We walked past two large, newly-assembled steel storage containers painted a vibrant shade of blue, up a short cement ramp and into the GRATIS Foundation workshop located on Tumu Road in the Upper West region of Wa, one of the poorest areas in Ghana with one of the largest unemployment rates. My colleague Ashley and I were visibly out of place in our semi-casual shorts, blouses and sandals among a vast collection of thick metal pipes, industrial table saws, and many other intimidating and sophisticated pieces of machinery that filled the sprawling space. Four burly, young men covered in a thick layer of dust, grease and sweat were welding and hammering long, rectangular pieces of metal into practical shapes near the entrance. They paused in their work and stared at us curiously, just as a middle-aged man wearing square framed glasses, a crisp button-down dress shirt tucked into khaki dress pants, polished black leather shoes, and a friendly smile waltzed out of his nearby office to greet us. Hadrat “Musah” Harruna is the GRATIS Foundation’s Upper West Regional Director. GRATIS was incorporated in 1999 in every regional capital in Ghana expect Kumasi. It evolved from the Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Services (GRATIS) Project, which was established in 1987 by the Government of Ghana and funded by the European Union (EU) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to promote small-scale industrialization in Ghana through technology-based training, manufacturing, focusing on agro-processing equipment, and supplying businesses with machinery and equipment.  Their mission is to “develop, promote and disseminate marketable technologies and skills for the growth of industry,” contributing to the country’s hope of achieving middle-income status (ranging from $750 per capita per annum to $3,000 per head per annum) by 2010. Over the past few years, GRATIS has run a series of skilled training programs and apprenticeship programs in diverse trades ranging from tool and die, bee-keeping, soap and pomade making, to producing “mini-mix” formula for infants. “We train people on life jobs,” Harruna explains. “We want people to learn them so that they can go back to their communities to help. In this part of the country, it’s not easy to have access to these kinds of things, so we are able to train them to go out and set up their own small workshops so that they can service the rest of the population.” CIDA supported the programs from 2000-2005 by providing GRATIS with equipment, training materials, and company vehicles. But, since the project ended in 2005 and because many people in Wa are not able to afford the program’s 50GHC (about $36CDN) yearly commitment fee, the programs came to an end.   “We are looking for ways to try with our scarce resources to see if we will be able to train them for free,” says Harruna. However, this task proves very difficult since the only support GRATIS receives from Ghana’s government is in the form of paying the staff’s salaries.


Hadrat Musah Harruna in the GRATIS Foundation

workshop inspecting some machinery

Ghana’s three northern regions – Northern, Upper East and Upper West are the three poorest areas in the country. 54 percent of Ghana’s extreme poor (making less than $1.25 CDN per day) live in the northern regions alone, which is home to only 17.2 percent of the country’s entire population. Altogether, the three northern regions represent 70 percent of the nation’s poor population. According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) 89 percent of the Upper West’s population are living under the poverty line. 83 percent of people live in rural areas while only 18 percent of people live in urban areas. 58 percent of Upper West rural population is considered poor. Ghana’s economy is unofficially divided into two: the North and the South. The South has more favorable weather and climate, and consistent rainfall allowing for the production of high-value crops and natural resources, attracting capital investors. Unfortunately, there is very limited incentive for investors in the North. Issues like poor infrastructure and inferior educational systems leaves the northern labor force less qualified than its southern counterpart. A majority of the northern population, 70 percent, is engaged in food crop production and petty trading or street vending while only 13 percent are self- employed. Economic development in Ghana cannot fully take place without including the northern population and addressing the persisting vulnerability and insecurity of its labor force.  


Evelyn Dibaar at the HoLife headquarters modelling

a woven scarf made by a HoLife beneficiary.

From 2004-2010 CIDA, in collaboration with the Nova Scotia Agriculture College (NSAC) and the Government of Ghana, invested $2,375,000 CDN in the Development of Rural Entrepreneurship Project (DREP). The project’s goal is to increase the access to and availability of “demand-driven, appropriate and relevant entrepreneurship support” for women, men and youth in Ghana’s three northern regions, enhancing their ability to start small businesses and micro-enterprises and contributing to their economic empowerment. Entrepreneurship training programs are available at the Polytechnics in the three northern regions in Tamale, Bolgatanga and Wa and operate in cooperation with a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  “The prevalence of businesses is usually very small in rural communities. The people running the businesses lack technical business know-how and unemployment is very high in rural communities,” says   Alhassan Adbul-Razak “Razak”, Finance Officer and National Coordinator of DREP at Tamale Polytechnic.  “People don’t have to rely on the government as a job provider, they can get something on their own,” he says. The Polytechnics handle the academic pillar of DREP, and they collaborate with local NGOs and organizations like GRATIS to address the community pillar. However the Polytechnics only teach entrepreneurship within the academic level, but there are also those in the rural communities who need access to the program and a chance at improving their income levels. In 2007, GRATIS entered a partnership with NSAC, its staff took the DREP program and helped develop the DREP entrepreneurship training manual. GRATIS is now capable of carrying out entrepreneurship training programs themselves with an average of 30 people per session, using the manual as a guide. They have trained a plethora of rural business groups including the Tailors and Dress Makers Association, Hair Dressers Association, Shea Butter Producers Association and Food Sellers Association in vital areas such as book keeping, report keeping, savings accounts, and managerial skills. “What we preach in the manual is start small and grow big- if you are able to manage the small money that you have, then you’ll be able to grow,” says Harruna. GRATIS’ staff often go out into communities and identify people and businesses they think would be interested in DREP and would benefit from the training.  Evelyn Dibaar was handpicked.

