Recycling while bridging the global digital divide

In my previous post, I talked about electronic waste (e-waste) and how many developed countries are creating a new type of pollution in developing countries. This happens when old computers and other electronics are discarded or recycled but end up being shipped to landfills in developing countries instead of being handled in the regulated manner because it costs less to do so. Well, in this next story, we see how a company is making a difference in this trend.
Collecting and Recycling Ecologically (CARE): Computers for Developing Countries is a company based in the United Kingdom and operating in Ghana that takes redundant computers that British companies wish to discard and recycles them by donating them to schools and colleges in Ghana. This might sound like not such a big deal but here is where it makes a real difference. In the previous posting, the video showed how many of these discarded computers come as ‘donations’ and 50% of them don’t even work. This is what creates the waste because no one is going to repair these outdated computers so they get thrown away. And then the pollution gets out of hand when there is such an abundance of these that they are burned for their copper wire by scavengers and children releasing toxic fumes.
CARE removes this danger by assessing every computer that goes through their system. Computers and computer equipment is collected from businesses, schools and individuals for a small fee. All data on the equipment is then wiped clean to Ministry of Defense standards. It is after this that the computers are shipped to Ghana for distribution. They are taken to service centers that are responsible to installing new programs as well as training IT specialists to maintain the PC systems once installation is complete at the schools. After the donations, the students and teachers are also trained to use and maintain computers. Their program enables schools in Ghana and the UK learn from each other as they collaborate through the internet. They are working towards projects that will forge international projects and relationships.

But there is yet another component of this company that does even more to combat pollution in Ghana. There is an increasing plastic waste problem that exists in the country. Almost everything that is sold in Ghana is vended in plastic bags, including water. Water is sold on city streets in plastic packets instead of bottles. These plastic packets and black plastic bags used to hold everything have been accumulating on trash dumps and on the streets since they aren’t biodegradable. Currently, there is no national waste management system in the country. The bags also clog the drainage systems causing floods during the heavy rain season. For this reason, an ‘Eco-Code’ has been drafted by CARE to be signed by all students of schools that receive computers donations. This code requires them to put measures in place to curb this pollution.
I look forward to seeing how CARE will change the face of pollution and recycling in Africa and the e-waste menace.

Digital Dumping: the latest environmental crime

Ever wondered what happened to your old televisions, radios, computer monitors and systems when you threw them away and upgraded? I’m sure some of you might have donated them to charity, others might have ‘recycled’ them with electronic companies, and then some of you just threw them in the dumpster (admit it). Well, I have news for you. They all end up in the same place regardless of how you got rid of it.
It is becoming big business to ship outmoded electrical overseas to poorer countries instead of recycling them with environmentally safe methods. Some of these countries have no idea that they are getting ‘trash.’ They are told that they are ‘donations’ only to find out that half of them don’t even work. The non-functional goods are then dumped on sites that have turned into mountains. This sort of pollution would never be entertained in America. But America is causing it elsewhere. And as these heaps of e-waste grow, the poor begin to scavenge through the rubble is search of anything valuable. Boys and women, even children have created an occupation out of searching through e-waste trash heaps for valuable copper wire and other spare parts that could be sold for money. In order to be able to extract these wires and parts, they burn the plastics coverings of the monitors and tvs to expedite the process. The fumes emitted are toxic and are a slow poisoning to these ignorant victims of the irresponsibility shown by the developed world.
The video below, presented by Frontline on PBS, gives detailed coverage of the process, first visiting the Korle Lagoon in Ghana and then tracking a container of supposedly recycled e-waste all the way to Hong Kong. The Korle Lagoon was once a wetland that helped maintain the natural balance of the environment in and around Ghana’s capital, Accra. Now it has been named one of the most polluted water bodies in the world. Even the locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah: a dumping site for the trash that the West has conveniently forgotten about.



The fight against the dumping of e-waste is a global campaign that is finally beginning to attract the attention of the necessary decision-makers of developed countries. With all the conversation around the world about climate change and environmental preservation, hazards like this are no longer able to fly under the radar. I will bring more developments on the steps that NGO’s and governments are taking to clean up the mess that has been made.

How Do Ghanaians Do It?

With my last post in mind, I decided to do a survey of my own. With the help of a high school friend of mine based in Atlanta, we got as many of our friends in Ghana as we could in a few days to take a survey I created and tell us how they use facebook. We just wanted to know what keeps them coming and also what happened to Hi5, a social networking site that was very popular amongst Africans before facebook was born (yes, I still have mine even though I barely go there). What made everyone switch? Is it just a social thing or is it more than that? Here’s what we found out:

As you'll see from above, the numbers prove true about mobile phone use and the amount of time spent online. Mobile phone usage widely dominates the access with MTN being the largest mobile service provider. It was also shown that most of the users have been in use for three years or less. When asked, many prefer to use facebook to communicate with friends than even phone calls or email because its cheaper on their phones. A journalist uses it to spread information about his website and get readers for his articles. Many use it as the avenue to contact people outside the country instead of making international calls. Some gave stories of how they met friends that hadn't seen in over 10 years, some got jobs and contracts through facebook. One person even stated that they met their fiance on facebook.

