Celebrating the Late President Atta Mills of Ghana

News of President John Evans Atta Mills' death shocked many including myself. Atta Mills won political power "against the run of play" in 2009 and died a few months to completing his term of office. He will be remembered in Ghanaian history for his peaceful nature and his democratic and anti-corruption credentials.

In my first ever vlog (video blog), I reflect on the life of the late president, drawing our lessons that might be useful for all Ghanaians:

A book of condolence, in memory of President Mills, was opened yesterday at the Keta Municipal Assembly amidst great ceremony. Preceding the actual opening was a public procession from Busco Junction area all the way to the municipal assembly. All marchers were clad in some combination of red an/or black to signify their grief. A lively mix of brassband music and traditional sounds dared to reduce the "sorrowfulness" of the ocassion.

#RIPMills: Street procession in honour of the late Prsident Mills

In attendance were the Municipal Chief Executive, the Municipal Director of education, other public officers, chiefs and people of Keta. Tributes were read by representatives of various stakeholders such as the government and political parties. The speeches hailed the lifestyle and good works of the departed leader.  The book of condolence was then signed by MCE the leaders of various departments in the municipality the chiefs, reps of various political parties and some renowned citizens.

#RIPMills: An NPP rep at the function

#RIPMills: Municipal Dirctor of Education signing the book of condolence

 Find more pictures on the Ghana Decides Facebook page.

 

Similar ceremonies have been held in Accra, Ho, Cape Coast and all over Ghana, attracting heavy coverage in the mass media. Today, one minute of silence was observed all over the country at 2:15 pm, on the instruction of the government. For the first time, social media coverage has not been left out, with Ghana Decides taking lead role. There's a collection of great videos in the RIP President Mills YouTube playlist. Also, the #RIPMills hashtag has been the focal point of spreading the latest news on Twitter, while Facebook is awash with creative photos and posts, all celebrating the third president of the fourth republic.

President Mills' erstwhile Vice-President, John Dramani Mahama has since been sworn in as President of Ghana. We wish him well!

How Many African Women are Online?

African women given the impetus can put technolpgy to good use. Source: ris.lib.unc.edu

I pose this simple question to ICT4D researchers on International Women's Day 2012. My orignal intention for this post was to highlight the limited access that African women, and those in other parts of the developing world, have to the Internet and other vital information sources. But where could I find comprehensive statistics to back my claim?

Tweeting at BarCamp Takoradi, Ghana: Men dominate the show

 Or, perhaps am I just tasking myself to bring a non-issue into the limelight? I don't think so. Cursory observation and scanty data available show just how grave the situation is:

• Women’s participation in Internet usage in Africa ranged from 12% (Senegal) to 38% (Zambia), according to this 2003 study. This is notwithstanding the fact that women constitute the majority in most African countries.
• According to socialbakers.com, far more men than women use the social networking site, Facebook in Ghana.

Male/Female ratio of Ghana's Facebook Users

Studies showthat women naturally tend to use the Internet and mobiles for personal and intimate encounters, like what persists on social networks, more than men. So why the huge disparities?

• In Uganda, women's awareness and usage of ICTs is nearly three times less that that of men (ResearctICTAfrica, 2006). There, women tend to acquire basic ICT skills in order to be able to get employment in gender-stereotyped roles, it was noted.

These sad developments defeat the objectives of women empowerment as captured by the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in 2003:

We are committed to ensuring that the Information Society enables women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that end.

Team Azma coming out of the Kuyu Project Digital Camp in Kenya show the way forward for African girls and women

Not only that. Granted that ICTs have been identified as development tools and women are at the heart of development in our communities, the situation is worrying. Knowledge is power. The inability of women to drink from the knowledge well of the world-wide web is disempowering; this is the inimical to the advancement of development in Africa and elsewhere. Their lack of avenues to express themselves through the emerging digital frontiers choke their voices in the arena of public discourse. This cannot be!

Firstly, we need to be able to place a figure on the actual number of active female Internet users. Next, we should figure out the factors that inhibit women's use of the web and finally put in measures to reverse this trend. Many women are leading the way when it comes to technology in Africa, but we must support many more to bring change to our communities. Bring the women online!

