Ghana reflects progress led by Africans

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) -- Coby Asmah is a success in a part of the world that is hardly ever equated with success.

The design and printing business he launched from his dining room table 14 years ago now employs 54 people. He drives a new gold SUV, dresses as sharply as any Madison Avenue executive and vacations in the United States. And despite winning U.S. citizenship, he has chosen to stay in Ghana.

Asmah belongs to an Africa all but unknown outside the continent -- one of growth and business opportunity, with a tiny but rapidly spreading middle class.

Fifty years after Ghana became the first African country to gain independence, Africa's economies are expanding by 5.4 percent a year -- compared to a world average of 4.2 percent -- and are projected to hit almost 7 percent next year. Investments are up. Banking firm Merrill Lynch & Co. concluded that Africa now offers investors as much potential as Russia.

These signs of economic hope come as the world is increasingly aware of its broader stake in Africa. Rich countries fear any disruption in the flow of resources out of Africa, which now rivals the Middle East in the quantity of oil it sends to the United States. Terrorism has revealed the danger of failed states, and hundreds of thousands of African immigrants flee to America, Europe and the Middle East every year.

The picture across the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa is still very much a patchwork. But a yearlong exploration by The Associated Press shows that progress -- while fragile -- is finding a foothold, in spheres ranging from democracy to education. Perhaps most strikingly, after few results from five decades of advice and $568 billion in aid, today's developments in business, education, government and other areas are being led by Africans themselves.

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The cruellest voyage

In 1992, Kingsley Ofosu fled poverty in Ghana for the promised land of Europe. But the journey had barely begun when he witnessed the callous murder of his fellow stowaways. He escaped, and an article in the Guardian brought his story to the attention of the world. Hollywood and fame followed, but now he is back in Ghana, living in poverty again. Nick Davies, who wrote the original story, visits him in Accra and hears how it all went wrong

Monday December 3, 2007
The Guardian

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Ghana to UK: the new trail of misery

With the trial of two British girls accused of smuggling drugs set to resume this week, Dan McDougall in Prampram reveals how cartels move their cocaine to Europe by exploiting the vulnerable and the poor
Sunday November 11, 2007
The Observer

THE condoms are smeared in margarine or local vegetable oil, 'to help them slip down', says Kawko, holding out the white grains of pure cocaine in his scarred palm. Behind him, on the palm-tree fringed beach of Prampram village, dozens of colourfully painted longboats make land; the bulky wooden vessels heaved and roped out of the roaring West Atlantic by slender teenage boys.

'There are many other couriers here in Ghana; some have made a dozen journeys to London and Amsterdam. You can see the benefit it has brought to their families, even here in our village. Their mothers have stopped working; some have motorbikes and have bought fishing boats. Some have also died. A schoolfriend of mine swallowed over 50 condoms and died within an hour. He dipped the condoms in honey and they ruptured. He was foolish; the condoms were local, not imported.' Kawko gestures to where his youngest son is playing in the sea with a yellow plastic oil drum. 'I wouldn't want this life for him.'

Over the past few years a concerted shift in trafficking routes has transformed West African countries like Ghana, Senegal and Guinea Bissau into volatile hubs for cocaine smuggled from South America to a booming European market. Using sophisticated transportation networks and the latest communication technology to elude woefully inept coastguards, Colombian traffickers are establishing transit areas along the Gulf of Guinea that can only worsen lawlessness in countries already overwhelmed by crime, poverty and instability.

For locals the route opens up a risky but tempting way out of poverty. A single flight to Amsterdam from Ghana, via Morocco, earlier this year carried 32 West Africans, all of whom had swallowed cocaine packets or concealed them in their luggage. Impatient with the increasing arrest rates of mules, the South American cartels have recruited London-based Nigerians and Ghanaians to scour Britain's capital for gullible teenage drug couriers.

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Floods devastate northern Ghana

By Will Ross
BBC News, Accra

The severe flooding in several West African countries has seen Ghana hit hardest.

In the north of the country at least 20 people have died and an estimated 400,000 have been affected. Many of them are now homeless.

It is feared that outbreaks of diseases such as cholera are likely due to the contamination of the water supply.

The north of the country is relatively poor and most rural homes are built from mud and thatch.
The floods have washed away many such homes and they have also destroyed crops and people have lost livestock.

The whole country's food supply will be affected.

Dam released

The head of the government's national disaster management organisation, George Azi Amoo, said that in some areas whole villages had been washed away.

He said a relief effort had now been intensified and food and clothing were being distributed.

Materials to rebuild homes are also being delivered and the country's small navy has sent two boats to help ferry people to safety.

The homeless have been relocated to schools and other government buildings awaiting assistance.

The flooding in Ghana intensified when water was recently released from a hydro-electric dam in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

This may have partially eased the problem there but the consequences downstream have been catastrophic.

