Meet the Queen Mothers of Ghana: taking back their power and driving change in Africa

  Dogkudome Tegzuylle I, Pognaa (Queen Mother) of Lyssah /Credit:Nyani Quarmyne

This summer, we spent a couple of weeks with some truly amazing women in Ghana. They are the Queen Mothers – women who recently reclaimed their ancestral power and are now taking leadership roles in their communities. There are some 10,000 Queen Mothers in villages and towns across the country. They form a remarkable, but little known, network, bringing tangible social and economic development to the country and the continent.

Thanks to a grant from the European Journalism Centre, we (a filmmaker, photographer, TV producer and myself) were able to spend time with Queen Mothers in Lawra Traditional Area, a vast, rural territory in the upper western corner of the country, and in Ho, a town in the Volta region. We wanted to see how Queen Mothers worked at grassroots level. We found strong, warm, charismatic women who managed to accomplish so much with so little.  I often think of them…

Here an article on the Queen Mothers, which I wrote for the Telegraph Magazine, along with beautiful pictures by Nyani Quarmyne.

And for a more immersive experience, watch our multimedia "The Formidable Queen Mothers of Ghana".

Ghana's climate-smart cocoa

Cocoa drying in the Juabeso district, Ghana/Credit: Veronique Mistiaen

I recently went to Ghana to look at how cocoa farmers were adapting to and fighting the impacts of climate change.

I loved that assignment because Ghana is one of my favourite countries. I am also crazy about chocolate and worry about not being able to get my daily fix. I had read a report by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), which predicted that increasing temperatures will lead to massive declines in cocoa production by 2030 in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, which produce more than half of the world’s cocoa. With China and India developing an appetite for chocolate, the demand for cocoa might then outweigh the supply.

I have looked at commoditie across Africa and Asia in the past and reported on efforts to improve production while giving good wages and living conditions to  farmers and protect the environment. But the project I visited in Western Ghana was different because it focused not only on the farms, but on the whole landscape, the fallow lands and the forests.

Once, lush forests covered most of the country - the green of the Ghanaian flag represents them - but over the past decades, they have been cut to make space for more cocoa. Ghana is now the country with the fastest deforestation rate in the world.

The loss of forests compromises the region’s biodiversity, but also exacerbates the impact of climate change.  The country’s temperatures are slowly rising - and cocoa trees are now under threat.  

In the Juabeso/Bia district, international environmental organization Rainforest Alliance (RA) and Olam International Ltd have teamed up to help farmers produce what they believe is the first “climate-smart" cocoa in the world.  The $1 million three-year pilot project provides farmers in 36 communities with a combination of proven tools and innovative practices for land management and conservation, so that they can help reduce deforestation and climate change and at the same time earn a sustainable livelihood.

Cocoa farmers at a RA training session in Eteso, Ghana/Credit: Veronique Mistiaen

“In order to insure there is a future for cocoa production, you need an environment that supports cocoa, otherwise cocoa is dead,” says Atsu Titiati, RA project director in Ghana.
 

Read my piece for New Agriculturist here and Economist’s Baobab blog here.

Inspiring Immigrants - the Africans are making an impact

Sada Mire at Dawaale site/Courtesy of Sada Mire

Immigrants are rarely portrayed positively in the British media – and those from Africa face special challenges.  Yet, far from sponging off social benefits, many are making significant economic and social contributions both in the UK and Africa. When I decided to look into this, I found dozens of remarkable African immigrants, who have gone on to become leaders in education, health, fashion and business – and are having a real impact.

Some have combined the expertise they have gained in the UK with their local knowledge and contacts to establish successful development projects in Africa. Others have set up foundations to support infrastructure projects across the continent.

In the UK, many have launched social projects to cater to the health, education and employment needs of African immigrants. Their organisations often target some of the most disadvantaged communities. They are having an impact because they know first-hand what challenges immigrants face when they come to the UK and how to reach out to them.

