Topic: ghana

Access to Information Gains Ground in Africa

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:48:30 -0400

This piece originally appeared on the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) website.

Access to information is widely recognized as a cornerstone of good governance and an important anti-corruption tool. Almost 100 countries, including 10 in Africa, have national laws or decrees that recognize the public’s right to access information or records from government.

An IDRC-supported initiative launched in 2011 is looking at access to information in three African countries — Ghana, South Africa, and Uganda — through an environmental and natural resource lens. Natural resources drive the national and household economies of these and many other developing countries. Thus, promoting transparency in this sphere is considered key to assuring healthy, prosperous societies.

The “ATI in Africa” initiative is investigating to what extent citizens are gaining access to information through environment and natural resource laws and institutions. The World Resources Institute (WRI), based in Washington, D.C., is working on the two-year effort with three leading research organizations: the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, the Open Democracy Advice Centre in South Africa, and Greenwatch Uganda.

“Africa lags behind on a whole series of indicators associated with access to information,” says Peter Veit, a senior fellow at WRI who is managing the project. “But the good news is there is huge momentum for reform in Africa right now. There are probably more countries discussing, debating, and negotiating ATI bills in Africa than anywhere else in the world.”

Recent progress

Policies and practices to implement the right of access to information began to emerge in Africa only in recent years. The three project countries are at different stages of this process. In 2000, South Africa became the first country on the continent to pass an ATI law. Uganda’s Access to Information Act was enacted in 2005 but has not been fully implemented. After years of debate and a national consultation, a proposed freedom of information bill in Ghana has yet to be passed.

The right of access to information is enshrined in many countries’ constitutions. Even in the absence of comprehensive national ATI legislation, citizens and advocacy groups in Africa have used constitutional provisions or environmental laws to access information.

Research teams in the three focus countries are reviewing court cases and ATI laws, policies, and practices in the energy and natural resource sectors. Which issues arise most often? Which requests for information are most likely to be rejected? For example, is information on high-value natural resources such as oil and minerals more likely to be considered confidential than information on forestry and the environment?

Learning lessons

The teams are also incorporating evidence from Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, as they review the status of ATI laws there. Says Veit: “There’s a real need across the continent for assistance to be provided South-South and North-South on how to draft ATI laws as well as those governing the extraction and use of natural resources — and how to create institutions that can deliver the functions prescribed to them in those laws.”

The researchers are making and monitoring citizens’ ATI requests, and trying to determine the extent to which particular groups can access information. They asked three types of requesters to seek information from governments: a freelance journalist, a so-called “poor citizen,” and an NGO advocate. Preliminary results from Ghana indicate that refusal rates were high for all types of requesters, especially journalists, who had the highest refusal rate of 60%.

Carole Excell, a lawyer and senior associate at WRI, points to another potential hurdle applicants face. “With two exceptions, every African country’s law refers a citizen who makes a request and is refused, to ultimately go to the courts for relief. This has really restricted the ability of citizens and journalists to seek a remedy.” In most cases, she says, having recourse to an independent ombudsman or information commissioner rather than the courts would be simpler, faster, and less costly.

Change on the ground

The researchers hope their findings will be useful to many other countries — and to the African Union as it develops a model ATI law for the whole continent. They also want to help ensure implementation of the declaration approved at the 2011 Pan-African Conference on Access to Information. The African Platform on Access to Information encourages African countries to become more transparent and was developed specifically to recognize the context and needs of African countries.

The research partners will make their work freely available to other researchers and governments, to support the creation of robust ATI laws throughout Africa. They also hope to encourage better information storage and retrieval in the region by fostering stronger and clearer laws on document archiving.

“Change on the ground is most important,” Excell says. “Our African partners want research that leads to results in policies, practices, and legal reforms.”

Map: Candice Schibli/WRI

New Initiative Uses Environmental Lens to Promote Government Transparency in Key African Countries

Michael Oko — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:44:23 -0400

A new initiative was recently launched to promote government transparency and increase people’s access to information in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. The Access to Information in Africa: Transparency Models and Lessons Learned (ATI in Africa) project is coordinated by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in partnership with the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) in Ghana, Greenwatch in Uganda and the Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) in South Africa.