Floods have also been a major problem in Mali and Togo but in recent years this region has been battling not with floods but drought, with electricity supply badly affected due to the impact on hydro-electric dams.

Sam Jonah in The Economist

The sunny continent
Aug 21st 2007

From Economist.com
Africa’s optimistic businessmen

...Mr Jonah is a larger-than-life hail-fellow-well-met Ghanaian, who made his first fortune by selling Ashanti Goldfields, a Ghanaian mining company, to South Africa’s mighty AngloGold. (He jokes good-naturedly about The Economist’s somewhat sceptical coverage of his business dealings several years ago.) He is now doing well in private equity. As evidence of his bullishness, Mr Jonah is trying to raise $250m to build long-distance roads across Africa—the lack which is one of the most obvious failures in the continent’s infrastructure. His goal is to find 50 successful African business people, each willing to invest $5m in the fund, and then to use multilateral funds to leverage the money into the billions. “People in Africa, if they come together, can make a big difference,” says Mr Jonah. “What I want to do is put my money where my mouth is.”

There is increasingly a pro-African mood in the global business community nowadays, says Mr Jonah. “Access to finance is much better; now when I go to New York seeking a lot of money, I get a warm welcome.” Admittedly, much of this warmth is focused on the mining and natural-resource sectors that are Mr Jonah’s base—although, like Mr Ibrahim, he says enthusiasm is starting to spread to entrepreneurial parts of the economy. Strikingly, Alan Patricof, a veteran American venture capitalist, has reportedly been raising a venture-capital fund for Africa, and is not alone in seeing new opportunity in small and medium enterprises there.

One reason Mr Jonah is optimistic is that he regards Africa’s post-colonial difficulties as not particularly surprising or problematic. “People fail to appreciate the huge challenges African countries faced at independence,” he says. “When you think where we have come from, there has been tremendous progress.”

Moreover, much of the “help” Africa has had from outside has been of the wrong sort. By way of illustration, Mr Jonah points to three once impoverished European countries—Spain, Portugal and Greece—that might have stayed poor had they not been “rescued by their sugar daddy, the European Union.” The point, he says, is that richer European countries invested in these poor countries, “not as charity, but because they saw a win-win opportunity.” The same is now true of Africa, he argues. With a handful of headline-grabbing exceptions, “everyone in Africa is now getting their act together, with free markets and democracy.

To read more of this article click here

Independence recollections from H.E. Annan Cato

EXTRA! Click here to listen to extracts from our interview with Ghana High Commissioner to the UK, H.E. Mr Annan Cato as he recollects memories of Independence Day 1957.

Preview: In the hot seat with Joy's Golden Boy

Listen to extracts from our exclusive interview with Joy FM's Super Morning Show host, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah as he discusses life as Ghana's top radio broadcaster, filling Komla Dumor's sizeable shoes and why he left the UK for Ghana... and never looked back.

You can read the full article in the forthcoming issue of What's On Ghana magazine, out next week and available to buy online at http://www.whatsonghana.com/.

Chelsea FC to visit Ghana

English FA Cup holders Chelsea will embark on their first humanitarian visit to Africa with a trip to Ghana next week.

Manager Jose Mourinho will head the delegation, that includes BBC African Footballer of Year Michael Essien, to inspect projects run by the charity Right To Play.

The delegation will be Accra and Tamale from 29 May until 3 June to visit projects run by the club's global charity partner.

Links: Right To Play

Skinny-only message to African models

ACCRA, Ghana (Reuters) -- Skinny African girls may get to strut on Western catwalks but the fat ones have to stay at home.

This is the message being delivered to the 500 or so Ghanaians who have registered with the country's only international modeling agency, Exopa.

"A lot of them want to go. But not everyone has the chance to go because of the size the Europeans want them to be," said Exopa's Ghanaian director Sima Ibrahim.

As models on Western catwalks get thinner and thinner, their hungry look has sparked noisy debate about the pressure this places on girls and women to achieve perfection even if perfection means Size Zero, the smallest American dress size, the equivalent to a British size four.

In Africa, rolls of flesh are usually seen as a sign of wealth and status, not of ill health.

Few aspire to a skinny look, as those who look starved and ill too often are that way through misfortune, not choice.

But just as Africa's youth find themselves choosing between Western music and clothes and those rooted in their own tradition, they are now faced with two opposing images of beauty -- the Western ideal of an ever thinner frame and the African one of a buxom and well-rounded figure.

Nowhere is this debate clearer than in the African fashion industry.

Those who want to make it as a fashion model in the West are well aware they need to conform to Western sizes.

"Those that come here who are skinny, they know they want to go international. The others, they know they are big, they want a job here in Ghana," said Exopa's Ibrahim.

