As Obama pledges $7b for energy in Africa, where is the $63b pledge for health care?

President Barack Obama

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

President, Barack Obama is in Africa for the second time since becoming President of the United States of America and he is pledging funds to help the continent. This time, he is pledging $7 billion to deal with the energy crisis in sub-Sahara Africa.

"More than two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is without electricity, and more than 85% of those living in rural areas lack access," a statement from the White House has said.

Sub-Saharan Africa will need more than $300 billion to achieve universal electricity access by 2030, the statement added.

This was how the CNN captured the pledge in its reportage: “US President Barack Obama pledged $7 billion Sunday to help combat frequent power blackouts in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Funds from the initiative, dubbed ‘Power Africa’, will be distributed over the next five years, it said.

Most countries in sub-Sahara Africa have huge power deficits leading to constant power outages. These outages are affecting lifestyles and industries. Businesses are losing millions of dollars in revenue and investments as a result.

President Obama is no doubt a charismatic leader. He seems passionate about making a positive impact on the world, but is he getting as much as he wants done? Would this new $7 billion pledge materialize?

These questions are necessary because when Obama first came to Ghana in 2009, he made a financial pledge to fix Africa’s broken health care sector, with particular emphasis on public health. He made a pledge of a whopping $63 billion.

Making his policy speech on Africa in Ghana’s Parliament in Accra Saturday July 11, 2009, he said even though enormous progress has been made on the continent in health care and many more people with HIV/AIDS still live productive lives and are getting the drugs they need, “too many still die from diseases that shouldn’t kill them, when children are being killed because of mosquito bites and mothers are dying in child birth, then we know that more progress must be made."

If that pledge has been fulfilled, it would be worthwhile to know how much of that has been disbursed. It would also be useful to examine what benchmarks were set to attain the goals for which the amount was pledged and if it was ever given, to look out for what has been achieved so far after nearly three years.

It is one thing to pledge, and it is another thing to deliver on the pledge. Before another celebration is
organized for this new initiative, looking at the very critical situation of Africa's energy challenges, and in the  light of the truth, there should be compelling reasons to seek to know what happened with the $63 billion pledge to support the health care sector in Africa.

Shame of the Nation Address

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Fellow Ghanaians, the President has given 'The State of the Nation Address', his supporters and party members are applauding him. But listening to some ordinary Ghanaians on the streets and on social media, it is easy to tell that they are not impressed. Others have simply described it as 'business as usual'.

As a citizen of this great nation, I am invoking my rights under Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution to express my views on the state of affairs of our country.

And before anyone questions my right to have a contrary view to the President on the state of affairs of our country, especially those who would demand to know what I have been doing to make the nation any better, I will not hesitate to point to such individuals, who are  also exercising their rights to free expression that I have been making in my view what is my 'widow's mite' of contributions to this country as a journalist. I am indeed making sacrifices in the line of duty to keep citizens informed, educated and entertained by breaking important news, writing and exposing some of the dangers in our society to alert citizens and to call for solutions to them. All these I have done for over four years without receiving compensation. While on the contrary, experts who are paid to solve the nation's problems, apparently look on helplessly, and in some instances unconcerned, while the majority of our citizenry suffer needlessly from lack of some of the basic necessities of life like potable water, sanitation facilities and inadequate electricity power supply.

Fastest growing economy

After 56 years of independence, it is shameful for Ghana to be in this current condition. The country was the fastest growing economy in the world in 2011 with a GDP growth rate of 14 percent. When the 2012 estimates are concluded, the country is expected to grow above 8 percent. While the numbers are looking good, there are no visible impacts of this growth on the majority of Ghanaians. There are no direct impacts on the standard of living of many Ghanaians.