African Spring Not the Best Way Forward

Picture Credit: Project Syndicate

The Arab Spring: pro-democracy uprisings currently sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. 

This wave of "revolutions" was said to be sparked by the self-immolation of now famed Mohammed Bouazizi,  who was crashed by the seizure of his fruit cart and ill-treatment by a municipal official in his native Sidi Bouzid, after his computer science degree could not bring his many dreams to life in Tunisia. According to experts, his sad story angered many, fuelling protests on the streets of Sidi Bouzid, Tunis and elsewhere in the North African country. Almost suddenly, Tunisians' eyes were opened to the prevailing ambiance of corruption, social stagnation and dictatorship, which pushed Mohammed to end his young life. The protests boiled on and persisted, against hardline measures by security officials, until the erstwhile president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a man who has been at the summit of power for 23 years, stepped down. The heroics of the Tunisian people were told, replayed and propagated by the powerful Western media, Al-Jazeera and social media. Soon citizens of countries in the region: Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Morrocco, among others started their own protests, giving birth to what academics and journalists called the Arab Spring.

Granted that conditions similar to what precipitated the Arab spring persist in Africa, south of the Sahara, the question has been posed by the BBC in its Africa Debate "is an African spring necessary?" Is an "African spring" looming on the 2012 horizon?

My honest answer is no. The violence, deaths and destructions resulting from protests are not what Africa needs at this moment. In fact, Africa has had its fair share of coups and realignments in its social order, some of which it has not recovered from yet. Malawian academic Jimmy Kainja expresses this thought better:

African Spring in the exact fashion of the Arab Spring would signify a step backwards - not a step forward.

In fact, it would make a mockery of all that the majority of African countries achieved in the late 1980s and the early 1990s - when they did away with dictators and presidents-for-life in favour of multiparty democracies.

It is commonly held that "a problem, once identified is half solved." What needs to be done in Africa is refinement of our democratic systems so as to get them to work in the way we want. In many African countries, government goes and government comes, but still the people see no change. Protests and wars, resulting in deaths, injuries and destruction of valuable national assets will not bring immediate solutions to our socio-economic problems. I don't see the change whatever government any uprising raises will bring. However, if we continue setting up governance structures, going after corrupt officials, voting out incompetent governments, cutting down on discrimination in its many forms, building patriotic consciousness and collaborating meaningfully with the larger world, we stand a better chance at progress.

And while angry citizens are calming down, looking for alternate paths towards socio-economic development and fulfillment, those in authority should be reminded that whatever offices they occupy should be in the service of the people. It will take only time for pent-up feelings and frustrations of deprived souls to reach that critical mass to explode Arab spring style. Institutional renewal should be catalysed immediately through governance reforms that would bring efficiency and results to the people. 

Youth development, starting with our educational systems, should be at the centre of any strategy to pave the way forward. The youth themselves are taking many initiatives to bring change to their communities and beyond. Their efforts must be supported through the creation of jobs, scholarship opportunities, skills training, funding among others. The youth are our future, they hold the key to the Africa we want to see. The blood of the likes of Mohammed should not be on our heads.

Blog Action Day- Solving Water Issues Through Adaptive Technology and Policy

Image via Wikipedia

Today is Blog Action Day 2010, and bloggers all over the world are uniting to advocate for the provision of clean water to people all over the world. Earlier in the year, I highlighted on some problems associated with using water on World Water Day. Water has very extensive applications in transport, chemical industry, energy and agriculture. However, we realise it's full importance only when we recall that our bodies need to be hydrated in order run the delicately complex processes that culminate into life. With lifestyle trends worldwide swiftly drifting towards technology, it's becoming clearer that sustainable water use is imperative now more than ever. Countries, non-profits, corporations and individuals are taking interesting steps to ensure that water is available for drinking for us and the future generations.

We often underestimate the extent of our water consumption

In a piece, titled the coming clash between water and energy, IEEE spectrum Inside Technology presents clear statistical evidence to buttress our deep thirst for water. To quote one paragraph:

Robert Osborne, an enterprising water blogger, calculates that a single Google search takes about half a milliliter of water. Just a few drops, really. But the 300 million searches we do a day take 150 000 liters. That’s a thousand bathtubs of water to power the data centers that handle the world’s idle curiosity. We challenge you to find an activity more trivial than a search engine query.