African diaspora entrepreneurs are also shifting the development agenda – at home and abroad – away from traditional aid and toward financial investment and structural improvement that will bring sustainable benefits to local people. And women hold senior positions in many African diaspora organisations, leading the way for other sectors.

Here is my article for Positive News, profiling some of these doers from the African diaspora and looking at what they’ve achieved. 

There is Sada Mire, Somalia’s first and only archaeologist. She has founded

Somalia Horn Heritage Association and believes that national heritage is a human right, crucial to a nation's sense of itself even during a time of conflict and famine.

Mary Mosinghi, a Ugandan teacher, co-founded Africare, a charity that looks after people living with HIV/AIDS in the UK and Uganda. She says: “Being based in the UK has enabled Africare to transfer robust and effective skills to Uganda communities by supporting productivity, policy development and training, and analysing performance.”

And Daphne Kasambala, from Malawi, created Sapellé an online ethical boutique
offering original fashion and accessories in beautiful African tribal prints and African inspired styles, sourced from brands, social enterprises and artisans from all over Africa. She says: “Africa doesn’t only have natural resources. It has a wealth of talents and the capability to create things that are desirable. We just need the infrastructure to reach global markets.”

Then there is Everjoice Makuve, who was raised as an orphan in Zimbabwe, but managed to found Widows, Widowers and Orphans Relief and Development Trust International to combat the root causes of social deprivation and poverty, which had affected her so much. WORD provides support and education to refugee communities in the UK and to women and children in Zimbabwe.

And Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, from Sierra Leone, who founded the War Trust for Children after the war, as well as the real estate development enterprise Idea-UK in Sierra Leone. She want long-term development that can make a lasting difference, providing access to new business models, jobs and wealth creation.

Read my Positive News article on these inspiring African immigrants.

Share: the cookbook from women in war-torn countries

Food that makes us feel at home, food to share and celebrate, food to sustain and nourish, food prepared in spite of war – food to celebrate our common humanity.  Next week, Women for Women International is launching “Share”, a cookbook that covers all of the above.  The book, edited by Alison Oakervee with the foreword by Meryl Streep, is a collection of recipes and stories from women living in war-torn countries in which Women for Women International (WFWI) work.

Women for Women International is an international charity founded by Zainab Salbi in 1993. Dedicated to working with survivors of conflict, the charity's core belief is that stronger women build stronger nations and that with adequate access to information and resources, socially excluded women can lead change toward stable societies.  WfWI supports women with financial and emotional aid, job-skills training, rights education and small business assistance in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Sudan.

The uplifting book also has recipes from renowned international chefs such as Alice Waters, Maggie Beer, Rene Redzepi and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and humanitarians such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Christine Amanpour, Desmond Tutu, Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney and Mia Farrow. Illustrated with stunning photography of the countries as well as the food, the book features  everyday dishes, family meals, and recipes perfect for sharing and celebrating. They range from traditional Afghani bichak pastries and Congolese sticky doughnuts, to spicy cashew and tomato soup, beef rendang and orange-scented almond cake. Interspersed throughout are inspiring stories from the women whose lives have been changed through the intervention of WfWI. All the royalties from the book will support WfWI's farming and food training initiatives, as well as provide micro-financing in the eight countries in which WfWI operates. The book officially launches on 16 May 2013, but is already on Amazon.

Rwanda's Tea of Hope

On the road to Kitabi/Veronique Mistiaen

Etienne, the young agronomist who drives me around Rwanda is full of hope.  I am in the country to look at how the tea industry is helping rebuild the economy and healing genocidal wounds, and Etienne is one of the experts accompanying me on the trip.

I love this assignment because Rwanda is one of the most exhilaratingly beautiful countries I know, and also because the mood is so much more positive than when I was last there some ten years ago.  At the time, the country was still in shock and deeply scarred by the 1994 genocide in which nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by Hutu soldiers and militia. Now the country has one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, a Parliament with a majority of women and a strong focus on health and education.