“While there have been recent reforms in Africa that have helped usher in multi-party politics and elections, there are still many gaps in accountability mechanisms, such as access to information laws,” said Victor Brobbey, research fellow for Governance and Legal Policy at CDD. “This initiative is designed to advance reforms in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa that will improve the quality of governance and protect people’s rights in these countries.”

Uganda and South Africa have a comprehensive freedom of information act which grants citizens the right of access to information in the custody of public institutions. In Ghana, a freedom of information bill awaits action in the parliament.

This initiative comes on the heels of recent developments to increase people’s access to information in Liberia and Nigeria. On October 4, 2010, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf signed into law the Liberian Freedom of Information Act. The signing made Liberia the first West African country with a comprehensive freedom of information law. More recently, on March 16, 2011, the Nigerian Senate passed the Freedom of Information Bill. This followed the passing of a similar bill by the House of Representatives. A “harmonization conference committee” has been appointed to resolve the differences between the Senate and House bills.

“These new laws are a step forward in these two countries—we are looking forward to similar measures in other African countries,” said Peter Veit, senior associate, WRI, and director of the ATI in Africa project. “Working with local partners on the ground in Ghana, Uganda and South Africa, we will be using an objective, analytical approach to explore new opportunities that lie in environmental and natural resource laws to advance people’s rights of access to information, including government-held information on land, oil, natural gas minerals, forests and water.”

The ATI in Africa project is designed improve access to information in Africa by identifying and testing sectoral approaches for citizens and civil society organizations to access information on the environment and high-value natural resources. Transparency infrastructure that provide citizens with multiple avenues to access government-held information are likely to be more robust and secure, and can better protect the right of access to information.

“The ATI in Africa project’s approach to increase access to information though an environmental lens provides a unique approach to help people and improve governance in Africa,” said Tavinder Nijhawan, Senior Management Officer at the International Development Research Centre. “We are excited to be supporting this project, which should help identify new pathways to engage governments, civil society and individuals on environmental and natural resource issues that affect people’s lives and livelihoods.”

*ATI in Africa *is supported principally with funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada as well as Irish Aid, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and World Bank Development Grant Facility. The IDRC grant will support the project for a period of two years, and is part of IDRC’s new portfolio of investments to catalyze more open and inclusive models of development through research and outreach.

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The World Resources Institute is a global environmental think tank that goes beyond research to put ideas into action (www.wri.org).

Open Democracy Advice Center is a non-profit based in Cape Town. ODAC’s mission is to promote open and transparent democracy; foster a culture of corporate and government accountability; and assist people in South Africa to be able to realize their human rights (http://www.opendemocracy.org.za/).

Greenwatch is an environmental rights advocacy NGO in Uganda that promotes public participation in the sustainable use, management and protection of the environment and natural resources and the enforcement of the Constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment (http://www.greenwatch.or.ug/).

Ghana’s Center for Democratic Development is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit research-based and policy-oriented think tank in Accra, Ghana. CDD’s mission is to promote democracy, good governance and the development of liberal economic environment in Ghana in particular and Africa in general. (http://www.cddghana.org/).

International Development Research Center is a Canadian Crown corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies (www.idrc.ca).

Ghana and Vietnam Scenarios Foreshadow How Decisions on Climate Adaptation Are Made

Philip Angell — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:43:25 -0400

Scenario exercises look at the how and why of decision-making for climate change.

From private corporations to the military, a host of institutions use scenario exercises as a way to prepare for different possible futures. Given the many risks and uncertainties associated with rising global temperatures – from extreme weather events to changing seasons, to long term sea level rise – they can also play a valuable role in climate adaptation planning.

Ghana: Drought or Abundance?

Take Ghana. Between now and 2050, predictions suggest that yearly rainfall in the West African country could plummet to 60% less than it is today or increase by as much as 49%. Given such uncertainty between scarcity and abundance, how can the government decide how to manage future water supplies and agricultural development? How should national ministries plan for a key sector like hydroelectricity generation?

This very question was addressed in a scenario exercise for senior Ghanaian officials and community and business leaders, organized recently by the World Resources Report and the Massachusetts-based Consensus Building Institute. Held in Accra, in partnership with UNDP and the Ghanaian Energy Commission, the simulation took two dozen participants to imaginary Suna, a developing country in West Africa.

