Thursday 13 November 2008

The Overseas Vote

The other day, I was speaking to a Ghanaian man at the train station who could not contain his excitement about the country’s upcoming elections. Ghanaians go to the polls on December 7th in what should produce an overwhelming victory for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). But what I found particularly perplexing was how this man could influence the elections: he had not been ‘home’ in over ten years, since the days of Jerry Rawlings (allegedly the reason why he fled the country in the first place). ‘I am voting NPP,’ he told me, ‘because I am a Kumasi man, and because the NPP are doing very good things, unlike the previous NDC [National Democratic Congress] government. So I am voting NPP just like I did last time.’

The allusion to ‘last time’ is, of course, inaccurate: the incumbent president, John Kufuor, only signed into law the Representation of the People Law Bill Amendment on February 24th 2006. During the elections of 2004, therefore, this gentleman would not have been able to vote if he was in Britain. But this law now enables him, and three million more Ghanaians who are resident abroad, to vote in the upcoming election: they will no doubt be converging on their embassies come election time. The opposition NDC, powerless to prevent the bill’s passing at the time, argue that an extension of voting rights to Ghanaians overseas all but assures that the ruling NPP party, which has significant support abroad, of another four years in office. But there is a more significant question worth asking here, which extends beyond the shores of Ghana: should people have a say in who rules a country which they do not live in and/or have no intention of living in?

Of course, the issue of overseas voting is not something endemic to Ghana. We were repeatedly reminded of its occasional absurdity during the US election, when CNN provided footage of scores of Americans piling into US embassies in Argentina, Japan, South Africa, Australia and France to cast their votes. Many of these people work and/or reside permanently abroad but because they were born in America, they are guaranteed a vote that must be cast in the state in which they last resided. In the US, voting rights extend to overseas citizens even though they may no longer own property or have other ties to their last state of residence, and, even if intent to return to that state may be uncertain. This meant that the lady working in the Peace Corps in Nigeria for the next five years was allowed to cast a vote for Barrack Obama, and the cowboy who has been living in the Australian Outback for the last 15 years was able to vote for Senator McCain.

I was recently asked by my father if I was going to vote in the Canadian election (for those of you who are not familiar with this country’s invisible political presence, there was a national election there in October), because, I was told, ‘I was eligible’ to do so. Out of principle, however, I did not: I have not lived there for nearly a decade, so why should I have a say in how my brother, my parents, my friends and the guy at the coffee shop are taxed? Or, whether they can use a cell-phone whilst driving? Or, whether or not they should be fined if they throw their chewing gum on the sidewalk?

Hopefully Ghanaians, and others living abroad, will begin thinking critically about the implications of overseas voting, and also think twice before participating in their ‘national’ elections.

Thursday 6 November 2008

A Quick Rant on the Development Consultancy Debacle…

A recent experience I had at a conference in South Africa effectively underscores the problem with the development ‘consultancy engine’ today. About a month ago, I delivered a pretty passionate talk about how the Kimberley people, by spreading word that Ghana was a potential repository for ‘conflict diamonds’ from neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire, were responsible for the downfall of Akwatia. I explained that their claims were unfounded, and whilst they would later admit the same, the reputation of the town had already been shattered: diminished confidence in Ghanaian product had a ‘ripple’ effect, resulting depressed payments for diamonds throughout the supply chain and, by extension, causing significant hardship. Some two years later, the town is still recovering.

But then I was asked the all-important question: what would I have done differently – that is, how would I have gone about investigating claims that Ghana may be trafficking conflict diamonds? This, admittedly, is something that I had never thought about; and, is the type of question which academics, by nature, cannot answer very well because they have not been trained to do so. Needless to say, I struggled.

Academics excel in carrying out research – to diagnose what problems are, why they occur, where they occur, and why they have happened in the first place. They are also good at filling information gaps: inter alia improving knowledge of the dynamics of a community; through field-testing, providing insight on which technologies can work, and which ones will not; and identifying vulnerable peoples in need of support. This, however, raises yet another an important question: why, then, are so many academics, whose strengths are diagnosing problems, being hired and asked to identify solutions to development-related problems? The result, in most cases, is a recommendation to hold another workshop or seminar to help ‘refocus’.

This underscores the true state of the development consultancy engine today: commissioning the wrong people to do jobs. There are people – external consultants who are more disconnected from theories and books – whose job is to identify solutions. They are asked to draw upon an information base compiled by the academics and other researchers. Now here is the problem with these people: rarely do they use the information provided to them to develop meaningful solutions. Rather, and is evidenced in the mining industry time and time again, the consultants are formulating solutions based upon their own assumptions and educated guesses. This, more often than not, leads to the implementation of ungrounded policy solutions: the implementation of an appropriate piece of equipment and the passing of ineffective laws.

So, to sum up, we have consultants in development who are not taking into consideration research findings whatsoever, yet are forging ahead, prescribing solutions. Moreover, many of these consultants are academics, who though good at generating an information base about pressing problems at hand, are not really good at formulating solutions to these problems.

And we wonder why aid rarely translates into anything meaningful on the ground…