Freema Agyeman interview

Question time
Freema Agyeman makes her debut as Doctor Who's companion this Saturday. She talks about Billie Piper, race and kissing a time lord
Interview by Hannah Pool
Thursday March 29, 2007
The Guardian

BBC World Service Network Africa Ghana @ 50 coverage

6th March 2007
Live from Accra
Komla Dumor is live from the hub of the celebrations at Independence Square, where the party got underway at midnight and Ghanaians and visiting dignitaries have been enjoying the day.

Slavery's 'door of no return' in Ghana open to tourists

Story Highlights

• Elmina was "door of no return" for many Africans shipped off to slavery

• The fort was built by the Portuguese, later held by the Dutch and British

• Britain will mark bicentennial of its abolition of the slave trade on March 25

ELMINA, Ghana (Reuters) -- For many, it was their last glimpse of Africa.

Pushed through the "door of no return," millions of Africans were shipped from places like this whitewashed fort in Elmina, Ghana, to a life of slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and America.
A band of light from that same door now cuts through the air in a small, dank room crowded with about 30 tourists.

"We are very lucky. Today we can go back out of this room the way we came," says Robert Kugbey, their soft-spoken guide.

As Britain marks the bicentennial of its abolition of the slave trade on March 25, Ghanaians are still coming to terms with slavery's impact on their country's development and the role Africans played in the capture and sale of fellow Africans.

More on this story...

Don't miss this event

Thank U, in collaboration with Ghana High Commission invites the Young people in your family and friends to come and celebrate Ghana's 50 anniversary at this fun-filled Edutainment Prom on Friday 9th March 2007.

They will learn about History and culture of Ghana through games, quizzes, film, competition and a delicious Buffet Dinner.

There will be a competition on the night to select 10 boys and girls to go on a special summer camp programme to Ghana in July 2007 (which may be subject to funding).

Tickets are: £10 per person. Ghana @50 Souvenir booklet: £3

Make your cheque payable to: THANK U and send it to : Thank U Edutainment, 20 Abbey Gardens, London, W6 8QR.

Please send a self-addressed envelope and with your cheque.

Celebrating 50 Years of Ghanaian Independence at the British Museum

Visitors to the British Museum will be invited to take part in a Jama Singing Circle to celebrate Ghana’s fiftieth anniversary of independence.

The event, organised by the museum and Aduna - an organisation that seeks to promote Africa’s vibrant and dynamic cultures to audiences in the UK - will take place in the Great Court on Sunday 4th March 2007 at 1.30pm.

The Jama Singing Circle is facilitated by Theatre for a Change and Ghana 50 UK, a season of Ghanaian arts, culture and sport taking place across the capital to mark fifty years of independence.

Theatre for a Change, founded in 2003, is a registered charity which runs teacher training programmes in Sub Saharan Africa. The programme uses interactive theatre and innovative educational approaches to promote positive behavioural change in youth and young adults in Ghana, Togo and Malawi.

For more information please visit www.theatreforachange.com

New issue out soon

Celebrating 50 years of Ghanaian-British Achievement

African hearts return to start firms

By Orla Ryan

BBC

Accra, Ghana

Haitian cook Marie Claire Rimpel is tired after a long day at her new restaurant, The Caribbean.

Serving the best of Caribbean food, the light and modern restaurant - in the heart of Ghana's capital - is a long way from her native Haiti.

Nearly three years in Accra, she is one of several people of African origin who have returned to the continent of their ancestors.

The stress of opening a restaurant may be taking its toll on Marie Claire, 68, but the move has clearly been worth it.

"It is a wonderful place to live, I feel at home here," she says.

Click here for more.

Viewpoint: African unity still a dream

My father, Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah, was a trendsetter in more ways than one.

One of his most outstanding legacies was a political commitment to African continental unity. The Arabic-speaking states of North Africa were, in his vision, no less African than those predominantly non-Arab states south of the Sahara.

With his initial encouragement, Arabs have since become active participants in the politics of Africa.

Nkrumah's was no easy mission. There were many in Africa and in the West who wished to extricate Arab countries from costly African commitments and interventions south of the Sahara.

But Nkrumah's special friendship with the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser - after whom I was named - was instrumental in cementing Arab-African ties.

This is an extract from BBC Focus on Africa magazine. For the full story click here.

Ghanaians risk death for abortion

By Rosie Goldsmith
BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents
Thousands of women in Ghana are seeking dangerous, illegal abortions every year with many ending in death or disability.

Read the full story and listen to the programme here.

BBC Africa On Your Street

Check out What's On Ghana's contribution to this BBC debate on the state of African music.

Feature: African music in 2006
A round-up of 2006 and look ahead to 2007
By Ilka Schlockermann
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/africaonyourstreet/feature_roundup06.shtml

David Adjaye exhibition

Beautiful and useful Art meets architecture in Horizon, Adjaye's new installation at the Albion Gallery, London SW11. You can take it home: the furniture is for sale as part of a very limited edition (From 15 January until 10 March).