Harruna was giddy when he took us to meet Dibaar and to visit her place of business, about a 15 minute drive from the GRATIS workshop. “I hope we catch her, she is always on the move,” he said. A smile formed on his lips when we pulled into the driveway at the House of Liberation for Empowerment (or HoLife for short), next to her white pick-up truck. Dibaar, a warm, soft-spoken and inspiring woman, started her business in 2003 to provide girls living on the streets with a means of living. With financial assistance from the American Embassy and a donated carpentry shed space from the Catholic Bishop of Wa, what began as a small operation of cloth weaving and lending rural women loans at small interest rates, has butterflied into a multi-purpose center with three main departments:  textiles, food processing, and water processing, engaging and empowering over 600 rural women. “The women are hard workers and most of them are the bread winners of their families,” says Dibaar. “Not all of them are weavers, some are petty traders- they sell assorted goods, others brew the local drink, others are shea butter producers, they do a lot of things. All our women in HoLife, they are all our clients and we give them loans and they are able to run their businesses.” But, Dibaar was still not satisfied with her flourishing operation. She wanted to take it a step further- she wanted to do something to market the women’s products.  That is when Harruna scouted Dibaar to take part in a DREP training session at GRATIS. “With the training workshops we had through GRATIS, we were able to bring in skills for business running. Most people don’t have the skills, they don’t know how to run their business, so, with the training we were able to come back and train my women on booking keeping, record keeping, what you should do before you start a business also, we also taught them how to save - it helped our women,” says Dibaar.  Each HoLifer has been able to save about 200 GHC, which is big money for a rural woman- a viable source of capital for their future endeavours and a means of supporting their families. Dibaar plans on expanding HoLife even further by adding a shea butter processing project and an on-site business training center, but getting the funding needed for the renovations is a problem. Since it began in 2003, HoLife has never received any support from the government of Ghana, although Dibaar has been very active in applying for government funding. Nevertheless, she remains optimistic. “I think we have a broad goal that may not be achieved today or tomorrow or even after my death: that every woman in the Upper West Region that will come in contact with HoLife, will be self-reliant. They tell themselves ‘Yes, I can make it in life!’ whether there is government [assistance] or not.”

 


HoLife’s mission statement posted in HoLife’s office.

            Lack of funding is a common burden that the Polytechnics and GRATIS also face. Much of the DREP training at the Polytechnics involves practicals and extra teaching materials which are additional financial burdens for the academic institutions. “We must cut into our own budget confinement for DREP, says Razak. “Unfortunately, the government is not contributing to the funding- it is a huge challenge for the continuation of the programme.”  GRATIS is also struggling to maintain the delivery of effective DREP training sessions, but since they are currently receiving no external funding it is a big challenge. “Looking around, we have achieved so much. We’ve changed the lives of people. We’ve been able to provide a source of income to a lot of people, we have been able to provide employable skills, we have also helped others to further their education. We need more support,” says Harruna. The critical need for rural entrepreneurship is undeniable. The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRSII) outlines the need for active human resource and social development in enhancing macro-economic stability and accelerating private sector-led growth. Progress has been noted at a national level, however, to limiting degree and in an uneven distribution region-wide.  According to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) 2009 Comprehensive Food Security & Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) of Ghana, poverty trends have been decreasing in all Ghana’s regions, except in Upper West, mainly because of heavy north-south and rural-urban migration and recent 28.6 percent inflation rates in food and fuel prices. “The 3 northern regions are in a serious crisis- people are not able to make ends meet and the poverty levels are extremely high. More emphasis must be placed on providing people with how to generate for themselves, how to learn with their own hands, their minds, to be able to come out with something to change their lives,” says Harruna.

 

 

 

Sources:

The World Food Programme’s (WFP) 2009 Comprehensive Food Security & Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) of Ghana

The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRSII)