategic refusal of financial assistance by the U.S. to weaken support for Nkrumah's government.

The CIA was behind the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo which ushered in decades of dictatorship by Mobutu Sese Seko; and U.S. support for Jonas Savimbi's UNITA rebels in Angola and for RENAMO in Mozambique intensified and prolonged bitter civil wars.

On the economic front, the U.S. has been the major voting power within the World Bank and the IMF since their creation in 1948. Those institutions answered Africa's 1980s debt crisis with structural adjustment policies that decimated social infrastructure, catastrophically devalued local currencies, and privatised state enterprises with dubious benefits for the majority.

So it is entirely possible to see the West as an active partner in destroying Zimbabwe's economy, for example, or undermining the provision of basic services like health and access to clean water.

Only two years ago, the U.S. was still retaliating against governments in the South that opted to buy cheaper generic anti-retrovirals – despite such compulsory licensing being in line with rules set by the World Trade Organisation (and the U.S.'s own actions in buying generic anthrax vaccines for its own use).

Looking to the future

It is possible to "move on" from the legacy of colonialism and still question the role played by the United States in supporting Ethiopia's recent and disastrous intervention in Somalia, or in providing military advice ahead of failed attacks on Ugandan Lords Resistance Army fighters in the eastern DRC last year. Both interventions have had violent consequences for millions of vulnerable people.

The U.S. is among G8 countries that is fulfilling its 2005 commitments to increased aid at this point, though it set itself a less-ambitious target than many of its peers. But AIDS activists are concerned at the early signs of what the financial crisis may mean for vital U.S. aid to Africa – his administration has asked Congress for 51 billion dollars over the next six years for the Presidential. This would represent a $3 billion drop in annual support for fighting HIV/AIDS in the South when compared to the amount Obama voted for as a Senator.

The U.S. government is pressing ahead in the search for an African base for a regional military command, AFRICOM. In June, the U.S. Senate heard that AFRICOM is involved in counter-narco-trafficking efforts all along the West African coast, and is building a screening facility in Ghana. Obama's administration asked Congress for $850,000 for Ghana's military in next year's budget, up 40 percent from this year.

Obama explained his choice of Ghana for this visit in terms of the positive example the country has set for the rest of the continent, but there may have been other strategic reasons.

The West African refusal to host a U.S. military Africa Command (AFRICOM) last year was stinging setback in the context of the growing strategic importance of the region for the U.S. Increasing amounts of narcotics transit the area en route from Latin America to Europe, and it is also the source of 16 percent of U.S. oil imports – a figure that could well increase as Ghana's production begins next year.

Writing for Pambazuka News, Charles Abugre, of Christian Aid, said, "Obama means more to the world than a mere US politician. He has become a brand, for which, like all brands, there is a massive contestation of the values and meanings underpinning it.

"He means hope, a 'wind of change', the triumph of common humanity, equality of peoples and cultures and many more. But he also means pragmatism, a manifestation of American power, responsibility and interests."

If a new relationship between Africa and the United States is to take shape, along lines of "mutual responsibility and mutual respect" as Obama described it, Africa should take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the present U.S. administration while continuing to ask the hard questions.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jul 7 2009 (IPS)

When you meet Naomi Aframea, 60, in the streets of Accra, you could take her for any other Ghanaian woman going about her business. But step into her stall at Agbobloshie Market, one of the capital’s satellite markets, and amidst stacks of the wooden crates used to ship tomatoes, you sense her power.

Market queens control the market for fresh vegetables in Ghana. Credit: Evans Mensah/IRIN

She is a “tomato queen”, one of the canny businesswomen who dominate trade in fresh produce in urban centres across Ghana. Aframea is one of those who controls part of the Agbobloshie Market’s trade in tomatoes.

Aframea told IPS she was introduced to the trade by her late mother. “I used to help out travelling round to the growing areas with my mother to buy the tomatoes to sell at Nkawkaw and other satellite markets in the Kwahu area in the eastern region.”

Every urban centre in Ghana has its queens, who travel to tomato-growing areas to negotiate wholesale prices with farmers and cart the produce away to markets in towns and cities. The queens have a system of markings on the crates used to transport produce, allowing them to track the traders who work for them and the farmers who supply the tomatoes.

Because of the perishable nature of tomatoes, the queens generally have the upper hand over the farmers they buy from. They don’t hesitate to put extreme pressure on the farmers, who accuse them of cheating them to pocket the lion’s share of profits.

Victoria Adongo, programme coordinator of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, notes that “these tomato queens have been able to organise themselves into a sort of cartel and have used that to control the pricing of the produce to the disadvantage of the farmers.”

Adongo said the women use the perishable nature of the produce to their advantage, forcing farmers to accept low prices so as not to lose out completely.

“What they do is that they wait till late afternoon after the farmers have packed their produce before they go to the farms and simply refuse to pay what the farmers ask for. I have witnessed an instance where the women decided to leave a farmer with his produce, only to return to pay less than what has originally been agreed,” added Adongo.

“We do not have any power as has been rumoured all over the place,” Aframea demurs. “Tomato is a seasonal produce and we have the lean and the bumper harvest time. So when it is in season and the harvest is good, you also have to consider the total cost of transportation and other expenses before offering to purchase from the farmer.

“If you pay high prices, you may bring these tomatoes to the market and end up losing.”

She says when the growing season in Ghana ends with the onset of the dry season in September or October, some of the traders have to travel to Burkina Faso, working through translators with the growers there.

Burkina Faso has gradually become an important source of tomatoes because extensive irrigation projects that have taken off in that country enable the farmers to farm all year round, unlike their counterparts in Ghana.

Sustaining her view that the queens form a cartel to the detriment of farmers’ profits, Adongo recalls an attempt by the government to set up a processing plant for tomatoes at Pwalugu, in the north of the country. This would have given farmers an alternative buyer for their crop, and the chance to get a better price.

“What (the queens) did was when the government decided to buy from the farmers to feed the factory, the women offered more money to the farmers and this left the factory with nothing to work with,” Adongo said. The factory duly closed down, and the queens dropped their prices again.

Aframea laughed off these accusations saying, “How can we pay more than the government who has more money than we have?”

There have been other attempts to build processing plants in Wenchi, in the west of the country, and at Ada, just outside the capital. But the queens have seen off each new challenge.

Ernest Yeboah, a tomato farmer, told IPS, “They are ruthless in their business tactics and would do anything that would make them get cheaper prices in order to make huge profits.”

Small-time tomato sellers in the market must accept the prices they set; and farmers in the countryside chafe under their control; but tomato queens remain unchallenged masters of their domain.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jun 29 2009 (IPS)

There are conflicting signals about whether west African countries will sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, as the original deadline of Jun 30 has been postponed and stakeholders hold different views on the new deadline of end Oct. This may still allow Ghana to re-think its interim EPA.

At a Jun 22 meeting of the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria, a new deadline for the signing of the EPA was set for the end of Oct this year. But Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, a Senegalese trade activist, believes this new date is also likely to be missed.

Dieye told journalists at a workshop last week in Senegal that he was sure that negotiations would probably continue until Jan 2010 since both the European Union (EU) and ECOWAS have not agreed on the market percentages to be liberalised.

He said the contending issues between ECOWAS and EU was that west Africa is proposing 60 percent liberalisation of its markets while the EU wants 80 percent. ‘‘There are still a lot of issues to deal with. I do not see ECOWAS signing the EPA in October,’’ he stressed, according to the Ghana News Agency.

Amadou Niang, Senegal’s minister of commerce, called for a ‘‘social’’ approach to the EPA negotiations and that the talks should involve civil society, since the decisions taken in the agreement would have political, social and economic effects on people.

The extension of the ECOWAS-EU talks on the EPA has given Ghana, which has signed an interim EPA with the EU, an opportunity to reconsider. The government can now think through what some civil society groups claim is not in the national interest.

The agreement is a problem for the new government which had won an election and come to power after the interim EPA was signed.

The EU took to negotiate individual interim EPAs with Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire after resistance from the rest of the west African region.

Emmanuel Awuri, acting director of policy planning, evaluation and monitoring in the ministry of trade, told IPS in the capital of Accra that, ‘‘the government of Ghana can therefore hold on to ECOWAS’s decision’’ while a decision is taken.

Awuri indicated that another option has opened up to Ghana under the present circumstances ‘‘to appeal to the EU’’ to give the government that inherited the agreement time to study it before deciding whether to accept it.

While the government think through what to do, civil society organisations led by Third World Network Africa (TWN Africa) insist that, ‘‘the interim agreement was at variance with the manifesto of the current government in power and therefore there is the need for a review of (the EPA).’’

Tetteh Hormeku, TWN Africa’s head of programmes, told IPS, ‘‘our understanding is that the agreement was just initialled and therefore did not have any legal binding until it was signed. Based on this, we drew the attention of the new government to take a closer look at the document.’’ TWN Africa is the Ghana-based secretariat of TWN, an international non-governmental organisation doing research and promoting equitable distribution of world resources and ecologically sustainable development.

The EU has given directives to its customs department to allow countries that had initialled the interim agreement to import duty free and quota free. According to Awuri, this is a partial implementation of the terms under the agreement by the EU.

But scrapping import duties on goods from the EU ‘‘ will substantially reduce the revenue that the government earns, resulting potentially in budget deficits and affecting resource allocation to social sectors such as education and health,’’ Hormeku stated.

Awuri retorted that ‘‘there are other areas where the EU is to assist countries that signed the agreement. It is therefore not an all-lose affair.’’

But Hormeku disagreed: ‘‘The elimination of high duties will lead to the collapse of domestic infant industries which compete with cheap and heavily subsidised imports from the EU.

‘‘Many authoritative studies, including those of the World Bank, concluded that a high level of liberalisation of trade with the EU made countries like Ghana stand the chance of destroying 60 percent of their local production.’’

Another area of the interim agreement that Hormeku finds damaging is the issue of the removal of export duties on scrap metal to the EU. Presently, there is an export tax to discourage the export of scrap in order to make it available to local manufacturers to produce simple farm implements for the poor in agriculture.