FDI

Some sources elsewhere put foreign direct investments into the country in all the sectors at $32 billion and supported with investments from the oil sector. Revenue from oil, even though contributing a mere 1 percent of GDP has significantly contributed to this growth,and yet the country of about 24 million people can't find alternatives or solutions to its energy crisis. Despite this growing level of FDI into the country, the manufacturing sector is literally dead. FDI inflows into the country haven't stimulated appreciable growth in industry to create jobs.

Water and Sanitation

Water and sanitation facilities are inadequate, endangering the lives of 1000s of children under the age of five every year.

Currently, 19 out of every 100 Ghanaians openly defecate daily, either in the morning or evening or both, bringing the total figure to about five million a day, and  according to figures released by the Water and Sanitation Programme of the World Bank in April 2012, Ghana loses $79 million annually as a result of open defecation, making the country the fifth highest among 18 African countries analysed by the Bank.

The development charity, WaterAid, says although from 1990 to 2010 the population of Ghana grew by 9.4 million, only 2.3 million people secured access to sanitation over the same period.  In total, it says nearly 21 million (86%) out of Ghana’s 24 million people are without access to a safe improved toilet, while almost 50% use shared latrines and 19% practice open defecation.

In the last couple of months water is being rationed in the capital, just as electricity power is.

Uncompleted donor financed projects

The government applies for loans and grants to do projects that would improve the quality of lives of Ghanaians, but these projects are not completed on time, because government officials assigned to these projects are not working, they are playing what we call in Ghana 'delaying tactics' for reasons best known to themselves. The World Bank recently expressed its frustration with the government when it published the status of projects and programmes it is sponsoring in the country. About 50 percent of projects expected to be completed in three years are still uncompleted up to five years since they were started, some are even running into eight to nine years and meanwhile, $1.5 billion approved by the Bank for these projects are still sitting idle in accounts. This is only what is known from the World Bank. If all the other development partners would be bold enough to reveal the state of affairs of projects they are financing, it would not paint a good picture of the state of affairs in our country.

Energy

Despite the increased knowledge about the role of energy in industrialization, it is curious seeing the current distressing situation where power is rationed irrationally in the country. Small businesses can't grow to make the necessary impact on the economy because of the lack of regular supply of energy. In some places power is available fewer days in a working week, far and in-between during productive periods, denying small businesses the opportunity to be productive.

The country rushed to start commercial production of oil when plans could have been made to trap and use the natural petroleum gas from the oil field, just as Trinidad and Tobago has done, making it the world's leading supplier of gas. The country depends on the Akosombo dam which was built more than four decades ago, which has exceeded its capacity. A couple of thermal plants that have to depend on the irregular West Africa Gas Pipeline, have been shut, because the West Africa Gas Project has been out of order for some months now due to some accident offshore. The thermal plants can't be powered because gas is not flowing from the pipeline.

Businesses and citizens are bearing the brunt of what can arguably be called poor leadership, as most people have to sleep in the dark. There is also shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), and most families are unable to cook food - an obvious possible situation that can lead to deforestation as some people might be compelled to return to using charcoal or wood fuel for cooking.

Budget deficit

It is a painful ritual the country has to go through every election year. The dust on the 2012 election has barely settled and the government is known to have overrun its budget. Provisional figures show a government budget deficit of 12.1 percent of GDP, which is over 80 percent of the target of 6.7 percent of GDP. This has led to downgrades of the country's credit outlook by ratings agencies Fitch and Moody's.

Fellow Ghanaians, as hard working and law abiding citizens, we deserve better than these and we must demand higher quality leadership from people at the helm of affairs in our great country.

The police

The Ghana Police Service, which has the constitutional mandate to check crime, has sadly become part of the problem. Bribery is rife among Police officers and the service is so slow to respond to alarms on crime, situations that seem to have emboldened criminals who have become brazen in their approach, attacking and robbing citizens at will. Speak to most victims of crime in this country and they will tell you horrible tales of their experiences when they called on the Ghana Police to report their ordeals. Most leave the stations feeling like they are the criminals. Our police men and women show little empathy for victims of crime, especially victims of domestic and sexual violence, even though a special unit in the service has been created to deal with such matters.