Most said that they had been a member of Hi5, a social networking website that preceded facebook but they now are inactive even though they still have their accounts. Some dont even remember their passwords. They attributed facebook's takeover to it being user-friendly and the ability to chat. Other social networks used by participants include Twitter, Tagg, Myspace, LinkedIn and Badoo.

The Stats on Facebook in Africa

As we focused on social networking this spring break, I decided to dive a little deeper into social networking in Africa and see how different it was from America (per Dr. Yaros’ advice). I did a little googling and the numbers show that the craze is just as bad, if not worse, in Africa. One thing that has also stood out is the fact that most Africans access the facebook site and chat through their cell phones, not the internet. There are so many places that have not had internet land lines reach their villages but their cell phones work. This is how they stay alive in the facebook world.
A report on Appfrica.net mentions countries like South Africa with 1.1 million users, Egypt with 900.000 users and Nigeria with 220,000 users. Ismail Dhorat on his StartupAfrica site gives better figures on the penetration of facebook compared to the penetration of the internet.

Only 3.4% of the 220,000 facebook users in Nigeria actually use a computer. This is the big difference I believe. This is the very reason why Facebook is looking to make collaborations with mobile phone companies in Africa, reports Businessweek. They are using this strategy to increase the numbers even more. It also reports that facebook mobile users access the site more than traditional internet users.

Its about time Africa got connected with the rest of the world!!!

Those of you that know me a little better know that I have been a big advocate of professional academic research on the African continent. At the BarCamp Diaspora 2009, this was a whole session topic that filled a large conference room. What we all wondered was what was shielding African institutions from producing standard research that paralleled with the rest of the academic world. Why weren’t they exposed to the volumes of research that had already been done here in the West and why was a particular professor’s research rejected every year by a scientific journal because it failed to comply with the standards in the field of study? Well, maybe the answer has to do with Africa’s connections with everyone else. AllAfrica.com has reported a high-speed fibre optic network that JUST connected national laboratories and institutes across Canada, China, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia and the United States to Egypt. Just Egypt though, not really all of Africa.
The Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD) that enables international scientific collaborations started as MIRnet, a network between the United States and Russia, in 1998. And Egypt, India, Singapore and Vietnam just got added this year. Hmm, I’m not sure what caused the delay but Egyptian universities have already begun planning projects to start utilizing the network and it sounds like the next plan of action is the continue spreading this network to include the entire continent and the Middle East. Of course the NSF-funded expansion will have to start fund-raising efforts first before that happens so who knows how long that will take. We will keep an eye on this effort and hope the twelve-year wait Egypt, India, Singapore and Vietnam endured will be cut a bit shorter.

Ghana’s rocket man

Ave Kludze is a man that grew up in Ghana wanting to be a pilot. He was a curious kid that was always taking things apart to the point that his parents worried about it. He was known for his domestic experiments and believes that the only way for Africa to move forward is for it to make the most of its natural resources.

At the moment, he works as an astronautical engineer and strategist for NASA. He graduated from the distinguished Adisadel College (in Ghana) and went on to get his Bachelor’s from Rutgers. He also holds a masters and doctorate in Engineering. He is indeed making Ghana and Africa proud and showing what we can do. I hope that one day after his space exploration he returns to his homeland to develop all the technologies he has been harboring for so long.

Who said Make-up makes you beautiful?

There’s a company, Berlin Investments Limited, that manufacturers and distributes a line of cosmetics named Black's Secret Make-up products in Ghana. It started selling its products and has grown in popularity so the management decided to expand. This led to the decision to open up a make-up bar in Osu, a high-time shopping area in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Ghana’s economy is growing pretty steady right now and one sector that is seeing exponential growth is the movie/music/entertainment industry. Its becoming more and more westernized with celebrities creating their own Ghanaian hybrid pop culture so this really doesn’t come as a shock to me. Women will feel like they should look like what they see on tv and in the movies (just like they do here in the United States) so they’ll want to get all the works done to make it happen. What interests me is the reactions to this article on the Ghanaweb.com website.

The men don’t want it!!! The guys that commented on the article are so appalled at the fact that the make-up line offers sun screen and melanin protection that they just had to scream out.

