When European explorers first braved the interior of the ‘Dark Continent’ they often marvelled at – and occasionally frowned upon – the nomadic nature of many of its people. Whether it was a group in the Congo or a tribe traversing the Sahara from Kano, it seemed that people moved with all of their belongings, whether it was a camel, shovel or blade. This kind of lifestyle seemed unthinkable to the European, whose sole aim, it seemed, was to accumulate wealth through the acquisition of land, riches and property.
But has much changed since in many parts of Africa? Let me clarify (and forgive me for slightly departing from the discussion at hand) with some examples. How do you gain the confidence of a government official in Africa, gain the trust of a professor, or even secure a date? In my experience, by providing one of two gifts: a mobile phone or a pen drive (USB). The big project work financed by development agencies, which has facilitated few improvements in quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa, has made the aforementioned all the more valuable. Because amid all of the civil violence and electricity brownouts you are often forced to endure in Africa, you can count on two things, regardless of how dire your situation may be: an effective mobile phone network, propelled by ‘pay as you go’ credit, and an internet café. This is why a mobile phone and a pen drive are so essential in this environment: they store all of the African’s information and are, of course, portable. These items are no longer symbols of wealth in Africa but rather necessities in what seems to be – albeit for different reasons these days – a place where people are constantly on the move.
Thus, if an African’s house explodes, it is not the end of the world; if his or her farm burns down, it is not grounds to shoot oneself; if his or her car suddenly stopped working, it is not a disaster. But for people constantly on the move, losing a pen drive or cellular phone, which contain the details of one's life, ambitions, connections and lifestyle, would be catastrophic.
Saturday 31 May 2008
Thursday 8 May 2008
Local Economic Development?
To what extent are mining companies contributing to local economic development? This question is being fiercely debated around the world. On the one hand, you have the companies, World Bank and investors pointing to how the industry has a mandate to hire locally, builds schools and libraries for indigenous groups, and attempts to generate local employment for affected peoples. On the other hand, you have NGOs arguing that because they are mechanized, mines provide very few employment opportunities; that the schools being built have no schoolteachers and that libraries are well-stocked but are in areas where no one can read; and that the efforts made to generate employment have been sporadic and ineffective overall. I tend not to get caught up in these debates.
But what I am interested in is how a company’s operations are contributing to local economic development. One way of doing that is to make use of local smallholders’ product. In Ghana here, it pains me to drive through rural areas and see tons of produce – mangoes, citrus, bananas, plantain – rotting on the roadside because it did not get to the market on time. I have seen this time and time again in mining communities, which raises the questions: to what extent are companies using local producers? This is something that needs to be investigated.
Someone once told me that in Ghana, one company does catering for all of the mining companies. That is a lot of money and more importantly, a lot of food. ‘It is ridiculous what some of these companies are doing,’ a Guyanese colleague once told me. ‘Here in Guyana, these companies are importing apples, when you have mangoes and papaya here; they are importing canned tuna, when you have the best shrimp and fish right here; and they are importing rice when you have the best rotis produced right here.’ Having eaten at several of the mining companies’ canteens in Ghana, there is certainly evidence of this taking place: the beef, potatoes, apples, pears and juices are surely imported, in true expatriate style. And fair enough, I guess. But there are also local dishes served alongside these luxuries, including fu-fu, banku and red red. These dishes use local ingredients: plantain, maize, yam, cassava. So where is the catering company sourcing its supplies of these goods?
Of course, a mining company cannot make everybody happy. But allowing caterers to go outside of catchment communities to secure food supplies seems senseless. I am by no means advocating that this is taking place in Ghana but communications with colleagues suggest that it is happening elsewhere in the world. Using local producers would certainly make a lot of people happy, and could go a long way toward restoring a company’s relationship with its communities.
After all, is not engaging with local producers a more beneficial CSR initiative than a school with no teacher?