Links

www.albion-gallery.com

Ghanaian boy's dream ends in a pool of blood

When Stephen Boachie arrived in England from Ghana aged 10, he missed Africa's warm climate. But the young boy whose parents came to the UK to give him a "better life" did not take long to find his feet in London, growing up to excel in his studies and sport and the future looked bright.

The 17-year-old, who lived in Dagenham, east London, was studying for his A-levels at Newham Sixth Form College. He was awaiting offers to study a degree in engineering and hoped to win a place at Birmingham University.

But as New Year's Eve celebrations were drawing to a close across the country, Stephen was stabbed fatally, just a few hundred yards from his home. A tribute on a banner in his memory, outside the Shell garage where he was attacked at 5.30am on New Year's Day, reads: "It was supposed to be a new year, new beginning, but you were not given that chance."
Stephen's father Kwasi, 49, said that after his son left Ahafo in the Bechem region of Ghana, he settled quickly in London, joining the football and rugby teams at Kingsford Secondary School in East Ham, and loved to play computer games.

Mr Boachie described his son as, "friendly and sociable with everyone and always willing to help people". He was a devout Christian, and in training to become a full Jehovah's Witness.

On New Year's Eve, Stephen had been to see a friend who lives locally and may have visited another friend in Canning Town. The stabbing took place next to the Thatched House pub in Dagenham, which is popular with the west African community, and police are trying to find out if he was in the pub during the hours before his death. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Moring is appealing for witnesses who were leaving the pub at the time of the attack, and CCTV footage is being examined.

Anyone with information about Stephen's murder is asked to contact police on 020-8345 4142.

Other links
Stephen Boachie memorial site

June "thrilled" at MBE

TV presenter June Sarpong, 29, has become an MBE in the New Year Honours


The bubbly host, who was born in London's East End to Ghanaian parents, is best known for her cheeky asides on Channel 4's youth programme T4.

But she also supports the Make Poverty History campaign, and has worked for the Prince's Trust for six years.

In the run-up to the 2005 general election she shadowed Tony Blair for two days before an interview where she challenged him on the war in Iraq.

Work experience

Sarpong began her career doing work experience at London radio station Kiss and, after a spell working for record company BMG, auditioned for a presenting job on MTV.

One of her first assignments on the station was to work on the magazine programme Planet Pop, which was also shown on Channel 4.

When the T4 job came up in 2001, bosses at the station were already aware of her easy-going, laid back style, and Sarpong was chosen to interview pop stars and present links between episodes of Friends and Hollyoaks.

Aside from T4, Sarpong has also presented game show Your Face or Mine and Strictly Dance Fever on BBC Three.

She previously dated Labour culture minister David Lammy.

But it was her time with the Prime Minister that brought the effervescent presenter widespread media attention in 2005.

'No flowers'

During her interview, Sarpong prompted Mr Blair to admit he had never bought his wife flowers and often "winged it" during press conferences.

A studio audience also pressed Mr Blair on sex education, binge drinking and Iraq.

Sarpong said she had come away "definitely liking" the prime minister, and went on to interview former US President Bill Clinton, who she called "charming" and "humble".

Although some commentators have expressed surprise at her desire to interview political heavyweights, Sarpong says she thinks television has a duty to inform people.

"My family is from Ghana, but we're from an affluent part of the country," she told The Guardian. "Without television, I wouldn't have known about the poverty there."

She travelled back to Ghana with Oxfam in 2005, where she visited rice farmers and women's groups to see how debt cancellation and improved trade conditions could help the country.

"I wish I'd seen this before I asked Tony Blair about Africa," she wrote on Oxfam's website.

Sarpong, who is being appointed an MBE in recognition of her services to broadcasting and charity, said she was "thrilled, delighted and honoured".

Essien wins BBC African award

Ghana and Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien has won the 2006 BBC African Footballer of the Year award.

In a live public vote Essien received nearly twice as many votes as Ahly and Egypt playmaker Mohamed Aboutrika and Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba to win the award.

For the first time in the history of the prize, the winner was decided live during the BBC World Service's African sports programme, Fast Track.

The BBC award takes into account the football calendar from January to December 2006 and includes domestic leagues, both the Uefa and Caf Champions League tournaments.

The African Nations Cup, the World Cup and the World Club Cup are also included within this period.

Link to story

Welcome to the What's On Ghana blog!

The What's On Ghana Team has launched this blog as a complement to the magazine. Here, you will find posts about the same topics that What's On Ghana covers in the magazine (style, music, politics, culture, celebrities ...), but with a different focus in content. Be sure to check back often as we plan to update it on a regular basis.