“Not just in Kigali (the capital), but also in the rural areas, life has started again. We would never have thought it could be possible,” Etienne says. “We used to be the country of a thousand problems; now we are the country of a thousand solutions.”  

 

Kitabi tea gardens/Veronique Mistiaen

We have now reached the Kitabi tea gardens – the highest in Rwanda and perhaps in the world.  Hills after hills are covered in a dense carpet of tender green and the breeze smells of fresh apples. Bordering the gardens is the vast Nyungwe National Park, one of Africa’s largest and oldest virgin equatorial forests –a refuge for chimpanzees, hundreds of species of birds and trees and myriad exotic flowers. And beyond the impenetrable forest lies an immense inland sea - Lake Kivu.

On the roller-coast road from Butare (the second city in Rwanda) to Kitabi, which tumbled through lush banana fields, patches of silvery eucalyptus and red earth, Etienne kept pointing excitedly: “Look, all the huts now have tin roofs. You won’t see thatched roofs in Rwanda any longer.”  Or  “Look, everyone is wearing shoes. No one is walking barefoot any longer.”  And he says that every family in the countryside has received a cow so that its milk can feed the children and its droppings can fertilize the soil. These policies were devised by president Kagame to help lift the countryside out of poverty and foster peace and reconciliation, he explains.

 I know that not everyone shares Etienne’s enthusiasm for Kagame’s governing style, which some call dictatorial. And the sprawling refugee camp we passed on the way reminds us of the savage conflicts at the border, which Kagame has been accused of inflaming.  But I am in Rwanda to look at tea and there, the government’s work with tea owners, NGOs and even the British company Taylors of Harrogate, has been successful. 

Tea is vital in this hilly, densely populated country where about 90% of the inhabitants live in the countryside. Rwandan tea is cultivated on steep slopes at high altitude on an acidic soil where little else grows, so it is the only source of revenues for many farmers and their families.   The crop is now the country’s fourth biggest export after tourism, minerals and coffee. Last year, it earned the country $59m and provided jobs for some 100,000 families, according to the agriculture department. And prosperity helps maintain peace.

 

With Etienne at the Kitabi tea gardens

One of the causes of war is poverty – on top of social inequalities, says Ndambe Nzaramba of the National Agricultural Export Development Board.  “The government cannot help someone with a head full of images - that is the job of doctors and psychologists - but it can help you put food on the table, give you an education and give you hope. Orphans and victims are more likely to forgive if they are not hurting financially.” 

But even more important than boosting people’s income, the tea gardens are helping people to learn to live alongside one another again, explains Dr Nzaramba.  “Farmers are organized in cooperatives, so innocent and guilty, victim and killer work alongside each others all day long in the fields and in the factories. They to talk, they share the same problems, they plan together, they work for the good of the cooperative – and that’s how the healing happens.”

Read my story about tea and hope in the April issue of Reader’s Digest here.

The quiet humanitarian - interview with Andreas Kamm of the Danish Refugee Council

 

I’ve interviewed Andreas Kamm, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) for Development Post, a new development quarterly magazine.  I relished this assignment as I think DRC does a fantastic job and I deeply respect and admire what they do. 

 Fittingly, they have just been names as the world's best humanitarian NGO in 2013 by Global Journal, an American magazine which has analyzed  and compared 450 international NGOs and ranked the top 100. To see the whole list, click here.

DRC was formed to address the European refugee crisis caused by the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Today it works with refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) in more than 30 countries, including some of the world’s worst conflict zones and most fragile states, such as Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Chechnya and South Sudan. 

It is an unusual organization as it is formed of 30 member organizations and voluntary groups. They are known for using strategic partnerships to achieve better results and for involving and supporting beneficiaries, local communities and local and national authorities in their humanitarian efforts across the world.

Andreas Kamm/courtesy of RDC

 

When I asked one of Kamm’s colleagues, Mary B. Anderson, to describe him, she said that what she admired the most in him, aside from his obvious managerial qualities, was his kindness: that he managed to deliver and do his job while remaining deeply caring.  I really liked that and can see this kindness reflected in the values of the organization.

I was fascinated by Kamm’s description of how they find new ideas.  Most of DRC’s innovations, he said, originate in the field where staff working there notice various needs and opportunities. Kamm explained: “the SMS-based complaints system our team in Somalia has developed is a good example. It used to be a slow and problematic process to insure that the aid promised was in fact delivered on the ground. The SMS feedback system is an innovation that has paved the way for accountability and dialogue with aid beneficiaries, as communities and beneficiaries can use SMS, Tweeter and Facebook to lodge complaints, point out problems with distribution of aid or mistakes made by DRC.”  Ideas like that are collected from DRC staff all over the world by the headquarter in Copenhagen, then redistributed to all of their projects.

I also liked his suggesting that the world should do more than just removing dictators.  There are currently about 40 fragile states, such as Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the refugee and IDP problem will keep growing because this number is increasing. “We see a need to do more to support the development of peace and democracy in countries of conflict.  We shouldn’t expect problems to simply disappear when a dictator falls, for example, because they actually tend to grow and create many years of instability," he told me.

And on the impact of climate change:  "There might be as many as 200 million people displaced in 2050 because of climate change. This is a huge challenge and it will lead to conflicts, and thus create even more refugees.  The rich part of the world should be willing to do much more to get down to the root cause of the problem and put more efforts into building fragile states – but it is not an easy task.”

Read my full interview with Andreas Kamm in the spring issues of Development Post.

Silent Disasters: Let’s turn up the volume

Image by IFRC/Finnish Red Cross

Last October, the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Somalia and Indonesia all were all hit by a flurry of natural disasters.  Yet of all of these, most people have only heard about Hurricane Sandy, which claimed 131 lives and caused major damages to the East Coast of the US. 

Media figures released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) showed that the impact of Hurricane Sandy in the US grabbed almost 90 percent of all print and online media coverage of a set of 13 disasters from January 2012 to January 2013, across 160 countries.

The other "silent disasters" were food insecurity in both the Sahel and southern Africa, a tropical storm that struck Bangladesh in October, floods in Cambodia and Ecuador, a recent snap of extreme cold in Mongolia, disease epidemics in Uganda including Ebola, a series of earthquakes in Tajikistan, hand, foot and mouth disease in Vietnam, a dengue outbreak in El Salvador and the difficulties faced by Burundian refugees returning home from Tanzania.

The Red Cross and the European Commission have launched a media campaign this week to raise public awareness about the many “silent disasters” around the world that are under-reported, under-funded and often forgotten.

Over 90 percent of disasters around the world go unnoticed. They’re too small, inconvenient or overshadowed by other events. Without the attention of the public and the media, they often pass under the donor community's radar.

"Small-scale disasters may not reach our TV screens, but they still cast painful blows to millions of people every year, destroying their homes and livelihoods," said EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva, highlighting the work done by ECHO and the Red Cross to bring relief aid to hard-hit communities.

"Our joint efforts are more important than ever, as climate change, urbanisation and population growth are pushing up the number and impact of disasters,” Georgieva added.  

Each decade, disasters around the world are growing in frequency, severity and cost with no end in sight. By 2015 an estimated 375 million people - a 79 percent increase from 2011 - will suffer the ravages of devastating weather events. These figures are truly alarming.

Even during this time of economic austerity, slashing humanitarian budgets would amount to turning a blind eye to a costly reality that affects us all, and writing off the lives of the millions of families affected by disasters, Georgieva, added. 

Watch the campaign’s video, shown in cinema and on television in 11 European countries this month. It depicts people in comfortable homes eating, while disaster survivors look on in the background. Then the Europeans suddenly hear their voices… The campaign will also run on websites, social media (with the hashtag #silentdisasters) and in print.