Education and Health

Fellow citizens, Ghana's education system used to be among the best in the world. Sometime ago, the Queen of England was reported to have wanted her son, Prince Charles to come and study at the University of Ghana, but the University couldn't admit him because of the demands for his accommodation and security issues. He requested to use an entire floor.

In those days, graduates of even our basic education system were sufficiently and effectively well educated and functional, but that can't be said of most of the products of the system today. Products of our education system have virtually no ethics, always looking to cut corners and make quick bucks.

Education facilities have become inadequate, either as a result of poor planning or mismanagement. The morale of teachers is generally low.

A UNESCO report on education shows that comparing Ghana to South Korea, the country’s education sector has stagnated.

In a summary, the report says “‘Whilst both countries had a similar starting point in the early 1970s Ghana has lagged behind since then. The Republic of Korea began to expand its secondary system rapidly in the 1970s, but in Ghana the secondary education gross enrolment ratio stagnated at around 40% for another thirty years.”

The report attributing Ghana’s lack of progress in education as partly due to the result of economic problems, said it was also because of insufficient investment in education or linking of economic planning with skills development policies.

The same report shows that a large population in Ghana can’t read a sentence after leaving school as recently as in 2008.

“In Ghana, for example, over half of women and over one-third of men aged 15 to 29 who had completed six years of school could not read a sentence at all in 2008. A further 28% of the young women and 33% of the young men could only read part of a sentence,” it says.

Our health facilities have been left to crumble. Most medical facilities do not have basic equipment to work with, and even though the country spends millions of dollars in training medical professionals, most are often not motivated enough to stay in the country to work.

The health insurance scheme introduced in the country and hailed across the world is likely to grind to a halt, riddled with mismanagement and corruption it is faced with possible bankruptcy, a World Bank report has warned.

Fellow Ghanaians, I can go on and on to talk about nepotism, cronyism, the inability of the state to confront public sector corruption head-on, the poor performance of state prosecutors in trying cases of fraud against the state, the financial mismanagement and waste in the system, the indiscipline in the army as expressed in soldiers attacking and assaulting police officers, the carnage on our roads.

Having mentioned that, the Road Safety Commission, has sometime ago announced a beauty pageant in response to the increasing road traffic accidents in the country. The Commission believes that a beauty pageant can help reduce road traffic accidents in Ghana.

More than 1,800 people die annually while 14,500 people are injured through accidents on the country’s roads. The socio-economic costs of road accidents are estimated at 1.6 per cent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the Commission believes that a beauty pageant will offer solutions.

Partisanship

Another canker dissipating our energies and resources is the hydra-headed beast called partisanship. Ghana is so partisan that the President during a meeting with Ghanaians resident in Ethiopia in January 2012 mentioned the issue which is a major challenge to our moving forward. Most people are given important public sector positions not because they are competent, but because they are political party members and the party they belong to is in power.

People belonging to opposing parties are not expected to make their views known on national issues.
Supporters of ruling parties praise everything governments do, whether it serves us well or not. They see nothing wrong with their governments and see everything wrong with the opposition and it is the same with the opposite side. This conduct is our bane.

Conclusion

Fellow Ghanaians, I would not want to say anything further, as you are all probably aware of the shameful condition our dear country is in.

Patriotism is dead. Killed by our leaders. As we look at our leaders, we do not see patriotism, we see partisanship and pursuit of selfish and personal gain, as such citizens are compelled to emulate these - conducts that are further sinking, holding back our collective development.

But hope is not lost yet. Like the proverbial phoenix, we can rise again from the ashes, only if we so desire, by changing our ways, by letting our laws and institutions work, by paying our dues to the Motherland.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

Thank you.

The shea tree's economic and environmental values for Ghana

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Introduction

The shea tree has many uses, both economic and environmental to the people of the Northern and Upper regions, and Ghana as a whole.

