My Ghana Electronic Desk

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Governments are ignoring a vast store of knowledge - generated over thousands of years - that could protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to climate change, says a briefing published today, October 31, 2011, by the International Institute for Environment and Development. The paper thus urges negotiators at the UN climate change conference in Durban November, 2011 to give stronger support to traditional knowledge and address the threats posed by commercial agriculture and intellectual property rights. It   includes case studies from Bolivia , China and Kenya that show traditional knowledge and local farming systems have proved vital in adapting to the climatic changes that farmers there face. This includes using local plants to control pests, choosing traditional crop varieties that tolerate extreme conditions such as droughts and floods, planting a diversity of crops to hedge bets against uncertain futures, breeding new varieties b...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Living dangerously on the Volta Lake Lifeguards working with Zoil Services Ltd, averted another major disaster on the Volta Lake when one of the out-board motors on a boat carrying passengers caught fire. The Zoil lifeguards took immediate action in putting out the fire, thereby preventing the loss of lives and properties that could have occurred on October 20, 2011 as a boat named ‘Akpeho’ and carrying over thirty passengers was sailing from Torkor Aboatosia to Kpala in the Volta Region. The boat had on board 15 men, 13 women and four children, while investigations into the accident revealed that there were only 23 life jackets on the boat before it sailed. The Zoil lifeguards who were stationed on that particular route, upon seeing the fire outbreak and imminent danger moved quickly to put the situation under control as there was some scramble for life jackets and pandemonium and loss of lives could have been inevitable. The lifeguards’ quick reaction av...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE The Nokia Lumia 800 The British capital, London, will play host to the biggest event on Nokia’s calendar, The Nokia World 2011, Wednesday, October 26, 2011 and Thursday October 27 , 2011, a press release from Nokia has announced. It said the event, which will take place at ICC, Excel in London will be packed with captivating talks, inspiring discussions, and fruitful networking opportunities Nokia World will also be a platform for Nokia to announce some new devices, such as the 1 st Nokia window phone device as well as outline Nokia’s plans for next year. According to the statement, speakers at this year’s event will include Stephen Elop, Chief Executive Officer of Nokia, Jo Harlow, Smart Devices at Nokia and Ilari Nurmi, Vice President of Product Marketing.  Attending Nokia’s biggest event on the calendar are about seventy-five (75) journalists from Africa and other European countries on the ticket of Nokia, including Ms. Esther Awuah, a Business ...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE A study conducted on Ghana’s water delivery system has unearthed various forms of corruption that hamper effective service delivery. Conducted by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), local chapter of Transparency International, the 88-page report, titled “Ghana’s National Water Supply Integrity Study” with subheading; “Mapping Transparency, Accountability and Participation in Service Delivery: An analysis of the Water Supply Sector in Ghana”, categorises the forms of bribery and corruption prevailing in the water sector as grand, petty and user perceptions. Presenting some of the findings of the Transparency and Integrity in Service Delivery in Africa (TISDA) report at a media sensitisation workshop in Accra Friday, October 21, 2011, Vitus A. Azeem, Executive Director, GII, mentioned the major forms of grand corruption that are rife in Ghana’s water service delivery as single contractors buying and pricing all bidding documents and awarding of different contr...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Ghana is the only country south of the Sahara to have improved on its score in the Global Hunger Index (GHI), according to its 2011 report titled “The Challenge Of Hunger: Taming Price Spikes and Excessive Food Price Volatility”. According to the report jointly authored by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerlife and Concern Worldwide, Ghana and Nicaragua improved from alarming to moderate from the period 1990 to 2011. It says although from the 1990 GHI to the 2011 GHI, 15 countries were able to reduce their scores by 50 percent or more, “only one country in Sub-Saharan Africa – Ghana – is among the 10 best performers in improving their GHI scores since 1990”. The 10 best performing countries were listed as; Fiji – 57% reduction, Ghana, Nicaragua and Peru – 59% reduction, Albania and Iran – 60% reduction. The rest are; Mexico – 62%, Malaysia – 64%, Turkey – 67% and Kuwait with the highest of 72%. Ghana and Nicarag...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE Global Water Partnership West Africa (GWP / WA) and a number of partners are set to launch a "regional dialogue on the joint management of groundwater resources of West Africa. " The overall objective of the dialogue is to induce an effective consideration of groundwater in national and regional water management by countries, regional integration organisations, and Basin organisations, with a special focus on transboundary aquifers. To come up with solid consensual working bases and address the genuine priorities of the concerned actors, a regional meeting on underground waters, including policies and practices, taking into account climate issues, with a particular focus on transboundary aquifers was deemed necessary following various consultations conducted by the GWP/WA with the Global Environment Fund (GEF), various bodies of the United Nations ( UNEP, UNESCO, FAO), the Observatory of the Sahel and Sahara ( OSS), the International Union for Natur...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE A child with a cleft lip Come December 1 to 10, 2011 volunteers from Ghana and around the world will hold a large-scale medical mission in Accra to address the surgical needs of Ghanaian children and adults suffering from facial abnormalities. Dubbed “Operation Smile”, the exercise will specifically provide free corrective surgery to between 120 and 200 Ghanaians suffering from cleft lips and cleft palates at the Ridge Hospital in Accra. Being held under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Services, “Operation Smile” says it is committed to the creation of programmes leading to the self-sustainable treatment of cleft lip and cleft palate pathologies, through capacity-building and working within the existing cleft infrastructure in Ghana. A press release from the United States Embassy in Accra announcing the exercise, says “Operation Smile” organises, executes, and pays for the logistics of the programmes with assistance from...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE After creating an uproar with the grading of Ghana’s Members of Parliament last year and subsequently being invited to the august House, Africawatch, an independent international news magazine, is set to release its second Political Performance Index (PPI) for Ghanaian politicians, on Tuesday, Oct. 18. Indications are that the second PPI, which is an expansion over the report released in October last year, is set to generate even more ripples in Ghanaian political circles when it is released next Tuesday, if the furore created by the grading of some politicians ‘F’ last year is anything to go by. According to a press release announcing the latest index, the 2011 PPI covers every major political figure in the country, and giving every single one of them a grade that answers the question: From A to F, how are Ghanaian politicians performing? Besides the president and vice president, it will include all ministers of state, as well as deputy minister...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE The latest report to be released on the level of the world’s hunger, the 2011 global hunger index report, has described four countries in sub-Saharan Africa as experiencing extremely alarming levels. Themed “The challenge of hunger: taming price spikes and excessive food price volatility” the report states that a total of 26 countries have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming. Released in Washington DC for the sixth year, in advance of World Food Day which falls on October 16, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide jointly produced report classifies Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea, all countries in sub-Saharan Africa, as countries with extremely alarming levels of hunger. The report also tags Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo Republic, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as ha...

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE, MUMBAI, INDIA Nomathemba Niseni, a human rights commissioner in Zimbabwe, has charged participants at a Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene in Mumbai, India, to desist from using terminologies which suggest the poor and needy do not know what is wrong with them or what they need. We portray with terminologies such as diagnosis that people do not know what is wrong with them – it is doctors who diagnose, she told the about 400 participants at a plenary session Wednesday, October 12, 2011. Sharing her perspective on the topic: “The Human Rights to Water and Sanitation” with the sub-theme: “What difference if any, does the human right to sanitation make for poor people”, she said, “People cannot hold their governments accountable for inclusive designs and inclusive monitoring but “you can hold your governments for the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which states that the child must be given water and sanitation.” “You can’t say inclusive design but yo...