Already, there has been a sudden growth in the export of scrap metal to the disadvantage of local small-scale producers.

The TWN has also expressed misgivings on the rule of origin article in the interim EPA under which access to the EU market is only guaranteed if goods originate in Ghana.

Hormeku says, ‘‘a Ghanaian tuna producer cannot use fish from Togo that has been canned in Ghana for the EU market. This could create a difficulty not only for current production but for future economic development, especially for industrialisation prospects in cases where Ghana sources products for processing from its neighbours.’’

Finally, Awuri acknowledged that, ‘‘from a technical point, the government could go ahead with the signing of the interim agreement. However, there are political undercurrents, meaning that the government has to weigh different considerations in order to take a decision.’’

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jun 9 2009 (IPS)

When the news of the global financial crisis broke in Ghana last year, the then-President John Kufuor said the country’s economy was insulated against the effects of the credit crunch being reported in Europe and the United States. There now seems to be an admission now that ripples are being felt.

In March, the minister of finance and economic planning, Kwabena Duffuor said “the downturn in the advanced economies in 2009 is expected to have a negative effect on the country’s exports and thus our external balance. Weak demand for exports and weak commodity prices imply less export revenue.

“In addition, expected shortfalls in remittances, a slowdown in donor support and private capital inflows as a result of the global recession are all likely to have negative impact on the Ghanaian economy in general and on public finances in particular.”

And it came to pass

In May, the Central Bank governor, Paul Acquah, told journalists the bank’s research showed inward transfers – to non-governmental organisations, embassies, service providers, and to individuals through banks in the first quarter of 2009 totalled 1.98 billion dollars, a 7.3 percent decline compared to the same period in 2008.

Sampson Akligoh, economic analyst at Databank Asset Management Services in Accra told IPS that the global credit crisis has imposed some direct and indirect effects on the Ghanaian economy. “Contrary to earlier views, that the country was immune against the crunch, we have witnessed a tightening of inter-bank credit as most of the big banks are no longer offering credit,” he added.

Other analysts seem to differ: “There has not been a broad impact on Ghana, because the country still has a relatively vibrant sale of cocoa and gold,” Daniel Boakye, an economist at the World Bank offices in Accra told IPS.

Central Bank figures support this, showing average prices for exported cocoa beans rose by 17.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 to $2,794.92. In the same period, the average price of Ghana’s gold exports increased by 12.4 per cent to $912.37 per ounce in the first quarter of 2009, according to the governor.

Boakye is however quick to point out that any benefits from this have not gone far. The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has seen a dismal performance over the first quarter of this year.

“The GSE All-Share Index has fallen and people are moving their investments from shares to short-term instruments like Treasury Bills. Consumer lending has also reduced because people now struggle to get loans – which is different from the period before the crisis.”

The credit crunch is not simply a domestic one. Efforts by UK-based Tullow Oil to raise international capital to finance its exploration work on newly-discovered oil fields in the west of the country have suffered some setbacks. In 2008, Ghana was able to raise over 750 million dollars from the bonds market. This is no longer possible.

Ordinary people affected

The most vulnerable in society could be the worst hit. “Those in the informal sector are complaining about poor sales in the streets. In addition, social programmes like the School Feeding Programme and Youth Employment Programme would be starved of public funding as the government attempts to cut down on spending,” said Boakye.

In the non-governmental sector, ActionAid Ghana is an example of an organisation that is experiencing the pinch. “Funding from our [international] supporters has dwindled over the past two years, [diverted] to support programmes in other parts in Africa. Therefore the effects of the credit crunch on our activities means a further reduction that would cause us to scale down,” said the organisation’s development officer, Joe Kpenge.

Kpenge said the group has already scaled back its AIDS programme throughout the country, as well as human security and emergency work.

Just this week, the government announced a 30 percent increase in the price of petroleum products because it could no longer sustain subsidies on the products. This was followed by a directive to public and civil servants to cut down their transportation use by 30 per cent. Leading civil campaign group Committee for Joint Action condemned the move; they claim that it could lead to a serious food crisis when transport operators hike their rates.

“Things look bad,” said Joseph Tawiah, freshly graduated from university. He claimed that “most of the companies l have applied to for work only send me the response that there is a freeze on employment.”

Seeking support urgently

Akligoh said even though the Ghanaian economy has been resilient so far, the key challenges would be how the economy is managed this year because a lower growth rate has been forecast. Last year the GDP grew by 7.3 percent; economists are predicting 5.7 percent growth for this year.

The government has started negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $400 million loan to help put the economy in order. However, Akligoh is of the view that the time has come for the country’s policy makers to diversify the export sector as well as strengthen domestic capacity to produce a national staple like rice.

He is hopeful that he economy will stabilise when the first drop of oil is pumped from the Jubilee oil fields off the country’s west coast, where production is scheduled to begin next year.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, May 28 2009 (IPS)

African governments should invest in creating jobs, providing social services and building food security to shield people against the effects of the global economic and financial crisis. They should also develop micro-credit facilities to make money available to small businesspeople and boost economies.

These proposals were raised at a two-day conference of the European Commission and the European University Institute (EUI) entitled ‘‘Financial markets, adverse shocks and coping strategies in fragile countries’’, which brought together 80 researchers and policy-makers from Africa, Europe and international organisations in Ghana’s capital Accra last week.

The workshop was held as part of the preparations to produce the European Report on Development (ERD) aimed at finding solutions to the problems that these countries face in light of the economic crisis.

The overall picture on the continent does not look bright. Dwindling foreign aid and remittances and a slow-down in foreign investments across Africa as a result of the global financial crisis has exacerbated the fragility of these countries.

An earlier report by the EUI said the fragile nature of these countries has ‘‘severely affected their development prospects. If they are to make progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, they and aid partners need to find new and innovative ways of overcoming their vulnerability and moving away from their fragility’’.

Africa’s current situation therefore calls for new thinking. Luca Alinovi, an economist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said that ‘‘in some countries we have found that food is not working because the people who are used to buying their own food do not want to rely on these interventions’’.

Alinovi said that people have adopted their own coping strategies to survive and these are some of the areas that must be looked into. But, while ‘‘things do not look bad in the urban areas – especially in a country like Kenya where public services exist – people are more vulnerable in the rural areas’’.

He suggested that African governments should seriously consider investing in employment, social services and food security.

The leader of the ERD team, Giorgia Giovannetti, noted that the development of micro-credit facilities is another area that African governments must consider to help those in the small business sector and to boost economies.

‘‘We foresee that the decrease in aid to these countries and a fall in export revenue as a result of low commodity prices may lead the people in some of these countries to riots and other civil disturbances,’’ Giovannetti told IPS.

She regarded the conference as part of a wider attempt to involve Africans in this effort of the European Union to develop ideas on how African countries can protect themselves from the onslaught of the global crisis.

Giovannetti stated that ‘‘though no serious research has yet been conducted, newspaper headlines in the West indicate that no one is willing to invest in fragile states. The consequences of this are that poverty will increase and it would put a lot of countries in trouble that they are not prepared for.’’

Yaw Nyarko, a Ghanaian and New York University professor of economics, warned that lower inflows of foreign investment and development aid will have a severe impact on Africa. ‘‘Ghana started raising funds on the international bond market to finance development projects. However, the global crisis has closed this door.’’

He argued that, while it seems as if ‘‘Ghana is doing well now, the situation can implode if the crisis is not controlled because the government’s deficit is growing’’.

The country’s central bank governor, Paul Acquah, earlier in the month told journalists that ‘‘the Ghanaian economy has not been immune to the contagion of the global crisis, even though the impact has been relatively limited in the first round’’.

Acquah added that private inward transfers received by non-governmental organisations, embassies, service providers and individuals through the banks in the first three months of 2009 amounted to 1,98 billion dollars, which represents a 7.3 percent decline from the same period in 2008.

A study of the EUI states that, ‘‘many Sub-Saharan African countries are in situations which can be described as fragile and which is caused by, among other things, conflict, post-conflict, poor governance as well as weak institutions’’.

Janvier Nkurunziza, an economist with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), confirmed this with his gloomy description of Burundi’s prospects, which will be badly affected by the global financial crisis despite having no established banking system in place.

‘‘Burundi is a weak state with very few people having bank accounts. It has a high default rate among bank borrowers," he said. The country is ‘‘very fragile as a result of political and economical stability’’.

The ERD is due to be released in October this year.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, May 15 2009 (IPS)

Ghanaians are daily consuming genetically modified (GM) products imported by various traders without much care. However, as the government prepares to allow the planting of GM crops locally in a bid to boost food production, one non-governmental organisation, Friends of the Earth (FoE) Ghana is sounding the alarm.

Watering maize: GM is touted as key to improving food security; environmental activists urge caution; thus far Ghanaian consumers seem indifferent. Credit: Louise Stippel/USAID

Professor Walter Alhassan, a consultant for the Accra-based Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) – an umbrella organisation that brings together agricultural research organisations on the continent – told IPS that “the government needs to speed up the passage of the Biosafety Bill to the global trend to improve agriculture and food security.”

For 2009, finance and economic planning minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor said Ghana has targeted increases of 42.2 percent for maize and 22.8 percent for rice. The production of groundnuts, cowpea and soyabean are projected to increase by 25.4 per cent, 37.7 per cent and 11.5 per cent, respectively.

Some scientists have suggested that the country will need to find new ways to improve agricultural productivity if the government’s target is to be met.

Prof Alhassan says “the report on Global Status of Biotech/GM crops identified challenges in the agricultural sector in Africa as low technological deployment, climate change problems, market constraints among others and stated that biotechnology is one of the tools that can make a meaningful contribution to the challenges facing the continent. Therefore it would be wise for us to embrace this idea to meet the challenges.”

FoE Ghana’s Programme Officer on GMO’s Cheryl Agyepong hits back that “the argument of Africa’s food insecurity is what is being used to push the continent into GM farming, an area that is not well known yet.”

She explained that FoE’s position is not a blind resistance to the introduction of GM into Ghana. “We want more research to be conducted into what the technology really is and this is a genuine concern.”