Landfill Harmonic – Turning trash into music

My New Year resolution as a journalist is to try to focus more on solutions rather than on showing problems, and write stories that leave people with hope and the will to do something rather than feeling helpless.

Here is a perfect example: a beautiful story about people turning trash into music.  The people of Cateura, Paraguay, make their living scavenging through a huge landfill on top of which their slum was built. One day, one of them found a discarded violin shell. It gave them the idea of building recycled musical instruments out of rusting oil cans, pieces of wood and metal, old tools and other trash.  They soon managed to put together a whole orchestra made out of recycled instruments (it sounds amazingly good!) and it has transformed their lives.  

  “The world sends us garbage. We send back music,” says Favio Chavez, the orchestra’s director.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Women Farmers in Tanzania - I'm a farmer, get me out of there!

Women farmers at the Maisha Plus Village teach youngsters from the city how to grow and prepare their food/Sven Torfinn

I spent a few days in a typical African village in Tanzania with thatched huts, water well, goats and scrawny chickens scurrying about, but this village was actually built from scratch at a secret location in the Pawni region. It was the set for a Big Brother-type show organized by the international development charity Oxfam and the popular Tanzanian reality TV show Maisha Plus. Fourteen women who farm small plots of land in rural Tanzania and 26 youths from the cities competed for the titles of "Mama Shujaa Wa Chakula" (woman food hero) and youth food hero.
 
The idea was to give young contestants and millions of viewers a taste of what women in Africa go through to put food on the table with limited resources and in the face of enormous challenges. It was also a rare opportunity to celebrate them, put farming and gender issues on the agenda and force politicians to listen.

Here is a short blog post I've written for the Economist:

Farming in Tanzania

I'm a farmer, get me out of here

Dec 18th 2012, 9:57 by V.M. | DAR ES SALAAM

STARS of most reality television shows spend their time nibbling earwigs, sunbathing and bickering. Those taking part in a Big Brother-style show recently broadcast in Tanzania, however, had a more productive experience.

Fourteen farmers, all women, and 26 urban youngsters were thrown together in a specially constructed village under near 24-hour TV surveillance. The women set daily tasks from their own lives—growing vegetables, looking after cows or fetching water—which the teenagers had to complete in order to survive. The farmers were given farming tips and got to talk to politicians and policy-makers in the "diary room".

In Tanzania, as in many African countries, women produce much of the food that feeds their people, but few own their land. "Women are treated as tractors, but they have to treat their husbands like angels," said one of the contestants.

The Women Food Heroes competition, run by Oxfam and "Maisha Plus", a popular Tanzanian reality TV show, gave the young contestants and its viewers a taste of what women in Tanzania endure to put food on the table. It was a rare opportunity to promote women’s voices and celebrate their contribution, says Mwanahamisi Salimu of Oxfam. It was also a chance to push for them to have access to the same kind of support and rights already available to men farmers, she continues. It showed that small-scale agriculture is a sustainable way of feeding the country.

Broadcast nightly on the biggest national network and promoted on social media, radio and newspapers, the programme reached more than half the population. In the countryside, people gathered in community centres to watch it. Its popularity has forced politicians to talk about farming, a subject about which they are usually fairly quiet.

The winner, Sister Martha Mwasu Waziri from Dodoma, who won $6,300 to buy farming equipment, says she wants to turn her farm—which she built on a scrap of wasteland—into a demonstration farm to show others what they can achieve. "I learned so much here and that is more important to me than winning the competition," says Mary Kamwaka Maumbi, another finalist. "I’ve learned how to do a crop calendar, when to start breeding my pigs and when to inoculate them, how to get my produce to the market and what to do with my money.  I’ll put everything into practice and will show others how to do it.  It will have an impact on my whole village."

Microfinance - Grameen Bank under Threat

VSL meeting in a suburb of Accra, Ghana/Fjona Hill

Writing about development and humanitarian issues, I am well aware of the importance of microloans and how non-profit lenders and savings and loans associations can help change lives (see my recent post and article in the Economist on Village Savings and Loans Associations. Also, if you want a clear explanation of how microcredit works, see the excellent graphic at the end of this post).

