Recognizing Africa's success stories

by Parker Mitchell (EWB co-CEO)
The Windsor Star, December 18, 2006

“The children aren't starving."

"There are no warlords killing people."

"There's been no natural disaster here."

These aren't today's news headlines about Africa, but they are the reality in Ghana, where I recently visited with Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean. What is happening in Ghana isn't newsworthy, isn't exciting, isn't dramatic.

That might be hard to tell to a farmer like Mr. Yakubu who recently won Best Maize Farmer at a celebration near his hometown in the dry scrubland of the Sahel.

He is a small, quiet, hardworking man with a penchant for local proverbs.

His parents would have suffered through colonization, the early enthusiasm of independence, the growing disillusionment of a half-dozen military coups and dictatorships, soaring inflation, a few droughts and a massive over-valuation of the currency that prevented industry from taking root.

His children have only lived in a democracy. They have a school to attend and a health centre with nurses and medicine. Two years ago, Yakubu bought a grinding mill that will help the women of the community avoid the arduous task of pounding a couple of kilos of corn into corn flour -- what used to take a few hours a day now takes minutes.

This is the face of the slow march of poverty eradication.

While it might not be dramatic for our news, it is pretty dramatic for hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians.

In the past 15 years, Ghana's economy has grown at an average rate of four per cent. Government expenditure on education has more than doubled. And in the past three years, an estimated half-million people are no longer living in extreme poverty.

Canada's aid program has helped to finance this success story and continues to.

And Canada is taking a lead role in other ways. I and my fellow delegates have been fortunate to see our governor general in action on her state visit to Africa. In Mali, she was welcomed by tens of thousands. And even though she spoke openly and loudly at every occasion about women's rights, she did so with such warmth and tact that she had great relations with the government.

We spent a morning meeting a gathering of brave Malians who are tackling the taboo of female genital mutilation, whether by changing national laws or running individual community outreach programs. Like everyone else whose has met her, they left feeling energized by Michaelle Jean's support.

I got to meet Ismayila Dicko, a modest and well-spoken member of a youth employment organization. He and I chatted for half an hour before it come out that he was the leader of the students' union that took to the streets in 1991 to bring down the 20-year dictatorship.

He rolled up a sleeve: "Here is a bullet wound I received." He rolled up a trouser leg and showed me another. He talked about seeing his friend shot, dying in a pool of blood, and the other students dipping their hands in the blood and writing "Long Live Democracy" on the wall of the university.

But that was 15 years ago. Today he wears a suit and his fight is a quieter one. Today, his youth employment agency is trying to keep educated Malians working in Mali. He is helping to create jobs in rural areas so that villagers have access to teachers and doctors and engineers. It is less newsworthy than revolution, but it is the next step.

Here in Windsor, Engineers Without Borders member Kyle Baptista spent four months in Northern Ghana with an agency that helps farmers like Yakuba to continue more food.

He has now returned and is working in Calgary as president of the Engineers Without Borders chapter to raise awareness of poverty in Africa and Canada's role in trying to end it in our generation.

We all know that there are people living in Africa in conditions of extreme deprivation. What we might not know are the success stories. There is still a long way to go for Ghana and Mali, and even farther for most other countries. And there are changes that individual families and that African governments need to make.

But we in Canada might want to rethink our assumptions about Africa. An old Malian proverb states: "If a mosquito lands on your testicles, you might not want to slap it." The idea is that you can't treat everything the same.

Yes, there are countries in Africa that aren't great places to live today -- and they tend to make the news. But 15 years ago, Ghana and Mali were under military dictatorships.

People in Africa are trying to better their lives and their countries, and we need to celebrate and continue to support countries like Mali and Ghana as their governments define their own poverty reduction strategies, while also helping countless others who are still struggling to imitate these two success stories.

Parker Mitchell is the co-CEO of Engineers Without Borders Canada and member of the accompanying delegation for the governor general's state visit to Africa.