But what I am interested in is how a company’s operations are contributing to local economic development. One way of doing that is to make use of local smallholders’ product. In Ghana here, it pains me to drive through rural areas and see tons of produce – mangoes, citrus, bananas, plantain – rotting on the roadside because it did not get to the market on time. I have seen this time and time again in mining communities, which raises the questions: to what extent are companies using local producers? This is something that needs to be investigated.
Someone once told me that in Ghana, one company does catering for all of the mining companies. That is a lot of money and more importantly, a lot of food. ‘It is ridiculous what some of these companies are doing,’ a Guyanese colleague once told me. ‘Here in Guyana, these companies are importing apples, when you have mangoes and papaya here; they are importing canned tuna, when you have the best shrimp and fish right here; and they are importing rice when you have the best rotis produced right here.’ Having eaten at several of the mining companies’ canteens in Ghana, there is certainly evidence of this taking place: the beef, potatoes, apples, pears and juices are surely imported, in true expatriate style. And fair enough, I guess. But there are also local dishes served alongside these luxuries, including fu-fu, banku and red red. These dishes use local ingredients: plantain, maize, yam, cassava. So where is the catering company sourcing its supplies of these goods?
Of course, a mining company cannot make everybody happy. But allowing caterers to go outside of catchment communities to secure food supplies seems senseless. I am by no means advocating that this is taking place in Ghana but communications with colleagues suggest that it is happening elsewhere in the world. Using local producers would certainly make a lot of people happy, and could go a long way toward restoring a company’s relationship with its communities.
After all, is not engaging with local producers a more beneficial CSR initiative than a school with no teacher?
Tuesday 6 May 2008
Dirty Looks in the Akwatia Diamond Market
Last week, I visited Akwatia for the first time, despite having carried out research on mining in Ghana for nearly a decade. It is indeed a shell of its former self, in large part because the parent company, Ghana Consolidated Diamonds (GCD), has pretty much ceased operating. The purchasing arrangement inaugurated under GCD was unique, and provided tributers with security of tenure and, most importantly, a job. A decision by Antwerp to regulate exports of Ghanaian diamonds has further complicated things. Apparently, UN people have concluded that Ivorian diamonds are being smuggled into Ghana and exported as Ghanaian diamonds. Major buyers and retailers do not want to be caught up in buying ‘conflict diamonds’, and I see their point. But what I do not see is the justification for such a sweeping generalization, particularly when only isotopic analysis can differentiate between an Ivorian and Ghanaian diamond. Is this analysis being carried out? I hardly think so.
Every morning between 8 am 12 AM, the diamond buyers – or the few who can afford to sponsor diamond miners and/or purchase their product – converge in the centre of town. I was told that during the heyday, as many as 500 buyers were packed into its narrow streets. On the day I went, however, there were fewer than 40. ‘Business is tough these days,’ explained one buyer. ‘It is because of the Kimberley Process.’ Recognition of Kimberley signifies that these guys know what is going on – specifically, that forces beyond Ghana are responsible for their fate. This could explain why I received innumerable dirty looks throughout the day: perhaps they thought I worked for the UN or was, in fact, Mr Kimberley. The most depressing, and indeed identifiable, feature of Akwatia is its ‘(boom) bust-like’ appearance: abandoned stalls, shops selling goods that were once affordable luxuries, and empty hotels. With the exodus of mining, of course, has come poverty, which can only be fixed with, well, the resurgence of mining.
So let us hope for the sake of Akwatia’s people that the diamond embargo is lifted. After all, it has not been a location of civil violence, so why should its people also be victims of what unfolded in Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Angola?
Every morning between 8 am 12 AM, the diamond buyers – or the few who can afford to sponsor diamond miners and/or purchase their product – converge in the centre of town. I was told that during the heyday, as many as 500 buyers were packed into its narrow streets. On the day I went, however, there were fewer than 40. ‘Business is tough these days,’ explained one buyer. ‘It is because of the Kimberley Process.’ Recognition of Kimberley signifies that these guys know what is going on – specifically, that forces beyond Ghana are responsible for their fate. This could explain why I received innumerable dirty looks throughout the day: perhaps they thought I worked for the UN or was, in fact, Mr Kimberley. The most depressing, and indeed identifiable, feature of Akwatia is its ‘(boom) bust-like’ appearance: abandoned stalls, shops selling goods that were once affordable luxuries, and empty hotels. With the exodus of mining, of course, has come poverty, which can only be fixed with, well, the resurgence of mining.