Agyepong says GM crops are different from conventionally-bred hybrids which have been properly researched. “Unfortunately, a decade after the talks about GM, we are still in the dark and it is important that we wait for more research to be conducted so that we know, for instance, how GM contamination can be contained.” Contamination refers to the spontaneous cross-pollination of GM crops with others, which can spread genetically-modified genes into conventional harvests and wild plants.

This position is backed by the ActionAid International, a global non-governmental agency which says the impact of GMOs on health and the environment has not been ascertained.

“Even the producers of GMOs do not fully know how the introduction of foreign genes affect human beings or plants, when the foreign gene combination is likely to break away and what effect it will have in the human body or plants,” said Eric Mgendi, ActionAid’s international coordinator for communications in Africa told IPS.

Several GM crop varieties have been designed to have a higher resistance to herbicides, allowing farmers to use greater quantities to kill weeds while sparing their crops. Mgendi claims that GMOs have accelerated the emergence of super weeds – weeds with strong resistance to herbicides and pesticides.

Campaigners say the increased use of pesticides – whether to control these weeds or as part of growing GM crops – contributes to damaging the productivity of farmland over time.

Washed into rivers or lakes, these herbicides have been known to affect plant and animal species – a case in point is the heavy use of chemicals in the flower farms in Naivasha, Kenya and the effect on fish and other animal species in Lake Naivasha, where fish with two heads have been found.

Prof Alhassan however brushes aside the fears expressed against GM crops. “GM crops are safer than non-GM crops because they go through stringent measures. Those who have expressed misgivings about it are only doing so because of fears of the unkown.”

He admits that GM technology could be misused. “It is possible that someone can move one gene from one crop to another to cause problems. But that is why regulatory bodies are set up to ensure that the technology is properly guarded.”

Prof Alhassan said conventional farming is not without its problems. “Maize farmers, for example, use sprays on their crops and these chemicals pollute the atmosphere as well affect the health of the farmers over a long period of use.” But, he says, this has not prevented the use of the chemicals but rather work continues to improve their safe usage.

As the arguments rage on, the Ghanaian population seems to be largely indifferent.

At Makola Market in Accra, one could spot various brands of soy cooking oil on sale. Adwoa Antwi, one trader who obviously did not know the meaning of GM, had a few gallons on display.

“For me, it is just cooking oil that l am selling and l do not know what is written on it.” She admitted that those who come to buy do not bother to read the label.

Thus, FoE’s campaign against the introduction of GM in Ghana seems to be facing an uphill task. Very little understanding by the population on whose behalf they are fighting, coupled with reduced funding for their work in Ghana by FoE International as a result of the global credit crunch – while their opponents continue to enjoy increased support from the global bio-tech industry – it is becoming clear that FoE may not win the fight.

In spite of the work that the Ghanaian authorities have already put in place to introduce GM crops in the country, Agyepong is undeterred. “We are determined to fight and push so that the government does not pass the Biosafety Bill,” she says. “We would continue to do our advocacy work to alert the public to know that the country is moving towards uncharted waters.”

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, May 8 2009 (IPS)

It looks like someone is not telling it as it is as far as meeting the Ghana’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on water supply is concerned.

A new borehole: Ghana's shadow MDG report survey found 48.3 percent believe govt has done little on providing access to safe drinking water; 51.7 percent believed the government is on track... Credit: USAID

The figures from the United Nations MDG monitor are encouraging enough, indicating that the number of Ghanaians using improved water sources had risen from 56 percent in 1990, to 80 percent by 2006.

Richard Adjei of the WSMP told the participants at the Water Africa 2009 Exhibition in Accra in early April that "at current pace of increase, the projected trend indicates that Ghana could reach 84 percent for improved drinking water by 2015 and reduce the population that will not use improved drinking water to about 4.3 million."

But the water minister did not mince words when he addressed the same audience of manufacturers and water sector specialists from around the globe.

"For Ghana to achieve the MDG target of 78 percent population coverage for potable water by 2015," Abongo said, "government will require not less than $1.6 billion to rehabilitate and expand it existing water treatment facilities for urban water supply, and also provide boreholes for communities and small towns' water systems."

This is money that cannot be raised easily. Kobbie Kessie, managing director of the Ghana Water Company, which is responsible for supplying urban areas with water, said the Nordic Development Fund, World Bank and the government of Ghana have so far spent 87 million dollars to develop the urban water supply.

"However, another 850 million dollars more is needed for the next five years," Kessie said.

Figures produced by the bodies responsible for Ghana’s water infrastructure also squarely contradict the rosy picture painted by the WSMP.

According to the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), at the end of 2008, only 8.4 million of Ghana's rural population of 14.8 million were adequately supplied with water – just over 57 percent of these communities. The Ghana Water Company (GWC) says it covers only 58 per cent of the urban population.

"Current production by the GWC is 570,000 cubic metres a day as against the required volume of 988,900 cubic metres," said Kessie.

Contacted by email to explain the contradiction between the national figures and those of the U.N., Sara Duerto Valero of the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs told IPS "discrepancies between our data and data provided by national organisations are possible due to the adjustments carried out by international agencies to ensure comparability and reliability of the data."

Popular perception in both urban and rural areas of the country suggests there is much work to be done. As does the lived experience of many Ghanaians: in the week before the exhibition, thousands of people living in the satellite communities that have sprung up around Accra were without water for days.

Joanna Lamptey, who lives at Teshie, a suburb of the capital, could not hide her frustration when on the third day, water was still not flowing through the pipes in her house. "We are not animals to be drinking from just any pool," she told IPS.

The executive secretary of the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in the Water and Sanitation Sector (CONIWAS), Patrick Apoya flatly rejects Adjei’s claims of progress. Apoya told IPS that "the country’s water problem has been an accumulation of several years of general neglect during which population has outstripped the infrastructure available to provide potable water."

He puts the blame for this long neglect on Ghana’s period of military rule from 1981 to 1992. "The military did not care as they left the citizens on their own and the mercy of donors."

"More importantly, no one recognised that, water was a human right." In Apoya’s view, the sector requires about $100 million a year. It received as little as $3 million a year and this resulted in very little being done.

Many of Apoya’s colleagues in civil society share his belief that past governments didn’t do much to improve the situation. They say the uncontrolled urbanisation that has taken place in the country over the past two decades is exacerbating the problem.

"Satellite communities of Nima and Mamprobi in Accra, for instance, have not been properly planned. So even if the government provides the funds, it would not be easy to lay the pipes to homes." Apoya added.

As the issue of infrastructure is being discussed, managing and protecting water resources has also come up. One of the country’s main water sources, Weija Lake, is facing a lot of problems. Among these are "high level of pollution, and complaints of odour and colour of treated water running through pipes," said Adwoa Painstil, water quality specialist of the Water Resources Commission.

Thus, the country’s water problem grows more complicated by the day.

Getting financial support from donors does not look an easy task with the effects of the global credit crunch yet to fully manifest themselves. Apoya believes the government can generate the funds locally to fund a sustainable water supply system that would fit their advocacy that "the state cannot leave any citizen out of water supply since it is a human rights."

"This can be done by some innovative way of imposing taxes on urban users to pay for the improvement of supply to the rural areas," said Apoya.

Whether or not this is a viable alternative is uncertain, but one thing and if the government would listen to this suggestion is another. Until, then it is becoming clear that Ghana’s attempt to achieve this MDG could become a dream.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Mar 31 2009 (IPS)

The initiative linking British chocolate giant Cadbury’s with a Ghanaian cooperative representing 40,000 cocoa farmers is set to grow further and enhance the livelihoods of more farmers.

Cadbury’s announced at the beginning of this month that it would henceforth source fair-trade cocoa from Ghana based on a deal with non-profit organisation Fairtrade Foundation, the UK member of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International. The foundation licenses use of the fair-trade mark in the UK in line with internationally agreed faire-trade standards.

The UK’s most popular chocolate brand has decided to buy its cocoa from the Kuapa Kooko cooperative, which will add 750,000 dollars per annum to about 40,000 farmers’ existing income from sales to the statutory regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).

‘‘This means an extra income for the farmers. We will also be able to go on with the extension services that have already been initiated by Cadbury’s under its cocoa partnership service in Ghana,’’ explained Kuapa Kooko chief executive Kwabena Ohemeng Tinayase.

‘‘What we have seen under our partnership with Cadbury’s, through Fairtrade, is an arrangement that is going to sustain the cocoa sector as well as boost production.’’

Through its affiliations with Fairtrade, the cooperative is able to pay a guaranteed premium price to the farmers – higher than what the government is paying.

Cadbury’s involvement with Kuapa Kooko will eventually triple the amount of Fairtrade-certified cocoa from Ghana – from 5,000 to 15,000 tons per year.

As well as ensuring minimum prices, cocoa farmers’ organisations will receive Fairtrade premiums of 1.5 million dollars in the first year alone for investment by local communities.

‘‘We will also be working alongside local organisations to help organise more groups of cocoa farmers into co-operatives and work with them to achieve Fairtrade standards,’’ said Alex Cole, corporate affairs director for Cadbury’s, in a statement.

‘‘We hope that by combining the expertise and standards of Fairtrade with work being done in the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, this move will lead to a more sustainable future for tens of thousands of cocoa farmers, their families and villages,’’ he added.

The Ghanaian government cannot be said to be sitting back either. The authorities have long realised that the cocoa sector is in a crisis and have tried various means to improve the earning of the farmers so that cocoa farming could become attractive for young people. Most of the present generation of farmers are getting old.

Presenting his 2009 budget earlier this month, minister for finance and economic planning Kwabena Duffuor stated that the cocoa farmers housing scheme, which seeks to provide affordable houses for cocoa farmers, ‘‘has taken off’’.

The department of rural housing has completed houses in the Western Region and will extend the project to the Central, Ashanti and the Brong Ahafo Regions. All these efforts are aimed at lifting the living standards of cocoa farmers.

One such farmer is 70-year-old Kwasi Gyan from Nankese outside Accra: ‘‘What we get (from government) is normally not enough. Most of us turn to money lenders to raise money when the need arises and they charge so much interest.’’