With increasing use of modern technological gadgets in Africa, we run the risk of powering our beloved toys at the expense of drinking water for the majority of our population. Note that majority of people in both urban and rural Ghana lack access to good drinking water.

However, there are some interesting solutions that could solve the situation

In the United states cities such as San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis have taken steps to cut spending on bottled water. The rationale is to cut down on petroleum, carbon emissions and waste, while protecting the ecological resources of the areas where spring water is mined.

Perhaps, countries in West Africa can take a cue from this, and restrict the use of bottled and pure (sachet) water, as we lack the capacity to recycle plastic containers. If we can drastically reduce the cost of water consumption in the city, the money saved could be pushed into rural water projects.

Singapore's approach is rather awe-inspiring. They actually convert toilet water into drinking water. Forcing waste water through filters under high pressure, Singapore's water utility was able to rid waste water of impurities and microbes, achieving water purity higher than other processes. A side benefit is a reduction in energy costs. This is the extent to which countries that lack natural water resources go in order to quench the thirst of their citizens.

We do not need to use toilet water in Ghana as we're blessed with lots of water bodies. Let's also deploy technology relevant to our needs to solve our water shortage problems once and for all.

Related articles

• Blog Action Day! All about WATER (tinychoices.com)
• Take action: Clean water saves lives in Haiti (gadling.com)
• Blog Action Day :: Water (bestofmotherearth.com)
• [Blog Action Day] Water (geeky-guide.com)

5 Voices on Climate Change

Today is blog action day, a day on which bloggers from all over the world discuss a key issue of global concern on their blogs. This year's topic is climate change. Wikipedia defines climate change as "a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years."

Controversial Science
The phenomenon of climate has engaged the world's attention over the past decade, provoking debates in science, politics, business and technology. Within the scientific community, there is no consensus on the extent of man's involvement in causing climate change, and its overall effect on the sustainability of our planet earth. It is gratifying that many concerned global citizens are taking steps to counter the possible ravaging effects that climate change could have on the world's future. Below is a summary of views on climate change from five global leaders.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore
"Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, engaged in the most elaborate, well organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have produced long-since a consensus that we will face a string of terrible catastrophes unless we act to prepare ourselves and deal with the underlying causes of global warming."

Noble Laureate Wangari Maathai
"The world's remaining tropical forests must be protected, because without them not only will the global climate not be stabilized, but the entire world will suffer." "This is particularly true for many in the global south, where protecting forests is not only about conservation but also about economic development. Forests are the source of livelihoods, water and energy, and in most places they host abundant biodiversity that attracts tourism income. Destruction of forests in many places has jeopardized key economic sectors."

US President Barrack Obama
"The issue of climate change is one that we ignore at our own peril. There may still be disputes about exactly how much we're contributing to the warming of the earth's atmosphere and how much is naturally occurring, but what we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return. And unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels and chart a new course on energy in this country, we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe."

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
"Climate change is the greatest humanitarian challenge facing mankind today. And it is a challenge that has a grave injustice at its heart. It is the major developed economies of the world which contribute the overwhelming majority of global greenhouse emissions. But it is the poorer and least developed nations that are hit hardest by its impact."

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro
"Consumer societies and the squandering of material resources are likewise incompatible with ideas of economic growth and a clean planet. The unlimited waste of non-renewable natural resources, particularly oil and gas, accumulated over hundreds of millions of years and which will be exhausted within barely two centuries at the current rate of consumption, have been the fundamental causes of climate change. Even if contaminating gases are reduced in the industrialized countries, which would be praiseworthy, it is no less certain that 5.200 billion inhabitants of the planet Earth are living in countries still to be developed to a greater or lesser degree, which are going to be demanding a huge consumption of coal, oil, natural gas and other non-renewable resources which, in line with consumer patterns created by the capitalist economy, are incompatible with the objective of saving the human species."

The Debate Continues
What are your views on climate change? Is it for real? Is it a myth? In what ways do you think that the world can use its resources more sustainably? Can developing countries contribute to reversing climate change?

Picture credit: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2008/Jan/