So, I was alarmed reading this recent appeal from the global campaigning group Avaaz that the Grameen Bank is under threat.

The Grameen Bank is very different from traditional banks. They loan money to 8.4 million people, mostly women from the poorest villages in Bangladesh, so they can buy assets like cows or sewing machines and start earning money. These women borrowers also run the bank -- they are not only the majority shareholders, 9 out of 12 seats on the board are held by village women in saris.

I haven’t had time to verify Avaaz’s claims and I know that the Grameen Bank has come under criticism over the past few years for tax evasion. There were also accusations that microcredit can bring communities into debt from which they cannot escape and that the Grameen Bank was linked to exploitation and pressures on poor families to sell their belongings.  (That’s why I prefer the Village Savings and Loans model in which the money comes from the community itself.)

I don’t know what is behind the Bangladeshi government’s decision regarding the bank, but here is what Avaaz says:   “Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina wants to end Grameen Bank as we know it.  She first stripped Dr. Yunus’ position as the bank’s managing director, and now just passed a law that would allow the government to bypass the people-elected board and handpick his successor. We fear that the government may use its newfound power to manipulate millions of members for votes in next year’s election.

“Grameen's downfall would be a disaster for Bangladesh and the larger microcredit movement that is working to improve lives across the globe.”  Avaaz is asking people to sign their urgent petition to PM Hasina.

Here is a very good graphic, which explains clearly the process of microloans and how microlending, if done correctly, can help millions of people around the world. The graphic is produced by CreditScore.net, a personal finance blog by a team of experts focusing on all things credit and debt related.

 

Ikal Angelei fights giant dam

Ikal Angelei/courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize

 In my work, I come across numerous projects designed to bring progress and development to developing countries across the world. Often, these projects affect the environment and clash with human rights of local populations – sometimes violently so.   I often wonder how to strike the right balance?

I’ve recently spoken with Ikal Angelei, a remarkable young Kenyan whose fight to save Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake from Africa’s biggest dam project, has thrust her at the forefront of one of the most polarizing environmental and economic battles in Africa.

When built, the Ethiopian-led Gibe III Dam will nearly double electrical output to Ethiopia, and Kenya is expected to purchase a third of the power generated from it. The Ethiopian and Kenyan governments believe the energy is vital to fuel development, and the project had the backing of China, the World Bank and other major investors.  But Angelei worried that the giant dam would deprive local communities from vital water and cause more bloodshed in an already volatile region.  “The dam will cause further scarcity of resources and exacerbate conflicts in an already fragile region. Communities there are in need of water and food much more than electricity.”

She made it her mission to stop the dam. She founded Friends of Lake Turkana and worked tirelessly to inform local chiefs and elders about the implications of the project. She also approached academics, politicians and influential people across the world in person and through social media.

Angelei addressing villagers on lake's shores/courtesy of the Goldman Environmental Prize

Amazingly, she has succeeded in stopping the dam in its tracks through effective campaigning of the Kenyan parliament and UNESCO.  For her work and courage, the 31 year old has been awarded the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize – a sort of Nobel Prize for grassroots environmental activists.

When asked what she would tell her critics who argue that her campaign is blocking much needed development in Kenya and Ethiopia, she replied:

“We are witnessing governments destroy the environment to increase their GDPs.  While we appreciate the need to develop, meet Millennium goals by 2015, and agree that we all have to solve the current problems of access to energy and employment, we cannot achieve these at the expense of the environment, especially with the availability of alternatives and the reality of climate change."  She pointed out that both Kenya and Ethiopia have wind and geothermal energy resources.

"Progress cannot leave people or the Earth worse off. We are not against development: we can develop in a sustainable way, in a way that would not violate human rights and destroy the environment."

 Read my article about Angelei in the summer issue of the New Internationalist here.