End poverty—did we miss the mark again?

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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Atiemo's 5-in-1 book

I was once informed about a young lady who said she did not read Ghanaian authors. As a writer and Ghanaian myself, this didn’t go down too well with me. But I am also a pragmatist and that means I face facts. This lady is not that different from any typical Ghanaian. For us anything made in Ghana or by Ghanaian is not good enough. She will choose Paulo Coelho over Albert Ocran any day as perhaps she will choose Stacy Adams over Doris Okraku-- nothing unusual there.

I am not a promoter of affirmative action. If you are at a disadvantage it is an opportunity to surprise everyone. If you can’t bring the element of surprise (the only advantage you have under the circumstances) with you, you are normal and that is simply not good enough. But a person who makes such blanket statements is also saying that she has read most Ghanaian authors and has found them not worthy of her precious reading time. I do not believe this is the case with our lady friend and clearly her wrong judgment has done nothing but deny her the life transforming experience possible when you read an author who understands your setting. Whiles I could mention many young Ghanaian authors my focus in this review is Sam Zeph Atiemo’s Embracing You Inner Courage.

I met Sam Zeph Atiemo recently at the Ghana’s premier university where we were both facilitators of a seminar on Agri-prenuership. Nothing prepared me for the surprises that awaited. He spoke extemporously with a firm grip on what was clearly a passion and a life mission. He had an idea; conscious entrepreneurship.   After his presentation, I could not wait to review his book; Embracing Your Inner Courage.

No book I have read in a long time is this packed. It has 5 parts, 31 chapters and 220 pages. As the author himself put it, “this books is five books in one. It inspires me every time I read it so I know it will inspire others”. With countless anecdotes from the author’s own experience as a successful entrepreneur in three countries and two continents, the book can fairly be described as semi-biographic.

The first part treats Passion, Planning, Massive action, Commitment and fulfillment n that order. The book literally captures the whole spectrum of personal development with its 31 chapters establishing it as a natural route to entrepreneurship. Having established the basis for entrepreneurship as a means to eliminate poverty, something he called an indictment on the continent due to her many natural resources, he makes an outstanding case for the establishment of his own Business Factor Initiative For Africa where he provides consultancy among other services for entrepreneurs.

Passion is a highly efficient fuel for performance regardless of your field and this book starts first by igniting it within the reader. This is a useful technique because with passion one can achieve anything. It achieves this through the many probing questions that seem to pop out of nowhere while reading the book. Answer the questions and you begin to see a new you emerge.

The great thing about the author is that he is a practicing entrepreneur with years of experience and several ventures under his belt. He understands the Ghanaian experience and interprets them with astounding accuracy. 

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The Spousal Influence on existence

A lot has been said about the spousal influence on the possibility of the maximization of existence. This is a natural course of reasoning if one premises that everything we prefix with the “MY” is either an asset or liability—something that either aids or sabotages the cause. If this is the case, then the choice is of great importance as spouses are to be life partners. Perhaps the single most important decision after purpose is that of the partner with which the mission must be accomplished. As we all know, two heads are better than one and two people pushing the same cart in one direction provides an overall better output than one person. But this is only if they are in agreement of course.

From the man’s perspective, the woman is to be a helper (as far as Christian thought goes). But does that imply that the woman must not have aspirations of her own? Why then will God give the woman dreams too? So lets face it; the questions have not all been answered. People are often more attracted to the things of little value considering their own aspirations. Let me clarify that quickly before I send you on a trajectory of confusion. Some people have said that men are attracted to what they see, so they tend to want the most beautiful woman around and they may not be the best choice. Now if this is the case, then we have a problem. Even the most beautiful flower withers at some point. Women in this sense then become useless when they loose their glamour. Luckily beauty has also been said to lie in the eyes of the beholder. Is this really true that what is beautiful to one person may not be beautiful to another? This is also another problem to solve? Are the proponents saying that you and I can’t booth look at a Rolls Royce Phantom and agree on it’s beauty? Or is there a possibility that we can disagree on Joslyn Dumas’ hips as an outstanding work of God?

There are many more questions that need to be resolved in spite of the many we think we already have answers to. A friend told me recently that his idea of a good woman is one who is capable of taking initiatives. He gave 25% for looks, 25% for character and 50% for intellect. I thought that was interesting given my friend is a minister in training and hence very active in the church. But control my big mouth I did. Minutes later he came back with “well she also has to be spiritual” without stating what percentage that was to be. You may start worrying for his wife to be at this point. The truth is that we don’t always know what we want any more than what is good for us. A lot of the things men accuse women of are really human problems more than women problems. As a man I know from experience that my male friends have deserted me when I was down quicker than my female friends. The case is true the other way around. Perhaps instead of looking at the world through gender-filtered eyes we are better of looking at it through moral-filtered eyes. There are good people and not so good people—simple.

So lets admit it, we haven’t got all figured out. Not even us ministers. One thing is for sure, the person you choose to carry out your quest for maximization of your existence with must help your cause or you can forget it. I don’t know what whether it is beauty or intellect you need and I am willing to wager that you don’t either. Whether you are male or female won’t matter much if you threw in the idea of shared aspirations. Partners at home and partners at work? Well…the term is life partner and life encapsulates all aspects of your existence. I believe this is the working model but what do I know, many times I failed to get it right myself. I can tell you one thing for sure, people change.

A lady friend who was desperately looking for marriage at some point, later described herself as a single mom by choice. Many women are resorting to having children for men they have no intention of marrying. Others think, they are safer sharing another woman’s husband. Hopefully, like me these issues confuse you enough to want to hear what mentor and seasoned counsellor C J Buckman and his team has to say at the WHY AM I STILL SINGLE summit on the 6^th and 7^th of November 2015/ The event is supported by Joy FM, Hitz FM and SPiD-UP.COM and you my friend, are invited.

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