Help abroad: teach people to fish
The UK government has tightened its foreign aid budget at a time when most other areas of public spending are being cut. With the government admitting that around a quarter of development projects abroad don’t meet their targets, people wonder if the country is getting value for money. Criticism focuses on two main factors: corruption and the tendency to provide disaster relief rather than promote long-term development, often referred to as teaching people to fish. This article reflects on the ways in which teaching people to fish could bring lasting benefits to Ghana and help the country become more self-sufficient.
Disasters, both natural and man-made, that cause large numbers of people to face famine, disease epidemics, and exile are newsworthy, generate publicity, and inspire charitable giving. It is no wonder, therefore, that governments like to be seen as answering the call for help, and that the general population wants to see their tax and charitable donations go to clearly visible good causes. Aid projects that promote the slow but steady evolution of industries, markets and institutions in developing countries cannot compete with disaster relief in publicity and elicit far less public interest. For those dedicated to teaching fishing, it seems that the sequence of disasters is continuous and endless, forever depleting available funds for projects that could increase self-sufficiency, economic independence and long-term stability.
In a situation where funds are limited, it is essential that projects focus on key sectors of the economy that support secondary sectors where essential inputs can have massive effects, improving the lives of large numbers of people. One of those key sectors is the basic engineering industry.
The power of this sector should be apparent to anyone visiting a country like Ghana. The entire population is on the move in an antiquated fleet of decrepit vehicles that continues to operate year after year with the constant attention of road mechanics, or fitters, who are available everywhere. Congregated in major cities in informal industrial areas called kokompes and magazines, they combine their resources to produce new bodies and trailers for everything from cocoa trucks to articulated trucks, from trotros to logging trucks, and from market carts to trailers. bikes.
Without the expertise of the installers, the only traffic on the roads would be the ‘Benzes’ of the rich and the 4×4 vehicles of government officials. With their expertise, the broad mass of the population can attend their workplaces during the week and travel to their chosen funerals on Saturdays. With his experience, thousands of people are employed as drivers, companions, and loaders, and thousands of small and medium-sized businesses are able to move their raw materials and finished products.
The largest kokompe in Ghana is Suame Magazine in Kumasi. Beginning in 1971, at the behest of Prime Minister Kofi Busia, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, undertook a program of technology transfer to artisans to equip them to support the development of all sectors of manufacturing and production. in the way they already supported the road transport sector. An essential part of this work was upgrading technology to improve the quality of operations. Through this program, Revista Suame’s base engineers have made locally made equipment available to improve the activities of farmers, post-harvest and food processing industries, rural textile and handicraft industries, soap making and the manufacture of household utensils.
Under the Ministry of Industries, Science and Technology (MIST) FREE Project, KNUST’s pioneering work has spread to all ten regions of Ghana. The effect has been the creation of hundreds of new small and medium-sized businesses and thousands of jobs. For example, the manufacture of metal turning lathes by Kofi Asiamah’s Redeemer Workshop in Tema has supported an aluminum spinning industry comprising more than 100 companies employing some 5,000 workers. Edward Opare, ITTU Suame chief technician, had a similar impact on Kumasi, who established numerous iron smelters in Suame, making the iron smelter one of the largest employers for the magazine, which now numbers 100,000. master craftsmen and apprentices.
Support to the timber industry by Solomon Adjorlolo’s SIS Engineering Ltd in Kumasi, through the supply of bench saws and wood turning lathes, has enabled carpenters to introduce numerous new products to improve rural industries such as spinning cotton, weaving and beekeeping. KNUST’s introduction of beekeeping in the late 1970s, supported by engineers and carpenters in Kumasi and Tamale, has promoted a nationwide rural industry encompassing large commercial beehives exporting to neighboring countries, agricultural beehives that supply local markets and hobby hives, often owned by women. providing nutritious honey for the home and family.
Most of the grassroots industrial development effort briefly discussed here was funded by NGOs on small projects costing between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars. One of the largest and most effective grants of £20,000 ($46,500), came in 1978 from a fund administered by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG). The first phase of the Suame ITTU in the early 1980s was financed by CIDA in the amount of Cdn$250,000. In total, the entire KNUST technology transfer program from 1971 until 1987, when the ITTU program was taken over by the government, employed total foreign funding of less than $1 million (at historical value). With much of this work still paying off in 2011, it must be acknowledged that the program was profitable. Teaching people to fish doesn’t have to be a big expense and shouldn’t be neglected, even in the midst of recurring disasters.