And I must confess that I’m enjoying reading the comments. Why? Because traditionally Ghanaians (or should I Africans in general) don’t wear make-up. Its not a part of our culture. What we would put on our faces to beautify ourselves looks nothing like what L’oreal and CoverGirl put on the shelves. (An example can be seen in this picture of myself dressed in traditional wear for a performance at an African cultural show.)
When a woman puts on foundation, blush, mascara and lipstick, they’re seen as being artificial and fake. I know many men that totally look down on it including my own father. One person commented that “they are destroying our women.” That is really how someone feels. Another person commented that “My beautiful Black Woman is natural ... No makeup.”

Interestingly enough a day after reading this article I came across another one that talked about African women and their hair.

In this article a guy talks about his mom and how he never really saw her real hair ever because she always wore wigs. To him he had no clue why she did that thinks she would look just fine with her natural regular hair. Meaning her nappy bushy unpermed hair. (See exhibit two…. My hair). He brought this up after seeing the film/documentary by Chris Rock called Good Hair. Please go see it if you haven’t. Its extremely informative and hilarious at the same time. It will show you what black women really go through to look the way they look and how much it costs them (both financially and health-wise). So he says girls shouldn’t throw chemicals in their hair and make themselves sick in the name of having their hair straight and just leave it the way it is. Then he asks other guys to comment on what they think of his opinion. He got 88 comments and I might be adding one myself. After all, what makes you beautiful is what is on the inside, not the outside.

Ghana's got oil.... now what? [A brief progress report]

Ghana recently (relatively) discovered that it has oil fields off its shore and has since then been preparing to start drilling for a major boost to its economy (hopefully). There has been a lot of buzz about it since it happened. There have been countries all over showing interest in the oil since then (including our former colonizer, Britain as well as China) and companies bidding to be in control of the whole set-up process. Right now it looks like they are getting those formalities worked out. Norway is collaborating on oil and gas management efforts. It is offering its experience in helping over 22 countries in order to make sure international standards and laws are applied as the industry develops.

The World Bank/Afro Global Alliance is mobilizing the locals of the Jomoro District in Western Region (the coastal community that the oil discovery will be affecting the most) to discuss the benefits of the people and to find ways or preventing oil-driven conflicts as seen in other African areas such as the Niger Delta and Angola. These areas have endured many environmental hazards that have been neglected and not benefited from the immense wealth being pumped around them. Some lack basic amenities such as clean drinking water and are exposed to human rights violations.

It is for this reason that the influential players in the affairs of this community such as chiefs, opinion leaders, youth groups, heads of departments and district assembly representatives have been gathered. We must learn from the mistakes of others and build our wealth with the right foundation.

So now the people and professionals of the land have to be trained on exactly how to handle what is coming at them. For this reason a three-day workshop was held at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in the Ashanti region to educate engineers and stakeholders in the gas and oil industry. They are doing all they can to beef up the oil and gas technical know-how of local Ghanaians and hope that the infrastructure set-up to support the new oil industry will not only create many jobs but also cater to other industries that are the current backbone of Ghana’s economy such as agriculture and the growing private sector. Hopefully with all this education flying around measures will also be taken to prevent any environmental degradation and employ the technicians being trained to maintain the efficiency of the system.


But amid all of this there are already rumors of foul play with the initial company transactions involving close affiliates of the recently ousted government. The Texas oil company Kosmos was the company that provided the financial input and technical expertise that resulted in the discovery of Ghana’s oil in the West Cape Three Points block. It was able to establish a relationship with the Ghanaian Ministry of Energy (MOE) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for this permission through a company called the EO Group. This company was established by two U. S. based Ghanaians that decided to invest into exploring the coastal waters of their country and ended up getting way more than they expected.

Now that the oil field discovery has been made and all Ghanaians are excited about the prospects involved, the originators of this good news are being accused of corruption. The owners of the EO Group are said to be friends of former president of Ghana, Mr. John Kuffour and are accused of using their access to top Ghana officials (at the time) to ensure that EO Group and Kosmos had the most favorable terms in the agreement. The Ghana attorney-general as well as the US Justice Department is investigating further into the transactions of the two companies and rumors are flying everywhere of what the real truth is.

This oil is a pivotal discovery for Ghana and I hope that it was not founded on fraudulent terms. These are the kinds of things Ghanaians seek to avoid. Being a country that has been applauded on its transition into a growing democracy on a continent known for continuous chaos, many international eyes are observing how Ghana will handle its newly found wealth. U. S. President Barack Obama chose Ghana to be the first African country to visit with his family after winning the presidency.

Ghanaians all over the world bragged to nationals of other African countries that we were the first because we’re such a ‘good example’ for others to follow but stories like this could throw all of that down the sink.

Oil means money and money means people breaking all kinds of rules. I hope Ghana cleans it up and keeps it clean. We have a reputation to protect. The best way to keep things transparent is to educate as many as possible to ensure accountability of all parties. I believe we’re stepping in the right direction.