I came very close to calling
the World Bank End Poverty Campaign event held at the University of Ghana
recently another patronizing charade. But for the fact that there were highly
intelligent individuals who have demonstrated great capability in many areas on
the panel, I am sure I would have stuck to my conclusion. When you have the
likes of Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu (Heirs
holdings, the united bank of Africa, Transcorp, Tony Elumelu foundation); Forbes’
one of the 20 most powerful men in Africa on the panel, you tread cautiously.
You might be missing something. We do not have many of such men on the
continent and for that reason; we have a responsibility to protect the few we
have. And yes, such men and women can be instrumental in our fight against
poverty. But should we be fighting poverty in the first place?
I am in all candidness deeply
concerned about the notion that agribusiness is the way forward as far as this
end poverty thing goes. Apparently the figures for what they are worth, prove
that young people are actually interested in agribusiness since 30% of
applications to the Tony Elumelu foundation entrepreneurship program actually
needed support to grow their agribusinesses (one
would have thought that meant that we were already in agribusiness). This
might be true but does it really support the idea that agribusiness is the way
forward. One cannot help but to wonder what the other 70% of the applications
were about but since we do not have the benefit of adequate information a
degree of deductive reasoning must be resorted to.
Ghana’s very own Professor
Nana Opoku Agyemang who happens to be minister of education on
her part insisted that Women and children are the most vulnerable.
Groundbreaking information! How about a more detailed analysis of the issue of
poverty itself and not the group you think it affects the most? I am leaving
the children out of the equation for now but is poverty really a gender issue?
Is your country itself by accepted standards not poor and is that because we
allowed the women to live in poverty?
Dr. Kim Yong Kim of the World
Bank group (is that a Bretton woods
institution or is it just me?) thinks it is the poor child living in and
around rural areas between the ages of 0-5 that we should be concerned about. He
insisted: “It is the height of unfairness to relegate children under the age of
5 to never being able to learn. Children have to be able to learn anything and
quickly. We have to dedicate a huge portion of our operations to the achievement
of this objective”. (Really? Show me) But the question is this; are we going to
simply put the children in school or are we going to empower the parents to
make sure they handle their responsibilities?
Dr. Kim adds ; “this is the most important thing I can tell
you, the Korea of 1959 is now the Africa of 2015, we talk about Africa rising
but in quiet conversations we hear all kinds of talk about impossible, you know
what we hear from the prime minister about DRC lots of people were saying
that’s impossible. Don’t ever believe and certainly don’t believe it by
yourselves”. Erm, Africa is a continent Dr. Kim.
Mr. Akinwumi Adesina’s (President
of the African Development Bank) view is not nothing near unorthodox;
Agribusiness and technology is Africa’s best bet at reducing poverty. “65% of all the world’s arable lands are not
in Asia, Latin America, but right here in Africa, great sunshine, great water, and
cheap labour. You throw anything up, it comes down it grows”. Yeah… thank you very much! We did not know
that. Their final words did not add much;
Dr.
Adesina: just end it. Well… How?
Dr. Kim: listen to young people and listen to the women. Oh Thanks but were
they represented on your panel?
Opoku Agyemang: focus on quality
education delivered in the right medium. Who will do that again? And are you
saying these won’t be necessary if we weren’t s poor? Bright Simons has a
few words for you on that language thingy.
Tony Elemelu at least gave us
five factors on getting out of poverty; “hard work, enabling environment, discipline,
culture of saving, long term thinking, aligning with people with similar
perspective”. The first two; sound like something from an economic text book.
But one can almost be certain that if hardwork made people billionaires, 98% of
women in Africa will be billionaires ahead of Tony Elemelu. Nobody pays you for
how hard you have worked; they pay you for what you have produced. Enabling
environment however, is another matter altogether; it just doesn’t exist but we
have to at least continue our search for it. The rest are just the usual you
hear from motivational speaking sessions. It will be refreshing to learn that
Mr. Elemelu saved his way to billions; that will at least provide some comfort
in that direction.
The source of worry is simple;
one cannot be so sure what purpose an event like this with all its pomp was
supposed to serve. Maybe it is just useful to keep talking but if anyone is
really interested in eradicating poverty (and I have reached a disturbing level
of skepticism on the matter), they must first stop telling us that agribusiness
is the way out. In America, less
than 2% of the population is involved in agriculture, in Africa,
some 65% is. The difference is that the American farmer is
a billion times more productive. Perhaps we do not need to be told we ought to
be in agriculture, we are already in it, always have been. For most of Africans,
we return to the land when other things don’t work out. We have always been in
it and if things don’t change soon, we are seriously considering migration.
But here is the thing though,
if the idea that how one thinks about something determines how he deals with it
is anything to go by, then we must stop looking at what we do and start
thinking about how we do things. Africans always find something to do. Our “vulnerable”
women are working hard in the markets and in the streets amidst the threats to
their well-being often perpetuated by government and its agents. It is how they
do what they do that is the bone of contention.
Walking through one of our
many slums recently, I counted 6 traditional drinks; Brukina, lamugii, Asana,
Ice-Kenkey, Sobolo, Shitor-daa, Nme-daaa. I am told there are many others. None
of these drinks have made it to commercial levels and they have been around for
a while. There is clearly a viable market for these products. A small study of Kenkey
sellers and how they do their busin6ess (and they DO NOT think of themselves as
business people and potential billionaires) revealed some obstacles to wealth
creation. They all insist on making their own Kenekey. It turns out most of them
are not good at making Kenkey (the process is nowhere near simple) yet they
refuse to buy from those who make better Kenkey and resell. Or perhaps it
hadn’t occurred to them that they could do that and possibly make more money.
On the other hand, those who are good at making it do not even realize their
competitive advantage so they do not capitalize on it to expand by making
retailers out of their weaker competitors. Because of this, Kenkey making still
remains a cottage industry even in the heart of the city whiles still remaining
the nation’s number one meal. These are real thought problems that when
addressed can unlock the wealth trapped within communities.
It is known that the way out of
poverty is a positive motivation not a negative one. Negative is flight (trying
to get out of a situation) positive is fight (making your way to an
aspiration). Wealth creation mentality might just be the best thought system
for ending poverty. Citizens must be led to think about aspirations—what they
could be and how they could be it.
One must stress the point that
we are not short of things to do; our issues are more to do with how we do it.
Those who insist on agribusiness must at least see if they can promote the
making small mechanical equipment with the engines and hydraulics that have
been developed by Safo Kantanka in the hope of improving the performance of the
average farmer.
These are the reasons why we
think a project like SPiD-UP extremely important. Each African must be
conscious of what we do and how we do it. We must insist on being the best we
can be regardless of what we have chosen to do with our lives. We must see the
world standards and want to meet or beat it. This is a way of thinking and it
has to be said; it was to be the new African that Nkrumah wanted to create.
Those who claim they want to
end poverty must therefore, of necessity turn to performance consciousness.
Without that, we will put 80% of our people into agribusiness and end up
worsening the conditions. This is easy to predict with the benefit of
antecedents. A change of pattern is needed and if Dr, Kim is serious about
ending poverty, lets see some -more investment towards changing mindsets
towards performance consciousness.
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