Having spent a week investigating the ICT landscape in Ghana, I am somewhat at a loss as to whether technology is having an overall positive or negative impact on the region.
Of all the African countries, Ghana is undoubtedly one of the most technologically advanced. Its mobile infrastructure puts much of the developed world to shame, and networking company Alcatel Lucent has even hinted that the company is working with mobile operators in the country with a view to launching LTE.
Furthermore, tech giants such as Google and SAP are rushing to invest in the country. Google has teamed up with the Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) to establish a network of three ICT centres, which will act as hubs for learning, communication and entrepreneurship in some of the poorest and most remote rural regions of Northern Ghana.
SAP, meanwhile, is developing smartphone software for use by cashew and shea nut farmers in remote areas of the country, to help improve transparency in the supply chain. The technology helps to ensure that rural farmers are getting a fair market price for their produce, and are not losing money unnecessarily to intermediaries and middlemen.
While some of these projects are initiated out of a sense of corporate social responsibility, many companies are starting to realise that developing countries such as Ghana present a lucrative business opportunity. SAP’s shea nut project, for example, will be transformed within a few years into a ‘social business’ that does not rely on private investment but is self-sustaining. Many mobile phone makers are also developing low-cost handsets to tap into this burgeoning market.
However, amid all this positive technological progress, there is a significant blot on the Ghanaian technological landscape: electronic waste. As a BBC Panorama programme broadcast earlier this year revealed, Ghana continues to be the de facto dumping ground for the western world’s toxic e-waste, putting local children at serious risk of brain and kidney damage, respiratory illness, developmental and behavioural disorders, and even cancer.
However, exporters of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are able to bypass these regulations by falsely labelling the equipment as ‘donations’. There is no import duty paid on computers and accessories, as the Ghanaian government wants to ensure that second-hand computers are made available to citizens to help improve the computer literacy rate.
An informal trade has therefore built up around this industry, with young children spending their days searching for scraps of copper and aluminium that they can sell. They break open the plastic casing of TVs and computers to expose the wiring inside, and then burn off the plastic coating to get at the metal. The burning releases toxic chemicals which the children often inhale, and heavy metals leach from the abandoned equipment and contaminate local water supplies.
While international authorities are currently working on rules and regulations designed to reduce the ill effects of importing second-hand EEE, the problem in Ghana is growing. As Kwei Quartey, author of ‘Wife of the Gods’ and ‘Children of the Street’ (the latter touching on WEEE) points out, Ghana could soon begin contributing to its own e-waste problem.
“I don’t believe there is any question that both government and the private sector in Ghana have to look at WEEE and sustainability as a national emergency that needs to be dealt with as urgently as development itself and treated as part and parcel of development goals,” Quartey added. “Anyone who thinks that WEEE is a minor problem is very much mistaken.”
Is technology therefore more of a hazard than a help in Ghana? The country’s exceptional mobile infrastructure has undoubtedly helped the country to progress leaps and bounds in recent years, making it an attractive target for international investment. And ICT can be extremely empowering for people in rural communities – particularly women.
But without the means to process WEEE – or the money to export it elsewhere, as the West does – Ghanaians may never be able to view technological development with untainted eyes.
If there is a solution, it is, as Quartey suggests, for the private sector to make a business out of sustainability. Companies and charities in Europe and the US currently offer WEEE recycling, but market economics always win out and, ultimately, it will be up to local people to turn the situation to their advantage on home soil.
“Money would be made in the same way it is now in the informal sector, but on a larger scale, e.g. foreign and local companies pay you, the recycler, for processing their WEEE, and you also get paid by selling recycled copper to local and foreign industries,” said Quartey.
If Ghana can succeed in establishing a successful WEEE processing industry of this kind within the country, it will have proved that it is indeed Africa’s technological leader.
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Excellent article Sophie. But Ghana's own production of WEEE will never match that of the combined rest of the world. This will always be a 99% problem of the waste getting in from other countries. I believe that is where the focus on solving the problem should be. It is a solvable problem since, unlike drugs or other contraband, WEEE can be traced to its point of origin rather easily. It is just going to take a little collaboration between the government of Ghana and the rest of the world (instead of finger pointing).
Its a pity the author did not speak with Mike Anane, Mike is the world renowned campaigner against e-waste dumping in Ghana he is the person who exposed the illegal dumping of e-waste in Ghana by Europe the United States and Canada and the public health and environmental impacts. Indeed he is widely credited for bringing the issue of e-waste dumping in Ghana to the center stage of international discussions and of course in Ghana. Having followed the issue for almost a decade. Mike has so much information that could have enriched this report. He is simply amazing and the writer should have contacted him for in-depth information on e-waste in Ghana