The shea tree, was scientifically known in the past as 'Butryospermum paradoxum', but is now called 'Vitellaria paradoxa'. The oldest specimen of the shea tree, according to existing literature was first collected by Mungo Park on May 26, 1797.

Many vernacular names are used for the shea tree, and this shows how widely it is spread across parts of Africa – nearly 5,000km from Senegal to Uganda across the African Continent.

The shea tree grows very well on a wide range of soils, including highly degraded, arid, semi-arid and rocky soil.

It usually grows to an average height of about 15 meters and girths of about 175 meters with profuse branches and a thick waxy and deeply fissured bark that makes it fire resistant. The shea tree grows naturally in the wild in the dry Savannah belt of West Africa from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east, and onto the foothills of the Ethiopian highlands.

It occurs in 19 countries across the African continent, namely Benin, Ghana, Chad, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo Uganda, Zaire and Guinea. In Ghana (FAO, 1988a), it occurs extensively in the Guinea Savannah and less abundantly in the Sudan Savannah.

The shea tree grows mostly in the wild state. In Ghana, it grows in almost half of the country. It occurs over almost the entire area of Northern Ghana, covering land area of over 77,670 square kilometers in Western Dagomba, Southern Mamprusi, Western Gonja, Lawra, Tumu, Wa and Nanumba with Eastern Gonja having the densest stands. There is sparse shea tree cover found in Brong-Ahafo, Ashanti, and the Eastern and Volta regions in the south of the country.

And according to legend among local people no one owns the shea tree, because it germinates and grows on its own.

The shea tree, when it passes the germination stage in about three to five years becomes fire resistant. It is also not known to have natural enemies such as pests.

Once it survives the first five years of its early stages of germination and growth, it grows slowly and takes about 30 years to reach maturity and from here, it can live for up to three hundred years. In the absence of any hazards, including tree felling, it can bear fruit for two hundred years.

The shea tree has no capacity for vegetative regeneration, and therefore, can only be propagated through its seed.

Economic and cultural importance of the shea tree

The economic importance of the shea tree can not be over emphasized, in the face of the unstable world market price for cocoa and the need to find suitable substitutes for cocoa in the confectionery and cocoa butter industry. This importance became even more significant since the early 1970s.

The shea tree also has a great, untapped capacity for producing copious amounts of sap that can constitute an important source of raw material for the gum and rubber industry.

The mature kernel contains about 61% fat which when extracted is edible, and can serve medicinal as well as industrial purposes.

The trees begin to bear fruits at maturity and start flowering by early November, with picking or gathering lasting for five months from April to August every year. When the shea fruits ripen, they fall under their own weight to the floor and are gathered by hand.

It is estimated that about 9.4 million shea trees are in Ghana, and these can potentially yield one hundred tons of shea nuts worth about 100 million US dollars per year.

Shea butter has been found to have a fat composition similar to cocoa butter, and is used as a substitute for lard or margarine because it makes a highly, pliable dough. Shea butter is also used in making soap and candles, and it is incorporated in margarine formulations.

After the oil is extracted, the residue serves as excellent fuel, and can also be mixed with mud for plastering traditional mud huts.

Wood from the shea tree is suitable for sturdy tools such as, hoe handles for farming, pestles and mortars for food processing, and the carving of talking drums which play important roles in the cultural life of the people.

Researchers have also found out that, the shea tree is the second most important oil crop in Africa after the palm nut tree.

The shea fruit as a source of food

For most people of the northern parts of Ghana, especially women, who have the responsibility to supply the daily food intakes for their families, the shea tree provides a good source of food - the shea fruit, especially so because the ripening of the fruits coincides with the lean season of food production. The pulp around its ripe fruit is sweet and edible.

The shea butter which is extracted from the nuts also constitutes the greatest proportion of oil intake in most homes in the Northern and Upper regions of Ghana.

