Ghana’s paradox: Poverty despite political stability

Poverty in Ignorance
Poverty in Ignorance writes about the Ghanaian paradox of political stability alongside disastrous socio-economic indices:

‘Ghana may be the political success story of West Africa, however, its citizens have yet to experience a standard of living more associated with modern liberal democracies.

‘Ghana is routinely touted as one of Africa's “success stories” because of its political stability. Certainly the United States has invested a lot in this idea; the US Embassy complex rivals the Presidential Palace in size.

‘However a closer look at the economic statistics underlying that claim underscores what a miracle the country's stability is, considering that Ghana ranked 152 out of 189 countries in the latest Human Development Report, poorer even than Yemen, the Sudan, Haiti and even violence torn Pakistan and the Congo.

‘Only Afghanistan and even more desperate sub-Saharan countries rank lower, this despite a strong base of natural resources (the country wasn't known by Europeans as the Gold Coast for nothing) and agriculture, as well as recently discovered oil. As Forbes magazine recently commented, Ghana "shouldn't be poor, but it is”...

‘Therein lies the great problem facing the country. Ghana's “success” is that despite its continued economic woes, it hasn't become unstable, become a haven for extremists or turned anti-American. But it's hard to say how long will Ghanaians remain quiescent in the face of such poverty when their country has so much potential.’

Sami Ben Gharbia's Blog
Sami Ben Gharbia argues that increasing US activism in the Arab blogosphere supposedly to promote Internet freedom is hypocritical and counterproductive. To drive this point home, he quotes Egyptian blogger Alla Abd El Fattah:

‘To most Egyptians the alleged support to digital activism provided by US government, US companies and US non profits is irrelevant at best. For starters the interest and hype in what goes on down south is very selective. For instance the tens of thousands of Egyptian workers organizing factory strikes and posing the biggest challenge to the Mubarak regime at the moment are totally ignored by both media and policy makers. This is not some argument about slacktivism either. These factory workers are using blogs, Facebook, SMS and YouTube to organize, mobilize, and publicize their actions and grievances. Digital activism is very much a daily part of their movement. Even when the State Department notices actual activism happening, their interest and “support” can bring more harm than good. You see we notice how much the U.S. supports the “moderate” regimes that enjoy torturing us. And getting support from the same guys who finance the police, the military, state propaganda media and corruption is simply bad for an activist’s credibility (not to mention how most of us feel about the occupation of Iraq or the United States’ unconditional support for Israel). If the U.S. government is really interested in democracy in the Arab world, it should stop sending aid to the dictatorships, and just get out of the way.’

Mikocheni Report
Mikocheni Report writes about a visit to Zanzibar as the island prepares for the upcoming general elections:

‘I did the usual survey of political opinions in Zenji while I was there the past week. From the man on the street, it sounds as though the predictions for the coming elections are positive. Taxi Driver Number One told me that Zanzibaris were only waiting for the elections to formalize the coalition government since Maalim Seif is the favorite candidate. Taxi Driver Number Two confirmed this, and the only CCM member I could corner said something along similar lines. Other things that I learned: Zanzibar is interested in renegotiating the terms of the Union in it's favor, consensus politics are preferable to oppositional politics, Eid ul Fitr gets celebrated for four days straight (!), the Zanzibari/Zanzibara distinction is alive and well.

‘The mood on the island was quite relaxed as far as I could tell, even though there were more campaign posters than there are Zanzibaris. Upon leaving, I got a bit of ribbing about not hanging around to see the vote... but much as I would love to watch Zanzibar ease in a genuine coalition government, elections is no time for a mainlander to be hanging around without a press pass.’

Swahili Street
Swahili Street reports on the recently-released Annual Learning Assessment of Tanzanian schools:

‘Anecdotally, it is widely felt that Tanzania’s schools are struggling- despite notable increases in enrollment and an annual budget of over a billion dollars (that’s US, not Hong Kong) for education.

‘Uwezo - an initiative of Twaweza - decided to measure it and launched their findings just this morning (in the luxury of the Kilimanjaro Kempinski – always a questionable choice for NGO affairs, I feel). Their survey of over 22,000 households and their 42,000 children confirms suspicions. 80 percent of primary school leavers (that is, they have completed all seven years) can read to a level they should have reached in their second year, and maybe higher. And 70 percent of primary school leavers can deal with second year mathematics...

‘The full report is worth getting your hands on. To a non-specialist it appears pretty rigorous. Its outline of the assessment methodology is comprehensive but also easy to digest. This is important in a country where such survey findings can sometimes be distrusted. It would have been good to also include the processes around the household questionnaire that also appears to have been administered alongside the numeracy and literacy assessments...

‘Will things change? That’s not up to Uwezo/Twaweza, but they are bullish, particularly about the potential role of tech innovations in opening up data and information and Cash on Delivery as a means of delivering aid on the basis of results. We’ll see.’

The Malagasy Dwarf Hippo
Lova Rakotomalala calls on Madagascar to adopt more realistic and achievable development goals:

‘Malagasy people like to imagine what could have been when they compare the fate of their nation with the fate of their neighbor Mauritius. There was even the hope of somehow catching the right wave and rising like the "Asian Tigers" of a few decades ago. (Taiwan had a lot of geographical and biological similarities with Madagascar but it light-years away in terms of development)

‘Let's be clear, it's all a pipe dream now. Catching up with Mauritius, that ship has sailed, long gone like the Sarimanok, the first sail from Malaysia to land on the coast of Madagascar.

‘The issue at hand here is that there is a fair amount of self-loathing going on everytime Malagasy people reflect on the development of their country. It is not uncommon to hear from Malagasy: " We cannot do anything right, our leaders have failed us over and over".

‘Especially in this time of political crisis and uncertainty, trust is a scarce commodity amongst Malagasy and hope even rarer.

‘Maybe it is time to revisit the goals here.

‘Maybe if we accept that we will never be an economic powerhouse, we can start focusing on doing the things we can achieve.’

Anti Rhythm
Nana Yaw Asiedu provides a short commentary about Westerners who still fall for ‘419’ internet scams:

‘Those “well-watered” Westerners who strike cyber friendships and business partnerships with West Africans, let me etch this on your minds: there are no gold nuggets glittering, and there is no fairy gold dust winnowing, on the streets; there is no gold bullion in the dingy rooms of faux royal families. Ergo, before your greed eggs you on to wire reckless dollars to criminal cliques in order to earn sky-high returns, won’t you at least take the time to learn about the social and business culture, names and norms?’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Dibussi Tande blogs at Scribbles from the Den.
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