In the Ghana exercise, participants had to decide whether or not to build a dam, given vast uncertainty over future rainfall patterns. Although the situation was fictionalized, the problem is quite real for decision makers in many parts of the world. Photo credit: WRI

Groups were asked to decide, in light of future uncertainties, whether to move forward with a major new dam, decide at a later date, or cancel the project. A worst case scenario gave about a 10% chance that decreased future rainfall would make the costly dam essentially useless. Yet all the groups agreed to go ahead.

Vietnam: Preparing for Sea Level Rise

A second World Resources Report scenario was held for senior government officials and donor representatives in Vietnam, which faces significant impact from sea level rise over coming decades.

Participants at the event, sponsored by Can Tho University, played the roles of stakeholders in the fictional country of Rinsap who were asked to recommend adaptation priorities to the prime minister. Participants weighed options including investments in protective infrastructure, mangrove restoration, new agricultural technologies and techniques, and diversification of rural livelihoods. In exploring these trade-offs, participants discussed issues such as food security and economic development in the face of farmland inundation.

Two of four groups prioritized investment in new technologies to develop strains of rice and other crops that would thrive under climate change. The other groups made infrastructure their first priority. Building dikes and levees - for “protecting people and production” as one person put it – was seen as the foundation of future economic development. Restoring coastal mangrove forests was viewed as a complementary long-term response, to help protect dikes and levees.

Scenarios and Decision-Making

So what do the results tell us about adaptation decision making in developing countries? While being wary of catch-all conclusions, the World Resources Report team observed the following:

Meeting basic needs is the key priority for most governments in developing countries and climate adaptation is not viewed as part of this equation.
Developing countries see climate change adaptation as a cost, not a benefit, and this colors their planning and decision making.
Long term climate risks are widely discounted or dismissed as “yet another study.”
A key challenge for aid agencies and donors is to create incentives for adaptation to become critical to national planning and policy.

The World Resources Report scenarios were designed to provide insights into how adaptation decisions are made that could provide useful for other countries, as well as to give participants experience in scenario planning for their own national needs. They are part of a broad, transparent research agenda that also includes case studies and expert papers and will be synthesized in a report to be published by the World Resources Institute, UNDP, UNEP and World Bank.

For more on the WRR Scenario Exercises, click here.

What Works: CareShop Ghana. Improving Access to Essential Drugs Through Conversion Financing

Derek Newberry — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:05:46 -0400

In April 2002, Ghana Social Marketing Foundation (GSMF) founded CareShop as the first project of GSMF’s wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, Ghana Social Marketing Foundation Enterprises Limited (GSMFEL). CareShop is a franchise of licensed chemical sellers (retailers of over-the-counter drugs) designed to improve the quality, accessibility, and affordability of essential medicines across Ghana on a for-profit basis. CareShop uses market forces to improve health outcomes across the country and seeks an alignment of interests across franchisors, franchisees, and patients.

While Ghana’s healthcare infrastructure includes a multitude of public, NGO, and private institutions, the private sector is often better suited to meet patient demands, with far greater geographic accessibility throughout the nation and more consistent availability of essential drugs. Roughly 65 percent of all treatment seeking behavior in Ghana occurs in the private sector. The first point of care is often a drugstore run by a licensed chemical seller (LCS), and stocked with the most common over the counter medications.

LCS are not always structured or regulated to provide the quality, accessibility and affordability that patients require, especially in rural areas. LCS lack standardization, and while they are an indispensable part of the healthcare system, some also present a threat to public health through the provision of incorrect, expired, substandard, or counterfeit drugs.

CareShop unifies and standardizes the fractured LCS sector in Ghana through conversion franchising. Individual franchisees operate as profit centers, contractually bound by clearly defined, strict regulations on diagnosis, quality, and pricing of a specific list of drugs. When properly functioning, the CareShop franchise makes it more profitable to comply with government and franchise regulations than to break them.

Over CareShop’s five-year history, it has made great progress in building its network and business, but has also faced formidable challenges. Today, its network of 276 franchisees continues to operate, but the franchisor, GSMFEL, has failed to turn a profit. In this case study, we will explore the CareShop business model and the challenges it faces today.