Talking to him reveals what may still prevent some cocoa farmers from pushing to be included in the new deal. When IPS asked him if he had heard of Kuapa Kooko cooperative that is offering a guaranteed price to its members, he replied in the affirmative.

‘‘There is even such a group near where I farm. I have heard of the good things they do for their members but I do not sell my cocoa to them. My family sells to another company,’’ Gyan said.

Tinayase is not surprised by Gyan’s attitude: ‘‘Old family affiliations to other buying companies over the years have prevented some farmers from getting involved with Kuapa Kooko Limited.’’

Hopefully, in time, Gyan will join the 40,000 farmers of the Kuapa Kooka cooperative. He told IPS: ‘‘When I have carefully studied and understood what they really stand for, I may change my mind to be part of that family.’’

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Mar 6 2009 (IPS)

There has been a clamour to tighten up oversight and regulation of Ghana’s broadcasters from unusual bedfellows – the state-sponsored National Media Commission (NMC) and the Ghana Journalists” Association (GJA). The bodies have, in separate initiatives, slammed attempts to “privatise” the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and have railed against the practices of commercial radio stations.

The trigger for this rare convergence was “unsubstantiated” news reports by two commercial stations, Radio Gold and Oman FM, that publicly backed rival political parties in the run up to the Dec. 7, 2008 national elections.

“These two stations nearly plunged the country into serious trouble with stories that were not substantiated and openly accused personalities of offences that are yet to be substantiated,” explained Bright Blewu, general secretary of the GJA.

“The way some of these commercial stations work has gradually produced a recipe for chaos in their handling of what they spew out to the listening public.” When the country’s airwaves were liberalised by the National Communications Authority over a decade ago, 130 commercial broadcasting organisations received licenses to operate in the country. It was widely hailed by Ghanaians of every stripe as evidence of the country’s growing democratic tradition.

“The whole spectrum of commercial broadcasting has become a jungle and the award of frequencies has come to serve the political interest of some politicians,” Blewu complained.

The election broadcast controversy, according to the journalist body, has exposed the need for a “proper” broadcast framework that would distinguish the public broadcaster from commercial services that “considered profit before the national interest”.

The GBC started out as a single station called Radio Zoy in 1939 under colonial rule. It now has one television channel with a national footprint and operates eleven regional radio stations that broadcast in six languages with coverage across the country.

“The GJA owes it as a duty to Ghanaians to ensure that the GBC is saved to provide a platform that would hold the country together,” Blewu told IPS.

“We want to see a broadcasting service that would be for the benefit of the people and which would not be based purely on commercial considerations. This means that news and programming content should not compete with adverts for airtime.”

Officials at the national broadcaster have hit back at their detractors, blaming the unregulated broadcast environment and scant government funding as some of the constraints to producing quality content.

“Currently we are forced to compete for advertisers with commercial radio stations and this has stifled our ability to get the necessary funding to improve our services, our programming and getting more and better equipment,” one official explained. Privatisation “has its good sides,” retort officials of the GBC who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. “It would make the organisation more flexible and businesslike,” they claim.

But the journalist body has found an ally in the government funded NMC that has resisted calls to “privatise” the public broadcaster.

“When the former minister for public sector reform tried to privatise the GBC in 2007, we wrote to the board of directors of the corporation not to deal with the ministry on the subject since we have oversight responsibility,” maintained George Sarpong, the NMC’s executive secretary. He said the entire board was removed for ignoring the Commission’s advisory and has warned his staff that a similar fate would befall them if they “assist in the privatisation of the GBC”.

The NMC was set up under the constitution to oversee the operations of the GBC and other media activities in the country. In 1992, the NMC took the government to court for meddling in the appointment process of a director general for the GBC.

“We also resisted further attempts by former President [John] Kufuor’s government to control the GBC and as a result, the NMC has had to suffer from a lack of funding,” said Sarpong. He remains resolute though and told IPS that the Commission “Believes it is right to suffer than to go along with government.”

Sustained funding of the national broadcaster and rules and regulations to guide broadcast operations emerged as key findings of a nationwide public survey conducted last year by the GJA in partnership with the development agency, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. “During our rounds civil society has come to see the need for the GBC to play a serious role to integrate the country,” said Blewu.

“We have even suggested that a tax on mobile telephone operators be used to finance the operations of the GBC. Currently they rely on television license fees, which not many people pay anyway as well as government funding which has become inadequate.”

The report on their study to gauge public opinion on the broadcast sector has been presented to the minister of information.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Feb 21 2009 (IPS)

Last year, rice farmers took to the streets of Ghana’s capital of Accra and accused the government of allowing imports to destroy their livelihoods.

Among those who have campaigned hard for the farmers over the past year is Edward Kareweh, presently deputy general secretary of the General Agricultural Workers' Union (GAWU) of the Ghana Trade Unions Congress.

Before his present position Kareweh was a rice farmer in the 1980s. He has suffered what farmers are today demonstrating about. ‘‘My 60 hectare rice farm in the Fumbisi Valley in the Upper East Region (in the north of the country) was destroyed because of the policies that the government pursued in the past. I lost everything,’’ he laments.

Kareweh blames the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for ‘‘the unbridled liberalisation policy that they made the government pursue and which resulted in the removal of subsidies to rice farmers’’, a move that favoured imports.

‘‘The consequence has been that it helped to destroy the economy of the northern region which was built on rice farming,’’ Kareweh says in an interview with IPS.

The ministry of agriculture’s data indicates that rice consumption in the country has been on the increase since the early 1990s. In 2005, total rice consumption amounted to between 450,000 and 500,000 metric tons.

In a survey conducted by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), it was estimated that local rice production was at about 290,000 metric tons by 2006. This clearly shows that there is a deficit in supply.

The shortfall in supply has given a basis for some people to argue that rice imports have augmented domestic production. Kareweh disagrees: ‘‘the policy framework that exists today does not support farmers to strive to increase their outputs.

‘‘Rice production is collapsing because the farmers do not have access to markets which have been taken over by cheap imports from abroad.’’

Executive secretary for the local lobby group, Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body (GRIB), Fedelis Avogo, answers ‘‘yes and no’’ when asked about the effects of imports on local rice production.

He notes that ‘‘rapid population growth and consequent urbanisation, combined with changes in the way we live, has contributed hugely to the demand for rice in the country. This should have been matched by the appropriate policy frameworks to assist the local farmers.

‘‘The lower prices of imported rice are as a result of the advantages that the foreign suppliers have over the local farmers. It makes it difficult for any serious competition. The other side is that our current production capacity is low and we have to find a way of addressing the problem.’’

Accordingly, GRIB has suggested the establishment of a rice development fund by the government to help with land development, something that is capital intensive in rice production.

John Awuni, corporate affairs director of Finatrade, one of the leading rice importers in the country, argues in return that, ‘‘imports in the case of Ghana have not killed local rice production because the local rice sector has never been capable of producing enough to feed the population over the years.’’

He admits that local rice production has been deficient in infrastructure, personnel and expertise. But, he asks, ‘‘should any government put a stop to rice importation? Local production would need over a decade of consistent planning to improve in order to fill the gap.’’

Awuni claims rice farmers have always used the removal of subsidies as an excuse to ‘‘cover their deficiencies in production. Over the years, Ghana has relied on rainfall to support rice production with no intervention by the private sector’’.

But, retorts Musah Iddris, a one-time farmer from Tamale in the north of the country, ‘‘this argument is what annoys us because the government has refused to support the sector with adequate extension services, the right technology and even in the matter of seeds, as they have done with cocoa for example’’.

The reality of the north is that the large tracts of lowlands that people have used for rice farming is also vulnerable to the weather.

Iddris describes it thus: ‘‘when it rains in the north, it turns into floods destroying farms and property and that is why we have called on the government to provide support in the form of irrigable lands away from the flood-prone areas, but this has not been forthcoming.’’

It is, however, heartening to note that the government is not sleeping on the issue.

The northern regional director of agriculture, Sylvester Adongo, announced just before Christmas last year that 813 farmers have been assisted in the three northern regions with land preparation, the acquisition of certified rice seeds and the purchase of subsidised fertiliser to cultivate 10,000 hectares.

Adongo said that there were about 400,000 hectares of lowlands in the three regions capable of producing about 200,000 tonnes of paddy rice a year. In addition to this, the government is trying to revive an abandoned rice irrigation project at Aveyime in the east of the country which, if it comes on board, would help improve rice production in the country.

These moves make Iddris hopeful for the future but he poses the question: ‘‘what will I be doing until then?’’

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
Accra, Jan 5 2009 (IPS)

As Ghana’s president-elect, John Evans Atta Mills, prepares to take office, he has his work cut out for him translating several years of strong macro-economic performance into tangible benefits for the majority of Ghanaians.

The ruling National People’s Party (NPP) narrowly failed to retain the presidency, with its candiate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo receiving 4,480,446 votes, representing 49.77 percent against 50.23 for Mills and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

“The elections are over. There is no longer an NDC Ghana, an NPP Ghana or a CPP Ghana. We have one Ghana and must work together to build the country,” Mills told teeming supporters in a victory speech in Accra.

Defeated presidential candidate Akufo-Addo admitted this division in his concession speech. “This is a divided country and these times call for leadership from all of us so that we can continue to build this country.”

Mills takes up his new position with warning signals on the horizon for the economy.

Accra-based think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), said in a report that the “general outlook of the economy in the short-to medium term period is likely to be characterized by increasing levels of inflation, high budget deficits and widening trade and balance of payment deficits.”

What the IEA reports sharply contradicts the message outgoing President Kufuor had for the electorate on the campaign trail. He told voters that, “We have stabilised the micro-economic environment and the country is on the good course.”

Frederick Ofori-Mensah, chief investment officer of the Strategic African Securities in Accra however agrees with Kufuor to an extent, “We are [headed] in the right direction as far as the economy is concerned,” Ofori-Mensah told IPS.

He said “using the GDP as the main indicator we are happy where we are today.” However he is quick to point out that “it is not everybody who is contributing to the GDP growth. Last year the Central Bank said GDP growth was about 6.3 per cent, this year it has forecast 6.8 per cent.”

But ordinary Ghanaians are unconvinced by these figures.

Joseph Boye, a mechanic at Accra New Town told IPS, “We have heard them read numbers from papers every day to tell us the economy is good. This does not translate into price reduction in the market as my wife complains daily about the increasing price of food stuffs on the market.”

Ofori-Quaye supports this view from the street, explaining, “What has happened is that the government did not set its priorities right. There is a growth in the service sector, information and communication technology (ICT) sector is booming unfortunately, the government has not spent time on revamping the manufacturing sector,” he said.

Ofori-Mensah said, a large chunk of the population cannot benefit from strong growth because they are not qualified for those sectors that have seen growth. “This is because of the high interest rates and unfavourable exchange rate regime which is likely to affect foreign direct investment.”

It has not been an easy journey for Mills, who takes over on January 7 for the next four years. The 64 year old was vice-president from 1996-2000. In 2000 and 2004, he stood for election to the country’s highest office against John Kufuor and failed, but has been lucky this third time.

It was not an entirely hitch-free election. Two days after the first round on Dec. 28, the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) Observer Mission said contrary to statements from Ghana’s Electoral Commission, allegations of electoral irregularities in some parts of had been proven to be true.

Authmani Saidi Janguo of the PAP mission told journalists that in the Ashanti Region – considered to be the support base of the NPP – the team observed NDC agents refusing to sign results at at least four polling stations.

Janguo said in the Volta Region, particularly in Anloga, PAP observers experienced difficulties with unruly and armed mobs that had set up road blocks and ordered them off their vehicles and searched their cars. NPP officials believe that the situation created the opportunity for multiple voting to take place.

Janguo, however, noted that the irregularities observed had not compromised the integrity of the electoral process which expressed majority will of the people of Ghana.

To maintain the jubilation of his supporters, one of Mills’s priorities will have to be to give the ordinary worker some relief from economic hardship.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Dec 4 2008 (IPS)

It is estimated that there are eight million small arms in circulation in the West African subregion, with grave consequences for the region’s security.

“[The weapons have] led to civil wars in the past and fuelled some of the ethnic clashes all over the region. Some of these arms have found their way into the Niger Delta in Nigeria,” says Baffour Amoa, President of the West Africa Network on Small Arms.

“There is no way that one can give the exact figure on illicit arms,” he told IPS. “It is estimated that Ghana has about 200,000 of such arms in circulation.”

Amoa said many of the conflicts recorded in the region would not have been possible without the proliferation of small arms. He mentioned the Russian arms dealer, Victor Bout, who was among those who delivered illegal weapons that fuelled the crises in both Sierra Leone and Liberia the 1990s.

Today, arms from the civil war in Cote d’Ivoire are increasingly finding their way into Ghana.

The issue is of particular concern for the Ghanaian government with general elections taking place in December. The Ghanaian authorities fear that with illegal arms circulating in the country – and some of these have been used in recent communal conflicts in the north of the country – there is the possibility that some disgruntled politicians could use these arms to create problems in the country.

Baffour Amoa says that as “Ghana’s elections draws near, there are signals that some of these illicit arms are likely to be used to create trouble in the country.”

In some parts of the north, there have been reports of gun shots during clashes between supporters of rival political parties. In August, two people were killed in Tamale when supporters of the two leading parties, the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the main opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) clashed after a political rally.

Emmanuel Kwesi Enning, a security expert and research fellow at the Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Training Centre in Accra cautioned the government publicly that the country’s security was sliding and could explode with the slightest action.

He noted: “Pockets of violence and militarism experienced during the primaries of the ruling NPP and the on-going limited voter registration exercise have the tendency of jeopardizing Ghana’s security, if they are not nipped in the bud.”

Further stirring the pot was a report on an Accra FM station by a former inspector of Police, Albert Johnson, claiming that some arms and weapons that disappeared from the Police Armoury at Tamale in the north of the country were later used in armed robbery and conflicts in the region.

A former deputy defence minister, Tony Aidoo has accused the government of engaging in gun running. “In 2002 the ruling New Patriotic Party government decided to bring arms into the country under suspicious circumstances,” he told IPS. “The security services were not involved with the procurement and the importation or its evacuation from the ports.”

Aidoo added: “The clandestine nature of the discharge of the arms and weapons is a concern because no one knows exactly how much was brought into the country.”

At the time, he said, the government announced that the arms were to be used by an elite force that was being trained to protect dignitaries. “These arms were sent to locations that had nothing to do with the national security apparatus and to date no one knows where these arms are.”

Ghana’s minister of state for the interior, Nana Obiri Boahen, said the government is doing all it can to control the proliferation of weapons in the country. In addition to guns smuggled into the country, a significant number are made by local gunsmiths, and the Ghanaian authorities are now torn between “saving the skills of those whose lives depend on arms production and simply banning the industry which presently creates a security threat,” said Boahen.

In areas where guns are known to be manufactured, such as in the eastern part of the country around Nkonya, the industry is very difficult to control because the people have become evasive using all forms of tricks to beat the security agencies. There are no statistics for how many people the industry employs, but Boahen says it has become an important trade.

“We have noted also that they are very skilled in the art of producing these small weapons and some people have called for the government to permit the industry and only control it through tracing and marking to know where and who produces what.”

However, this runs counter to the direction that the regional body, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), is taking. The ECOWAS Small Arms Control Programme (ECOSAP) was set up five years ago to build the capacity of national commissions on small arms and civil society to help defeat the phenomenon.

“Unfortunately, only seven countries out of the eight countries required – Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Gambia and Nigeria – have since then ratified the regional convention on small arms,” says Nana Boahen. While Ghana’s government in November destroyed a quantity of confiscated small arms, it is not clear when it will ratify ECOSAP.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Nov 27 2008 (IPS)

On a hot November afternoon, Opanin Owusu Adu showed me around his farm on the outskirts of Suhum, a town in the Eastern Region in Ghana.

Cocoa leaves discoloured by swollen shoot disease. Credit: Francis Kokutse/IPS

What should have been golden pods, have become blackened, dried up and withered. ‘‘You cannot cultivate these ones. It means no money.’’

Swollen shoot disease is a problem across the West African region. Farmers in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Nigeria have not been spared the devastation.

Worried by its long-term effect, Ghana’s President John Kufuor early this year called on the regional grouping the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to take steps to fight the disease.

Ghanaians are worried because the cocoa bean is the country’s main export. The country stands to benefit from this year’s high commodity prices. Issac Osei, chief executive of the country’s cocoa regulator known as Cocobod, has said the country is keen to increase its production to one million metric tons a year.

The Nigeria-based Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL), a grouping of global cocoa producers, has taken the lead to find ways to fight the disease.

The executive director of Ghana’s Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Control Unit, Francis Nsiah, told IPS in an interview, ‘‘COPAL is assisting the cocoa-producing countries in the region to combat the disease.

‘‘Ghana, Togo, Nigeria and Ivory Coast have signed an agreement to tackle the disease and this has been going on for the past two years with support from COPAL.’’

He said the disease has devastated cocoa farms all across Ghana's main cocoa-producing areas. ‘‘It used to be the Eastern Region alone but it is now affecting farms in the Western Region, which is the country's cocoa basket.’’

According to Nsiah, about 32 million trees affected by the disease have been cut down throughout the country in the past 10 years or so. ‘‘However only about 60 percent of the replanting has been done so far,’’ he added.

The replanting effort proved difficult because of the attitude of some farmers, Nsiah complained. His unit not only cuts down the affected trees but pays grants to farmers and provides seedlings at subsidised rates for replanting.

He said the disease would not in any way affect Ghana's plan to achieve a production target of one million metric tons by 2010 because most of the newly planted trees will mature early.

Michael Owusu-Manu, COPAL’s head of economics, told IPS that, ‘‘the swollen shoot disease has been around West Africa for the last 70 years. It was this disease that led to the creation of the West Africa Cocoa Research Institute (WACRI) at Tafo in the eastern region in Ghana.’’ It provided an opportunity for scientists to find ways to contain the disease.

After independence, WACRI became the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana and ‘‘has all these years been working on the disease. To take this more seriously, the Ghana Cocoa Board set up a special unit, the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease Unit, to carry out control programmes,’’ Owusu-Manu added.

Swollen shoot disease is found mainly in the western African sub-region in the countries of Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Togo and, to some extent, Nigeria. No reports have been received from Cameroon, but ‘‘this is under investigation’’, according to Owusu-Manu.

The disease accounts for about 15 percent of the total global loss of the crop. Taking this in terms of the 2007/08 crop output of about 3.7 million tons, the disease would account for the loss of approximately 555,000 tons throughout West Africa.

‘‘The only way to combat the disease is to cut out infected trees,’’ he added.

Some farmers, like Opanin Owusu Adu, do not see the sense in this. ‘‘Until the new tree produces crops, we need to take care of our families. You don’t tell your children that some disease has affected your wealth so there is nothing to take care of them.’’ This is the problem that the attempt to control the disease is facing in Ghana.

For Owusu-Manu the answers lies in more research and better coordination of actions. ‘‘We have developed a regional project in coordination with Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo. This is being done under our Scientific Research Committee to bring together researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the sub-region.’’

Hopefully this initiative will provide some answers. Otherwise cocoa farmers across West Africa face a bleak future.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Nov 26 2008 (IPS)

The upside: three political parties selected women as vice-presidential candidates in the general elections of Dec. 7, the first time ever in Ghana’s history. The downside: the parties are small and have no real chance of victory.

Does the handful of women nominated bode well for the future? Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

Gender activists were pleased but not overjoyed.

"It is a move we welcome but it is not what we have been working for," said Frank Wilson Bodze, of the gender group Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), which lobbies for a fair representation of women in government.

In Ghana, 11 percent of Parliamentary seats and just fewer than 16 percent of ministerial posts belong to women, according to the Progress of the World’s Women Report 2008 of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

The three leading political parties – the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) – had made noises about choosing women candidates for the veep position, that remained just that – noise.

In the 2004 elections, out of 230 Parliamentary seats, the NPP got 128, the NDC had 94, and the CPP, three.

"It would have made more sense to us if the leading parties had selected women at the top level," said Bondze.

On 14 October, when the PNC announced that Petra Marie Amegashie was the first ever woman vice-presidential candidate in Ghana, and the RPD and DFP nominations quickly followed, many gender activists cheered. Other decried the move as cosmetic.

Wendy Asiamah, a human rights activist formerly with Amnesty Ghana, disagrees with the cosmetic interpretation.

"The selection of these women by the elders of their parties was based purely on their competence," Asiamah said. "They were given the chance to prove their worth, and no one can draw any link between their selection and that of Sarah Palin with the US Republican Party."

In the recent elections in the USA, veep candidate Sarah Palin was widely judged to be ill-prepared for the job by 60 per cent of American voters.

The triple A

Cosmetic or not, the three candidates – whose family name coincidentally starts with an A – have credentials on their own right.

Announcing the choice, PNC presidential runner Edward Mahama said that Amegashie is "a team player with very good interpersonal communication skills."

A newcomer to politics, Amegashie, 49, combines the skills of a businesswoman with the stamina of a Catholic missionary. She worked with Bayswater Contract Mining and with the Novotel hotel chain, studied to be a missionary at Missio Ad Gentes in Rome and worked with the National Catholic Secretariat. Before joining the PNC, she had considered running for president as an independent.

For this, says Bondze, "her being bold enough to take the decision to go independent must inspire other women in the country to take politics seriously."

Patience Ami Ameku, a 58-year-old teacher and the DFP candidate, was the district chief executive for Kadjebi, in the Volta Region, in Eastern Ghana, between 1988-1993. From 2004 to 2007, Ameku was Assistant Director of Education at the Ghana Education Service.

The RPD candidate, Rosemond Abraham, 40, a wealthy businesswoman in the cosmetic industry, has the least experience in politics. The RPD General Secretary, Francis Kyie, told IPS that "as someone who has been running seminars all over the country to empower women [to go into the cosmetics business], we believe that she has so much to bring into the country’s politics."

Regardless of their chances of winning, having women candidates run for the country’s second highest office brings benefits. It encourages greater political engagement by ordinary women.

Unifem’s Progress Report notes that in the United Kingdom elections in 2001 women voters turned out in slightly higher numbers than men in elections for seats with a female candidate.

As Joyce Mfum, a teacher in Accra, told IPS: "Change does not just happen one day. What these three parties have done is to sow the seed which would definitely bring some fruits in the future."

Somewhere out there, a little girl is watching, waiting for her turn.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Oct 24 2008 (IPS)

The Economic Community of West African States has taken the unprecedented step of inviting Oxfam America to coordinate the drawing up of a mining code for the region. The decision has infuriated some civil society organisations.

Defining the code that will guide resource extraction in West Africa is vital. Credit: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

"Even though gold mining has surpassed cotton and cocoa farming, Mali and Ghana still rank 173 and 135 respectively out of 177 countries, according to the UNDP Human Development Index."

Resource extraction in West Africa has been linked to civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and environmental degradation and displacement of local people in Ghana and Nigeria, to choose just a few examples. Inhabitants of oil- or gold-rich areas are often paradoxically among the poorest in each of these countries.

Bitèye told IPS that collaboration with ECOWAS began in March 2007 when the president of the ECOWAS invited the group to engage in a process to develop mining standards that benefit the poor, respect the environment and human rights, and keep governments and mining companies accountable through improved governance practice.

"Oxfam America agreed to facilitate the participation of and contribution from West African civil society and members of communities affected by mining in this process. In turn, ECOWAS's role is to consult governments, international financial institutions, mining companies and other stakeholders."

According to Oxfam America, the code will ensure social stability, protect the environment, improve job security, income and food security, and respect good mining conduct norms.

The creation of the ECOWAS mining code is part of Oxfam America's programme to promote citizen participation in West Africa in decisions related to oil, gas, and mining projects, transparency of payments by international corporations to governments operating in this industry, and uniform laws and policies across the region that will forestall a "race to the bottom" as companies compete for foreign investment by compromising their social and environmental standards.

Process challenged

But protests have been flying around the subregion since the ECOWAS decision to sign the MOU.

Yao Graham, Third World Network Africa's regional director told IPS that "our concern so far is that the mode of Oxfam America's selection has not followed any procedure. They were simply hand-picked and aside from that, the organisation is providing $123,000 dollars to pay consultants that it was going to engage."

Dissatisfaction with the procedure for selection led TWN Africa – a research and advocacy NGO with a strong interest in development, the environment and trade justice – to boycott the meetings that Oxfam had called.

Bitèye says Oxfam America is committed to civil society participation. "Oxfam is not dictating or overseeing civil society in this process. We are playing the role of facilitator so civil society organizations can make their voices heard.

"With years of experience supporting civil society organizations working on mining issues, Oxfam's goal is to support the contribution of these groups to the mining convention development process both at national and regional levels.

"Oxfam's extensive experience working on extractive industries around the world also allows us to provide technical assistance and access to a network of international experts on this issue," Biteye added.

But the process has been controversial. The MOU was signed in Nigeria on 14 April, but a "validation workshop" was held in Dakar just three days later, at which a draft of the mining code was presented to around eighty regional civil society organisations.

Dakar-based lawyer Hélène Cissé, a co-author of the code, interviewed in the African finance journal Les Afriques at the end of May said following: "I believe the notion of having citizens participate played an important role in this workshop. What was most important about it, however, is that it was constructive.

"The purpose of the mining code we’re currently drafting is not to go against mining companies. That’s not at all our intention. Instead, we are trying to make them understand that local communities are assets and that economic production must be incorporated into the global effort to secure the well being of local populations."

Cissé said that modifications suggested by participants in the April workshop were integrated and the text was submitted to ECOWAS. "ECOWAS appeared to be very inclined to take this into account to formalise the final project,"

The impression of being asked to comment on an already well-developed draft did not sit well with TWN's Graham. He said ECOWAS director of industry and mines, Mensan Lawson-Hichelli was invited to Accra where the TWN expressed misgivings about the involvement of Oxfam in the drawing up of the code but nothing has come out of this protest.

When IPS called Lawson-Hichelli, he said he was not in a position to answer questions on the MOU between ECOWAS and Oxfam America. "You must direct your queries to the appropriate quarters."

Asked who that was, he replied, "I don't know."

Efforts to secure a copy of the draft code also came to nothing.

IPS eventually reached ECOWAS trade commissioner D.A. Daramy, who said, "Oxfam USA is an NGO that ECOWAS invited to correct the situation in the mining sector in the region. They did not approach us, we talked them because we knew they had the expertise.

"Currently, Oxfam USA is developing the convention that we need to set up the basis for producing the regulation required to improve the sector. The accusation that there was something wrong with our involving Oxfam USA is simply not right."

Out of step with civil society principles?

Abdulai Dramani, the environmental programme officer for Third World Network Ghana, told IPS the whole idea of the MOU is "not transparent and advances the very forms of donor capture of policy and citizens space that African peoples as well as many from the global North have been campaigning against."

He describes Oxfam America's role in nominating non-governmental organisations to participate in the process as colonial.

Dramani underlines that civil groups in the West Africa region are not against the preparation of the mining code. "What we are against is the arrangement."

And he is not alone. A letter from the Ogoni Solidarity Forum of Nigeria [ID] to the ECOWAS President charged that the MOU "violates the Southern Campaigning and Advocacy Principles that the Oxfam family adopted some years ago."

OSF pointed out that ECOWAS' foray into mining policy was relatively new and noted that the design and timetable of the project places ECOWAS at risk of missing out on a historic opportunity and benefit from the continental review of the experience of mining codes across Africa which has been initiated by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and Africa Union (AU)."

OSF also views the role assigned to Oxfam America as undermining "relations between ECOWAS and its citizens and their organisations in the region."

TWN's Dramani states that since the countries in the region do not have adequate guidelines, it is the wrong approach to start with drawing up policies. "There is the need to negotiate certain principles and these would define the conventions and the laws that would be used," he said.

All parties are agreed, it seems, on the need for improved regulation of mining in the region. Across West Africa, resource extraction has been connected to systematic violation of human rights across West Africa, often with slow and limited response from the governments who rather than protect citizens collude with multinational companies to maximise profits.

The outcome of the battle for control over a code that could define future conduct in West Africa is a vital one.

*with additional reporting from Terna Gyuse in Cape Town

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Oct 16 2008 (IPS)

Mawusi Awity and her husband were willing to jeopardize his military career for her dream of running for parliament in Ghana but there was another price to pay that she could not afford.

“The excessive use of money to win the minds and hearts of the voters is making it difficult for women to get into the forefront of politics,” Awity told IPS.

A development worker and district assemblywoman for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Awity, 46, is one of a handful of women trying to move into Ghana’s political arena. Her story shows the need to re-draw political rules in this democratic West African country (pop.23 million).

In August, Awity lost the primary election to choose the parliamentary candidate for the South Tongu constituency, in the southeast.

Never mind the possible consequences for her husband, an officer in the Armed Forces, of her choice. “My husband has resigned himself to the fate that if my party looses the elections, that is the end of his career,” she added. “But he is a wonderful man and supports me.”

The insurmountable problem was vote-buying among party delegates, a common practice in Ghana, according to political analysts.

“The use of money in politics has seriously affected all the attempts we have made to involve more women in politics,” said Hamida Harrison, programme officer of the women advocacy group, Abantu for Development.

Awity’s decision not to buy votes possibly cost her the election. “The people know I am the best candidate but they also decided to take money to vote for whoever provides the money,” she said.

The numbers speak for themselves. For this year’s general elections scheduled for December, only 70 women are running for Parliament’s 230 seats.

Perhaps the lesson of the last elections in 2004 was not lost on women. Between the two main parties and a few small ones, a total of 101 women ran. Twenty-four were elected – just under 11 per cent of Members of Parliament (MPs).

The NPP fielded 227 candidates, of whom 27 were women. Twenty women and 107 men were elected.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) fielded 212 male candidates, of whom 90 were elected, and 16 women, of whom four were elected.