So let us hope for the sake of Akwatia’s people that the diamond embargo is lifted. After all, it has not been a location of civil violence, so why should its people also be victims of what unfolded in Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Angola?
Leftovers
It is amazing what you can find in an African market. The majority of goods available are second hand, of course: clothes, radios and shoes. Of the goods that are new, most are produced in China and India and are generally of poor quality.
On the one hand, the level of material reuse in Africa is commendable. Here, you have automotive parts that would be instantaneously melted down or discarded in the UK being refitted into a ‘tro-tro’ or communal vehicle: they are treated as raw materials. The continent is indeed the king of automotive refurbishment, and we in the West could learn a lot from these guys. But on the other hand, this simply underscores what Africa is for us: a repository for our waste and unwanted products. After all, the refurbished automotive parts were selected from, well, outdated cars in the first place – cars that would not be deemed fit to be on a European road; nor which anyone in Europe would want anyway.
Sometimes it is amazing what trade liberalization and de-regulated markets have created in the developing world. I mean, twenty years ago, who would have thought that African capitals would be epicenters for poor-quality used clothing manufactured in South Asia, used bicycles produced in the Far East, rice manufactured in Thailand and the US, and toothpicks – I repeat, toothpicks – produced in China. In Ghana here, the indispensable MSG-infested Maggi cubes that make or break the jolof rice, chicken dishes and light soups we consume, are manufactured in Malaysia; as is the ketchup used on our rice dishes, despite the fact that the country is a major producer of tomatoes. But what perhaps tops everything is the television program shown during primetime (Friday and Saturday nights). This is a Mexican soap (produced circa-2001) translated into English. Accra seems to stop on Friday and Saturday nights to watch it, and if you are in a building where it is being televised, you often see women pick up their cell phones to call their friends, sisters and mothers to gossip and reflect critically on what Carlos Raul or Alessandro has said, has not said, has done, or has not done. From what I hear, most African countries have similar soaps ‘imported’ from Latin America and the Philippines.
Sometimes the things you see in Africa are mind-boggling.
On the one hand, the level of material reuse in Africa is commendable. Here, you have automotive parts that would be instantaneously melted down or discarded in the UK being refitted into a ‘tro-tro’ or communal vehicle: they are treated as raw materials. The continent is indeed the king of automotive refurbishment, and we in the West could learn a lot from these guys. But on the other hand, this simply underscores what Africa is for us: a repository for our waste and unwanted products. After all, the refurbished automotive parts were selected from, well, outdated cars in the first place – cars that would not be deemed fit to be on a European road; nor which anyone in Europe would want anyway.
Sometimes it is amazing what trade liberalization and de-regulated markets have created in the developing world. I mean, twenty years ago, who would have thought that African capitals would be epicenters for poor-quality used clothing manufactured in South Asia, used bicycles produced in the Far East, rice manufactured in Thailand and the US, and toothpicks – I repeat, toothpicks – produced in China. In Ghana here, the indispensable MSG-infested Maggi cubes that make or break the jolof rice, chicken dishes and light soups we consume, are manufactured in Malaysia; as is the ketchup used on our rice dishes, despite the fact that the country is a major producer of tomatoes. But what perhaps tops everything is the television program shown during primetime (Friday and Saturday nights). This is a Mexican soap (produced circa-2001) translated into English. Accra seems to stop on Friday and Saturday nights to watch it, and if you are in a building where it is being televised, you often see women pick up their cell phones to call their friends, sisters and mothers to gossip and reflect critically on what Carlos Raul or Alessandro has said, has not said, has done, or has not done. From what I hear, most African countries have similar soaps ‘imported’ from Latin America and the Philippines.
Sometimes the things you see in Africa are mind-boggling.
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