Medicinal properties of the shea tree

Meanwhile, records available show that, as far back as 1728, shea butter was considered a highly prized medicinal substance in many parts of Africa.

Shea butter is unique because of its high fraction, about 8%, which contains medicinal properties.

It is known to be naturally rich in Vitamins A, E, and F, as well as a number of other vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A and E help to soothe, hydrate, and balance the skin. They also provide skin collagen, which assists with wrinkles and other signs of ageing. Vitamin F contains essential fatty acids, and helps protect and revitalize damaged skin and hair.

Shea butter is an intense moisturizer for dry skin, and is a wonderful product for revitalizing dull or dry skin on the body or scalp. It promotes skin renewal, increases circulation, and accelerates wound healing. It is also beneficial for the treatment of many different conditions.

Shea butter is used for protection against sunburns, and post sun-exposure products. It is very effective in the treatment of ageing or scaly skin, useful in the prevention of chapping, and can also be used against scalp dryness.

In the north of Ghana, it is rubbed on the skin of newly born babies, before they are given warm baths. This gives them smooth supple skins.

Shea butter's stableness in formulations helps the fast release of active ingredients in medicaments. At room temperature, it remains solid, and it is used as a base for certain traditional ointments for the treatment of fractures and broken bones.

The roots and bark also have numerous medicinal uses. They are boiled or ground into powder for the treatment of dysentery, suppurating wounds and other ailments.

The shea tree can be used to fight desertification

The shea tree has environmental significance for the country, particularly in the fight against desertification.

Ghana's total land area of 238,539km2 is at risk of desertification. Desertification claims about 20,000 hectares of Ghana's land annually.

The most severely affected areas are the Northern and Upper regions of the country. Land in these parts of the country is arid, and the climate is hot and dry. The land is covered with sparse vegetation and is mostly grassland, these are conditions, which make land in these regions susceptible to desertification.

In the fight against desertification in these areas, therefore, the shea tree, which has been described as, "cocoa of the north", can be a suitable ally.

Several efforts though have been made scientifically to propagate the shea tree over the years, but no significant result has yet been achieved. But like all scientific efforts, it is only a matter of time before a solution is found.

Some worrying trends

While the economic, environmental and other benefits of the shea tree is undoubtedly clear, there are some worrying developments taking place in the northern part of the country that need to be checked. Some people are destroying shea trees to produce charcoal. And it has been going on for so long.

About six years ago, the Daily Graphic issues of July 16 and August 29, 2001 both carried reports that said the then Upper West Regional Minister and an official of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were both complaining about the cutting of and using shea trees for charcoal burning.

What is even more disturbing is the fact that according to the EPA, 80% of every 100 basketfuls of charcoal produced are from shea tree, the other 20% come from ‘dawadawa’ and the neem trees.

This act, which is still going on, if unchecked, has grave consequences for the shea nut industry and will contribute to environmental degradation, deforestation, and loss of vegetative cover, which would eventually lead to water and soil erosion and decrease in soil fertility. The end result of this would be hunger and poverty in the north and following in stride would be rural-urban migration of vulnerable young men and women.

Conclusion

It is obvious from the evidence deduced so far, that when a method is finally found in propagating the shea tree, the northern part of the country can benefit enormously from that, in terms of afforestation projects for the purposes of slowing down desertification and its dire consequences of drought, erratic rainfall and attendant poverty, hunger and starvation.

The economy of the north and certainly the entire country will receive a major boost of unimaginable proportions.

It is a big challenge, and Ghana as a nation can live up to it. It is worth investing in that area, as the country is not short of scientists who are eager and willing to deploy their expertise in that regard. The time is now, and action can only be in the interest of mother Ghana.

The shea tree plantations will invariably check the speeding rate of desertification in the country, make a positive impact on the diets of the people as well as contribute to their standard of living.

It will also open new frontiers for the country in the world export market for shea butter, as a substitute or ancillary to cocoa's economic value.