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) candidates numbered 150 men and 18 women. Only two men were elected.

“To think that after we launched the Women’s Manifesto, this is all we achieved, shows that there are fundamental problems that need to be addressed,” said Harrison.

The Manifesto, launched in 2004, is a non-partisan call to promote gender equality in politics.

“We have been able to use the Manifesto to change the perception of our women about politics not being a job for them,” Harrison told IPS.

Some progress can be seen. The Chief Justice, the Deputy Inspector General of Police and the Vice-Chancellor of a large public university are women.

“What is holding women back is the way politics is run in the country,” said Harrison.

Money talks, money votes

Thelma Lamptey, who won the CPP primary to represent Pokuase constituency near Accra, the capital, couldn’t agree more. Lamptey, a teacher, has twice lost the nomination to men.

“The main problem has been how to raise money to run my campaigns,” she said.

“Whereas men find it easy to raise funds, women cannot easily go to the men who could help them. In addition, the men who may want to help do not feel comfortable to approach the women,” she added.

Harrison attributes the attitude of the men to the social structure of the country: “Let us be honest, Ghana is a patriarchal country and a highly traditional society and this does not give space to women. We have reports of spousal pressure on some women to back out from their political careers and some marriages have broken down.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, a couple of top women touted as possible vice presidents by the various parties were not interested.

Anna Bossman, acting head of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, turned down an offer from the CPP, arguing she was happy in her job. Rose Mensah-Kutin, executive director of Abantu, recused herself early on when her name was being bandied by the NPP.

What to do?

Awity supports affirmative action with a number of Parliamentary seats reserved for women.

Lamptey suggests exempting women candidates from paying filing fees to the party before the primaries and another fee later to the Electoral Commission.

Awity, who in spite of her bitter defeat works with the NPP presidential advisory team, said that “the party has become aware of the money factor as one thing that is impeding the participation of women and that has to be fought seriously.”

She agreed that fees should be scrapped for women or the government should set up a fund to support women candidates. However, she warned, strict monitoring is needed to prevent misuse.

Then Awity can worry about winning votes, instead of buying them.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Sep 18 2008 (IPS)

The international cotton trade has been a sad tale for West African countries. The region produces five percent of the world’s cotton and 15 percent of the global cotton fibre trade. Yet West African cotton farmers are among the poorest in the world.

Their purchasing power is only five percent that of farmers in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Purchasing power refers to the value of goods (cotton) compared to the amount of money paid.

Non-governmental organisation Oxfam GB’s trade spokesperson, Amy Barry, told IPS, ‘‘cotton has become a symbol of the unfairness of the global trading system.

‘‘In West Africa alone, 10 million people depend on cotton for their livelihoods. For these households, the subsidies the U.S. pays its farmers have a critical bearing on their ability to put food on the table, educate their children, and sustain their health.’’

Unfortunately the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which is supposed to create a level playing field for global trade, finds it difficult to be of any help to these farmers because the industrialised countries do not want to play by the rules.

West African cotton farmers' uphill battle against subsided U.S. farmers has been an issue for many years. Last year Oxfam issued another report on the fate of the West African farmers.

Barry said, ‘‘it has been proven time and again that U.S. cotton subsidies do significant damage to farmers in developing countries, particularly West Africa. The refusal so far by the U.S. to adequately reform these cotton subsidies is a signal that they are not serious about the promise to reform trade rules to promote development.

‘‘The US must act in good faith and honour its promises to treat cotton as a priority issue.’’

However, with the situation remaining the same, there are signs that cotton farmers in West Africa will be taking up other forms of farming.

Cotton production takes a very central place in the economies of some countries in West Africa. The depressed prices, caused by large quantities of subsidised cotton on the world market, affect the livelihoods of thousands.

It is against this background that the governments of Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso and Chad have fought in the WTO to find ways to end the subsidies that farmers in the industrialised countries receive from their governments.

According to Oxfam, these subsidies caused losses of 400 million dollars to these West African economies in the period 2001 to 2003 alone.

Therefore it urged the WTO to find ways to stabilise prices paid to producers. This is yet to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, with the breakdown in the Doha Round of the WTO talks in July this year, West African farmers will be badly hit.

Barry pointed out that, ‘‘U.S. cotton producers will receive about one billion dollars annually in subsidies over the next five years under the new U.S. Farm Bill. The vast majority of these subsidies go to about 12,000 mostly large-scale cotton farms.

‘‘A quarter of all subsidies go to the top one percent of recipients, who get 500,000 dollars each on average. The Farm Bill recently passed by the U.S. Congress actually reinstated cotton subsidies already ruled illegal at the WTO.

‘‘The U.S. offer to cap its trade distorting agricultural subsidies at 14.4 billion dollars, made at the Doha talks in July, would not require the US to cut trade-distorting cotton subsidies by one cent. The U.S.’s failure to get serious on this issue is undermining their position in what were meant to be pro-development negotiations,’’ Barry added.

Beninese journalist Gerard Migan told IPS cotton production plays a very important part in his country’s economy. Therefore anything that distorts production would greatly harm both the nation and the farmers at large.

Migan said that since 2006 the government had to support farmers with the assistance of the World Bank so that they could maintain production. ‘‘That is why Benin has joined the ranks with others to battle against U.S. subsidies to its cotton farmers,’’ he added.

Oxfam’s suggestion for the establishment of a support fund was mean to create a mechanism to stabilise prices. This has been started in Burkina Faso where the government created the fund in 1992, which ensured that farmers received guaranteed prices even if prices fell lower than expected.

According to Oxfam, ‘‘the producers became active in the management of the fund in 1999. The fund also ensured that cotton companies were reimbursed the difference between the actual sale price and the reference price for the tonnage sold, when actual prices fell below this reference price.’’

According to Oxfam, this success story has been destroyed because of unchecked U.S. subsidies and the downward trend of commodity prices.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse and IPS Correspondents
ACCRA, Sep 5 2008 (IPS)

Delegates from both developing and developed countries have adopted the Accra Agenda For Action (AAA) as a guide to improve the way aid is given and spent.

The document was adopted at the close of a three-day High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness which drew over 1,200 delegates from about 120 to the Ghanaian capital.

Under the AAA, developing countries committed to control their own futures, and donors to better policy and delivery coordination among themselves.

After some hard negotiations, both sides also pledge to make themselves accountable to each other and their citizens.

Although there were reports that the talks pitted developing countries, backed by the European Union, against leading donor nations the US and Japan, a senior U.S. spokesman played down the suggestion.

"A number of groups were very involved in the discussions and in putting forward inputs and ideas. Everyone was pitching in and working together," said Henrietta H. Fore, Director of Foreign Assistance in the State Department and USAID Administrator.

"We wanted to reflect the urgency, but we also wanted to be realistic. We wanted to set targets that we could meet," she told IPS.

Other US officials pointed to what they called "cultural differences" between the U.S. and Europe – where European countries tended to set "aspiration targets" by setting the bar high, the U.S. favoured realistic, achievable targets.

"The U.S. is very target-oriented, very results-oriented," said a U.S. official attached to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the grouping of the worlds leading donors that had called the Forum along with the World Bank.

The Accra Agenda states that governments in the developing world will take stronger leadership of their own development polices and engage with their parliaments and citizens in shaping those policies.

"Donors will support them by respecting countries priorities, investing in their human resources and institutions, making greater use of their systems to deliver aid, and increasing the predictability of aid flaws," it adds.

In addition, they agreed that "achieving development results and openly accounting for them must be at the heart of we do."

Since citizens and taxpayers of all countries expect to see the tangible results of developments, the gathered leaders promised to "demonstrate that our actions translate into positive impacts on peoples lives."

"We will be accountable to each other and to our respective parliaments and governing bodies for these outcomes."

"Without addressing these obstacles to faster progress, we will fall short of our commitments and miss opportunities to improve the livelihoods of the most vulnerable people in the world," they added.

The Agenda also agreed to deepen engagement with civil society organisations as independent development actors in their own right, as organisations whose efforts complement those of governments and the private sector.

Civil groups present at the Forum however criticized the final outcome saying it was a weak agreement characterised more by words than action.

"Even last-minute efforts by developing country ministers and their allies only ensured some marginal improvements. This aid forum was organised by the OECD, a rich-country donor club," said Rose Mensah-Kutin, executive director of NETRIGHT Ghana.

"In a year when more than one hundred million people have been pushed into poverty by rising food prices, it is scandalous that donor governments have refused to remove damaging restrictions that increase the cost of food aid," she added.

"Donors have failed to agree to reduce harmful policy conditions that undermine democratic processes and constrain country choices," said Tony Tujan of Reality of Aid, an umbrella group,

"Despite efforts by recipient countries, donors continue to impose their own structures, by-passing domestic processes. Donor are failing to meet their side of the bargain."

Ngonzi Okojo-Iweala, Ghana's minister for finance said, "the Agenda has advanced the course of what we have been talking about. It has set targets and indicators to improve upon aid."

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Sep 1 2008 (IPS)

About a 1,000 delegates are expected to take up their seats tomorrow at a high level forum on the effectiveness of aid that opens in Ghana’s capital, Accra. But their arrival has been met with mixed reactions.

Hamida Harrison -- donors need to stop tying aid to their national interests. Credit: Miriam Mannak/IPS

He told IPS, ‘‘so many similar international conferences have been hosted in Ghana over the years to help the poor but they are yet to show any results. It is the same people who come to talk.

‘‘Nothing much would come out of this meeting because it is the same talking and talking by international delegates that achieve nothing in the end. What is the guarantee that it will come out with anything new?’’

But Siapha Kamara, chief executive of the non-governemntal Social Enterprise Development Foundation of West Africa (SEND), said the forum is important because of the inclusion of civil society as part of the discussions on how to make aid effective for recipient countries.

‘‘The attempt to open up the whole process of aid must be applauded,’’ he enthused.

Mary-Anne Addo, director of external resource mobilisation at Ghana’s finance ministry, explained that the whole concept of holding a forum on making aid effective follows the realisation that needs in developing countries have changed and to find ways to direct aid towards development.

Addo said, ‘‘past attempts to design policies to fit every country has not worked and people in developed countries are beginning to question the provision of aid to developing countries because they are not witnessing any change.’’

This led to attempts to find out what was not being done right. ‘‘This resulted in the first high level forum in Paris, France, where donor nations and agencies decided to tie their aid to the Millennium Development Goals over the period 2005 to 2011,’’ Addo elaborated.

The Paris Declaration included several commitments to improve aid to recipient countries. For example, partner (developing) countries commit to exercising leadership in developing and implementing their national development strategies.

Donors commit to respecting partner countries’ leadership and to help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.

The Accra forum is a midway review of how the Paris decisions were progressing to meet the necessary targets, she added.

Addo disagreed with Ayensu about the forum being meaningless. The Accra forum would give the opportunity to ministers and agency heads to consider and endorse the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA).

This will provide the platform to deepen the implementation of the Paris Declaration adopted in 2005 at the first high level forum.

Hamida Harrison, convener of local non-governmental organisation the Aid Effectiveness Committee, told a press conference in Accra that following consultations they had with other civil groups in the country, they intend to ask donors to discontinue tying national interests to aid.

The aim with this action would be to improve the results of international aid disbursement in recipient countries.

This is an issue that Addo and Harrison agree on. Aid tied to the national interests of donor countries has been seen to undermine efforts to address the needs of the poor and marginalised, which they both agree should be the core thrust of international aid.

Harrision argued that the draft AAA has not offered any opportunity for the removal of inequalities. It has weak participatory mechanisms which limited engagement with stakeholders.

Addo explained that the agenda has gaps regarding gender, disability, climate change and environment which need to be addressed. These issues have been incorporated into the agenda, leading some unnamed countries to ‘‘kick’’ against their inclusion.

These are the areas where the forum is expected to produce most head ache.

Another issue which Harrison said should be given proper attention is the issue of accountability. She said it is wrong for donor nations to demand accountability from the recipient nations without ensuring that donors do likewise.

‘‘We expect to see an independent and credible system to be established to actualise the commitment by countries in partnership to account to citizens on both sides.’’

Harrison noted that the level of civil participation on issues of aid in Ghana was low: ‘‘As a country highly dependent on aid for development, its processes and other issues should be a major concern to all.’’

She appealed to stakeholders to develop a keen interest in deliberations at the conference.

Despite the good intentions of the forum, the cracks that Addo spoke about are likely to deepen when the real business of discussion begins and this is likely to vindicate the cynicism expressed by lay-persons such as Ayensu.

The forum will end on September 4.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 30 2008 (IPS)

The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) are being given a bad name for nothing, according to Ghanaian parliamentarian JB Danquah.

Danquah, who is a member of the Ghanaian parliament’s select committee on environment, science and technology, told IPS, ‘‘the threat to African trade is not with the EPAs but with China and other Asian countries that are dumping their goods on the continent.’’

Explaining what he meant, he cited Ghanaian manufacturers who had been ‘‘tricked’’ by Chinese raw material suppliers. Ghanaians have given these suppliers the specifications of their products, only to have the suppliers make those very products.

Danquah was speaking against the backdrop of another civil society meeting protesting against the EPAs. The African Trade Network (ATN), consisting of African non-governmental organisations critical of the economic status quo, met this week in Ghana’s capital of Accra to strategise around new challenges emerging in their campaign against the EPAs.

ATN regards the trade deals currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries as ‘‘draconian’’ and calculated to ‘‘deepen the continued dependence on aid and development finance’’.

Moreover, the EPAs are ‘‘an extension of an intensification of unbridled neoliberal policies that Africa and other developing regions have been force-fed for nearly three decades now, and whose main outcome are the destruction of Africa’s productive sectors and human capital.’’

Neoliberal policies have been promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and involve liberalisation of trade flows, deregulation of business and the shrinking of the state through privatisation.

The civil society network maintains that, ‘‘the EPAs have a dangerous and powerful momentum. Undoubtedly the EPAs constitute the most immediate and urgent threat to Africa’’.

The ATN’s position is meaningless to Danquah who argued that, ‘‘African politicians involved with the EPA negotiations are not being given their dues’’.

He said the campaigners were not ‘‘on the ground’’ and do not understand the issues involved. Ghana’s signing of an interim EPA has been ‘‘beneficial’’ to the country: ‘‘We were able to save about 40,000 jobs. In addition to that, over 200 million dollars worth of produce would have suffered if we had not signed.’’

Dot Keet, trade specialist at South Africa’s Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), refuted Danquah’s claims. African countries displayed their weakness in the negotiation process when they buckled and signed the interim EPAs, she told IPS.

AIDC is a non-governmental organisation which seeks to mobilise people in a search for alternatives to the dominant economic system.

According to Keet, ‘‘those countries that signed the interim agreements were not being firm in their negotiations. The whole thing was an attempt to divide the continent.’’

Citing the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as an example where individual countries went on their own in signing interim agreements, she said that these decisions fragmented SADC.

What was worrying was that, ‘‘officials from some of these countries have said that they knew the agreements were not good but we had to sign’’ because of fears that aid would be withheld, she added.

The ATN contends in a statement that the current global commodities boom ‘‘is a reality that gives African economies more leeway and stronger strategic bargaining positions.

‘‘Commodity market trends also mirror major shifts in world economic power, most notable the rise of new developing countries such as Brazil, India, China and, to a lesser degree, South Africa.

‘‘This offers new opportunities for diversifying Africa’s international economic relations away from the narrow and debilitating reliance on the EU and its markets.

‘‘This is the worst possible time to throw away all these potential openings by locking Africa into an intensified neo-colonial relationship with the EU through the EPAs,’’ according to the statement.

The ATN maintains that ‘‘hundreds of millions of Africa’s producers’’ stand to lose out in every sector of production and exchange if the EPAs come to pass.

The ATN believes it contributed to the failure of the EU to secure the EPAs by the end of 2007. However, the campaign could not ‘‘generate a momentum and an agenda that is sufficiently independent of the negotiation process’’.

This is partly because of ‘‘we are yet to approach a stage where broad layers of trade unionists or fisher folks associate threats to jobs and working conditions with the threat of the EPAs.

‘‘Nor does a critical mass of women’s organisations actively see successful resistance to the EPAs as a potential qualitative turning point in the fight against inequality within and beyond Africa.’’

The campaign’s approach regarding gender was criticised by the Agency for Cooperation and Research (ACORD) Kenya’s gender and conflict manager Awino Okech. She said no effort has been made to tap into the views from women’s movements across the continent.

ACORD is an international alliance of non-governmental organisation promoting social justice.

Trade debates present themselves as ‘‘gender neutral’’ but women should be engaged to voice their concerns on issues, said Okech. She was quick to observe that the nature of the discussions on trade was highly ‘‘technical’’ – all the more reason to involve women’s organisations.

Excerpt:

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jul 31 2008 (IPS)

Business has been slow for many Ghanaian traders. They blame the situation on not only the influx of cheap Chinese products but also insufficient legal protection and corruption.

Accra's bustling central business district Credit: Francis Kokutse/IPS

But views on the issue are varied. Some see it as an opportunity while others think it is destructive to the economy.

IPS visited the central business district of the capital Accra to hear from local traders what they are talking about when they say Chinese goods are killing their businesses.

Philip Asobonteng (45) has operated a shop in Accra for more than 20 years. He told IPS, ‘‘we have no problem with competition but, if it is coming to destroy you, there is a need to speak up’’.

Last year traders closed their shops to protest against what they regard as unfair competition. However, this elicited no response from the government. After all, the Chinese traders are not breaking any law.

The country’s investment code stipulates that any foreigner investing a minimum of 300,000 dollars can open a retail business. In addition to that, the business should employ 10 Ghanaians.

Any foreigner who meets these requirements can legally start her or his own business. But, Asobonteng says, ‘‘they are using the laws to create hurdles for us and we want the government to take a stand’’.

The Ghana Union of Traders (GUTA) sent a proposal to parliament in November last year urging members of parliament to review the investment code. They claimed that the code had not been reviewed since being enacted 13 years ago.

According to GUTA, the minimum investment amount should be raised to one million dollars and the number of Ghanaians to be employed increased to 25. In addition, the commodity categories should also be reviewed. GUTA executive member Joseph Addy claimed that foreigners, including Chinese, were abusing the law.

The Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has insisted that a partnership with China should be a win-win situation: ‘‘We need a measured approach to protect our interests in the trade relationship with China and other developed countries.’’ This concurs with the majority of traders’ views sampled by IPS.

William Afflu, a seller of household products, told IPS, ‘‘these Chinese are using tricks to get around the law. They break the law in a very clever way and no one can take them to task.’’

Addy had told the roundtable conference last year that some foreign traders registered as free-zone companies but then imported goods to sell on the Ghanaian market. Free-zone companies are given government incentives to manufacture and process goods inside Ghana.

Other foreigners use the pretext of exporting goods to neighbouring landlocked countries to divert goods to the Ghanaian market without paying the necessary taxes, which makes these goods cheaper.

In order to fight off the threats posed to local commercial interests, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), together with the customs and excise services, immigration services and the police, set up a task force last year to arrest those foreign traders who were abusing the law.

Unfortunately this intervention has not been sustained. One reason is the collaboration of some Ghanaians with foreign traders to flout the law. Afflu alleged in an interview with IPS that he knew Ghanaians who had approached foreigners, especially Chinese, to ‘‘front’’ for them to avoid them having to meet the criteria for foreign businesspeople.

‘‘These are things you see, you know what has gone on but the paperwork tells a different story. In the event of this happening, what can you do?’’ asked Afflu rhetorically.

This development poses a difficult problem. How can business partnerships between Chinese and Ghanaians be checked? Meanwhile the government’s trade with China is on the increase.

Joseph Henry Mensah, a senior cabinet minister and chairperson of the National Development Planning Commission, does not regard China’s increasing presence in Ghana as a threat to the country. Rather, he sees it as providing trade opportunities which the country should take advantage of for the benefit of all.

‘‘We are all spending time to fight a threat from China when actually there is none,’’ Mensah argued.

Excerpt: