Analysis/ Health/Ghana
Health Workers Strikes and Traditional Medicine
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Since the beginning of the year there have been sporadic strikes by health workers across Ghana. Much of the reasons rest on pay-related issues, but at a deeper level it reveals schism between Ghanaian traditional medicine and formal orthodox medicine. This has been a recurring problem in most of Ghana’s 50-year existence as economic conditions worsen. While public health workers deserve good pay, like other professionals, their problems are increasingly being worsened by mounting health concerns and population increases.
The burden on the public healthcare delivery system in Ghana will be made lighter if traditional medicine, which 80 per cent of Ghanaians access, is further integrated into the healthcare system as the Indians and Chinese, among other Southeast Asians, have done. The integration of traditional medicine into the formal healthcare system will also give value to the increasing call by international health experts for more focus on primary health care that will enable people to increase control over the decisions affecting their health through primary health programs that link up community development or empowerment, as Dr. Gretchen Roedde, of the University of Ottawa’s Medical School, told an international health conference in Ottawa recently.
At the centre of Ghana’s healthcare system is a serious shortage of health workers. Ghana’s case feeds into the fact that despite unprecedented advances in health care, the world is immensely confronted with severe shortages of health workers, especially in poor countries like Ghana. WHO, Lincoln Chen and associates report that sub-Sahara Africa alone needs about 1 million health workers. While there is are massive health worker shortages, a large number of traditional health workers are waiting to be refined and integrated into the formal healthcare system. Wisdom demands that the two are integrated beautifully to give respectability to Ghanaian traditional medicine. One key attempt is to debunk the long-running notion that traditional medicine is backward. Dr. Ibrahim Samba, the WHO Africa Regional Director explains that even though African traditional medicine has often been stigmatized as a backward practice during colonialism, it has continued to prosper because it is culturally accepted and accessible to more than 80 per cent of Africans.
Such attempts to correct the historical wrongs against Ghanaian/African traditional medicine come in the face of growing world-wide use of traditional medicine. The World Bank, WHO and other agencies report that in Europe, North America and other industrialized regions, over 50 per cent of the population have used traditional medicine at least once. In San Francisco, London and South Africa, 75 per cent of people living with HIV/AIDS use TM. Seventy per cent of Canadians have used complementary medicine at least once. In the United States, 158 million of the adult population use complementary medicines and according to the USA Commission for Alternative and Complementary medicines, US$17 billion was spent on traditional remedies in 2000. The global market for herbal medicines currently stands at over US$60 billion annually and is growing steadily.
WHO and its associates explain that in the African region, traditional medicine is better integrated in Ghana’s health care system compared with other African countries, where there is a mutual distrust between traditional healers and conventional medicine. One of the seven directorates of Ghana’s Ministry of Health is Traditional and Alternative Medicine (TAM). It is charged with the planning and development of TAM policy. It is estimated that 70 percent of Ghanaians depend solely on the health care provided by approximately 45,000 traditional healers, most of whom are recognized and licensed through various associations that fall under the nationally mandated Ghana Federation of Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association. Ghana also has passed several decrees to regulate and ensure the safety of traditional medical practices such as homeopathy, naturopathy, and osteopathy among others.
One of the key vehicles to integrate traditional medicine into the Ghanaian health care system is the mechanism of decentralization. In line with changing attitudes towards democratic governance, international inclinations favour decentralization in support of primary health care, of which traditional medicine should be the key driver. In Ghana, as in other African states, decentralization of the health care system is in response to poor economic conditions, poor logistics, and reduced public finance for health services. In the U.N Human Development Index, which measures the well-being of nations world-wide, Ghana is ranked 136th out of 177 countries ranked in 2006. This means Ghana is not doing well as it’s demographic, socioeconomic and health statistics reveal, worsened by frequent strikes by its 51, 910 health workers.
Though PNDC Law 207 (1988) provided the framework for decentralization of the Ghanaian healthcare system, it failed to formally integrate traditional medicine into the system, especially at the local levels. Though the law transferred wide ranging functions, powers and responsibilities to District Assemblies, including legislation, budgeting revenue collection, political and social development, etc, it did not include traditional institutions in the broader reality of the Ghanaian development process. Though it aimed to enhance efficiency and responsiveness to local health needs by shifting some of the burden of financing health care from the public sector to the beneficiaries and also shifted some decision-making from central planning agencies to those in closer touch with local conditions and user needs, traditional medicine was left out as an integrated scheme.
In the heavily rural-based population, traditional healers/workers are the only source of health services for a majority of Ghanaians and in most cases they are the preferred source of health care. In Ghana, every 1 traditional healer attends to 200 patients, while 1 doctor attends to 20,000 patients, according to Erick Gbodossou and associates. The traditional healer has more time and attention to attend to his/her patients than the orthodox doctor. It is estimated that over 85 per cent of sub-Saharan Africans access their health education and health care from traditional healers. Traditional practitioners far outnumber modern health care practitioners, are culturally accepted and respected, and more universally located.
Indications from demographic, socioeconomic and health statistics demonstrate that the health care delivery challeneges in Ghana could be alleviated by integrating traditional medicine, healers and workers into the health care delivery system. Health Minister, Courage Quashigah and his bureaucrats may be attuned to this but more action is needed in ground in this direction.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Feature/Ghana:Globalizing Cultural Festivals for Progress
Development/Ghana
Globalizing Cultural Festivals for Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Cultural festivals have become a development issue in Ghana. From the private to the public sector, there are increasing debates and attempts to appropriate cultural festivals for progress. The talks are Ghana-wide and indicate the importance of strategizing these aspects of the Ghanaian culture for progress. From the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Cultural Affairs to the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Accra has been attempting to appropriate cultural festivals for progress.
Not to be outdone, some businesses have been developing out of the need to tap the huge untapped Ghanaian culture festivals for profit. The developmental strategy, as public and private sectors activities demonstrate, is how to turn as broadly as possible and as many as possible the large number of Ghanaian values into economic festivals for prosperity in a competitive manner locally and globally.
The attempt is to move beyond the conventional and exploit cultural values for progress is task that must be done as part of poverty alleviation. This should reflect not only an expanded developmental thoughts but also part of the broader trend globally, where, in some cities, villages, towns, regions, and countries, cultural festivals bring in large amount of revenue. In a 2005 report from Canada’s sleepy, small-sized City of Ottawa cultural festivals generated well over $40 million (Canadian dollars) for both public and private sectors. This is a tip on the ice-berg compared to other Canadian places. The City of Ottawa and other Canadian places exploit any conceivable multicultural value for economic-driven festivals: In Ottawa festivals year round. Samples: Photographic, Beer, Art and Craft, International Jazz, Caribbean, Animation, Chamber Music, Franco-Ontarien, Wine, Folk, Fringe, Tulip/Flowers, among lists of cultural festivals. All these are drawn from Canadian multiculturalism, and they are constantly being expanded by the growing Canadian multicultural society.
Drawing similar inference from the Ghanaian culture, apart from the already known high-level cultural festivals such as Homowo, Yam, Akwasidae, Dodoleglime, Aboakyer, and Fao, Ghanaian cultural elites could work with the various private and public sectors to expand the already known cultural festivals by including new festivals. The economic contention is not how “Ghanaian festivals are colourful and vibrant” and that “each year festivals and durbars are held in various parts of the country, to celebrate the heritage of the people,” as a blurb at www.ghanaweb.com touts, the real issue is how to strategize so that the cultural festivals expand, in the climate of the on-going African Renaissance process, as an economic driven issue, and project Ghanaian heritage as a prosperity venture.
New cultural festivals? Yes! From where? From Ghanaian cultural values and traditions nation-wide: from villages to towns to regional capitals to the national capital. Samples: Annual Pan-Ghana Foods Festival; Traditional Medicine Festival; Shea Butter Festival; Soups Festival; Kelewele Festival; Fufu Festival; Kenkey Festivals; Banku Festival; Fugu Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Cloths Festival; Kente Festival; Pan-Ghana Unity Ethnic Groups Festival; Farmers Festival; Cocoa Festival; Gold Festival; Tro Tro Festival; Palm Wine Festival, Pito Festival; Akpeteshie Festival; Indigenous Ghanaian Religion Festival; Pan-Ghana History Festival; Pan-Ghana Geography Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Science and Technology Festival; Women Festival; Pan-Ghana Youth Festival; Indigenous Music Festival; Pan-Ghana Churches Festival; Ghanaian Languages Festival; and Ghanaian Heroes and Heroines Festival, among others.
Most of these could be staged from the village to the town to the regional capital to the national capital to global capitals, where diasporan Ghanaians numbers are reasonable, to sell Ghanaian cultural values. This can be done by Accra linking with the over 2 million transnational Ghanaian population and their associations and helping them strategize both locally and globally. The idea is to unearth Ghanaian values and traditions for progress both locally and globally. The sense is to think through Ghanaian norms and traditions, with the help of the global development processes, for progress; mixing the local with the global, where possible. It is here that the increasing Ghanaian diasporan community, the Tourism and Diaspora Affairs Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry could come in, helping to strategize and project such festivals both locally and globally.
It is common throughout the year in Canadian newspapers to read various diplomatic missions writing advertorial pieces about their respective countries’ local cultural festivals and heritages for the growing Canadian tourists to visit their countries to enjoy these festivals. Accra could copy this as part of the broader development process of Ghana. There is more to tap into the cultural values and traditions for progress than meet the eyes and ears.
Globalizing Cultural Festivals for Progress
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Cultural festivals have become a development issue in Ghana. From the private to the public sector, there are increasing debates and attempts to appropriate cultural festivals for progress. The talks are Ghana-wide and indicate the importance of strategizing these aspects of the Ghanaian culture for progress. From the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Cultural Affairs to the Ministry of Tourism and Diaspora Affairs, Accra has been attempting to appropriate cultural festivals for progress.
Not to be outdone, some businesses have been developing out of the need to tap the huge untapped Ghanaian culture festivals for profit. The developmental strategy, as public and private sectors activities demonstrate, is how to turn as broadly as possible and as many as possible the large number of Ghanaian values into economic festivals for prosperity in a competitive manner locally and globally.
The attempt is to move beyond the conventional and exploit cultural values for progress is task that must be done as part of poverty alleviation. This should reflect not only an expanded developmental thoughts but also part of the broader trend globally, where, in some cities, villages, towns, regions, and countries, cultural festivals bring in large amount of revenue. In a 2005 report from Canada’s sleepy, small-sized City of Ottawa cultural festivals generated well over $40 million (Canadian dollars) for both public and private sectors. This is a tip on the ice-berg compared to other Canadian places. The City of Ottawa and other Canadian places exploit any conceivable multicultural value for economic-driven festivals: In Ottawa festivals year round. Samples: Photographic, Beer, Art and Craft, International Jazz, Caribbean, Animation, Chamber Music, Franco-Ontarien, Wine, Folk, Fringe, Tulip/Flowers, among lists of cultural festivals. All these are drawn from Canadian multiculturalism, and they are constantly being expanded by the growing Canadian multicultural society.
Drawing similar inference from the Ghanaian culture, apart from the already known high-level cultural festivals such as Homowo, Yam, Akwasidae, Dodoleglime, Aboakyer, and Fao, Ghanaian cultural elites could work with the various private and public sectors to expand the already known cultural festivals by including new festivals. The economic contention is not how “Ghanaian festivals are colourful and vibrant” and that “each year festivals and durbars are held in various parts of the country, to celebrate the heritage of the people,” as a blurb at www.ghanaweb.com touts, the real issue is how to strategize so that the cultural festivals expand, in the climate of the on-going African Renaissance process, as an economic driven issue, and project Ghanaian heritage as a prosperity venture.
New cultural festivals? Yes! From where? From Ghanaian cultural values and traditions nation-wide: from villages to towns to regional capitals to the national capital. Samples: Annual Pan-Ghana Foods Festival; Traditional Medicine Festival; Shea Butter Festival; Soups Festival; Kelewele Festival; Fufu Festival; Kenkey Festivals; Banku Festival; Fugu Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Cloths Festival; Kente Festival; Pan-Ghana Unity Ethnic Groups Festival; Farmers Festival; Cocoa Festival; Gold Festival; Tro Tro Festival; Palm Wine Festival, Pito Festival; Akpeteshie Festival; Indigenous Ghanaian Religion Festival; Pan-Ghana History Festival; Pan-Ghana Geography Festival; Pan-Ghana Indigenous Science and Technology Festival; Women Festival; Pan-Ghana Youth Festival; Indigenous Music Festival; Pan-Ghana Churches Festival; Ghanaian Languages Festival; and Ghanaian Heroes and Heroines Festival, among others.
Most of these could be staged from the village to the town to the regional capital to the national capital to global capitals, where diasporan Ghanaians numbers are reasonable, to sell Ghanaian cultural values. This can be done by Accra linking with the over 2 million transnational Ghanaian population and their associations and helping them strategize both locally and globally. The idea is to unearth Ghanaian values and traditions for progress both locally and globally. The sense is to think through Ghanaian norms and traditions, with the help of the global development processes, for progress; mixing the local with the global, where possible. It is here that the increasing Ghanaian diasporan community, the Tourism and Diaspora Affairs Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry could come in, helping to strategize and project such festivals both locally and globally.
It is common throughout the year in Canadian newspapers to read various diplomatic missions writing advertorial pieces about their respective countries’ local cultural festivals and heritages for the growing Canadian tourists to visit their countries to enjoy these festivals. Accra could copy this as part of the broader development process of Ghana. There is more to tap into the cultural values and traditions for progress than meet the eyes and ears.
Feature/Ghana:J.H. Mensah and Owning the African Renaissance
Feature/Ghana
J.H. Mensah and Owning the African Renaissance
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Mr. J. H. Mensah, 78, is Ghanaian President John Kufour’s economic development czar. He is simultaneously a nationalist, an Africanist, and a globalist. Added to these are his attributes as top policy-maker, bureaucrat, politician, economist, and consultant across the Ghanaian, African and global development scene. Over the years, Mr. Mensah’s innate awakening has come about by battling imperialism, take-on brutal military juntas, exiled for his believes in the democratic process, and locked horns with multi-lateral institutions like the World Bank over policies he thinks are counter-productive to Africa.
That’s why Mr. Mensah says that, “Africa must own fully her renaissance.” This underpins Mr. Mensah’s years of observations, despair and relief, failures and successes, and vast experiences on the Ghanaian and African situation. It is from such background that Mr. Mensah calls ”for Africa and her leaders to own the African Renaissance before they can hope to realize any dividends from it” (July 27, Ghanadot/GNA). He is not only talking from many an exaggerated visions and unrealistic propaganda of yesteryears, but from practical experiences and wisdom.
What is African Renaissance? It is African cultural rebirth or African cultural awakening. And why the cultural rebirth or awakening? As Mr. Mensah noted, from the Europeans to the Asians to the Latinos, their renaissance was born out of the fact that there were too much inhibitions within their norms and values that was stifling their progress and have to be awakened and refined, and at the same time use fully the good parts for progress. The attempts are to refine certain cultural inhibitions are universal as societies attempt to develop: the Europe of the “Dark Ages” had all these strange values and erroneous thinking. But European elites, through the Enlightenment thinkers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Galileo Galilei, Michel de Montaigne, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and David Hume, summoned the intellectual will to overturned such inhibiting values by campaigning that human reason could be used to fight ignorance, deadly superstitions, tyranny, and to build a better world.
More critically, the European, Asian and Latino renaissances emanated from the schisms within their respective values and traditions and not imposed. It was not also a mass thing. Few of their elites, who thought they were enlightened enough, waged sustained campaigns from almost all spheres, sometimes at the risk of their lives, to refine the cultural inhibitions that were blocking their societies’ progress. Such need to awaken the African culture for progress has dawned because either the extremely long-running colonial rule, which profoundly suppressed African values for developmental metamorphosis or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, certain parts of Africa’s values deemed negative have not seen conscious attempts to refine them from within African values for its greater progress.
Nowhere do we see this more than the exclusion of African values and traditions in not only policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies but also intellectualizing, thinking and philosophizing about Africa’s progress. The European, Asian and Latino renaissances that Mr. Mensah is talking about first emanated heavily from within their innate values and traditions before appropriating from other cultural values. This is where their confidences and faith grew from. The lack of these innate mechanisms has affected Africa’s confidence and faith in its progress. No doubt, Mr. Mensah “blamed the state of African economies on lack of faith and confidence of African leaders in themselves, and in their peoples to initiate and manage the necessary change needed to lift African states from the doldrums of poverty into globally competitive economies.”
Post-independent African leaders such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and his associates not only failed to appropriate African values and traditions in deeper policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, and in this consideration, also intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress, but blamed almost everything on the “imperialists,” that’s the ex-colonialists. This blinded Nkrumah and his associates not to examine critically their very values and traditions for the higher progress of Africa. If today, a large of number Africans blames certain challenges of their lives on witchcraft, it is because of that. This weakened the very African values and traditions that were to be used as platform to launch Africa’s progress – as all renaissances have done. No doubt, with confidence and faith in their very values weakened many an African thought he or she has no value and that all values for progress come from the Western world – hence the heavy sway of Western values driving Africa’s education system.
In awakening African values for progress, the central issue is not only appropriating African values and traditions in policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, and in this sense, also intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress, but how the enlightened African thinkers and writers could be able to cut-and-paste pretty much of the global development values, as some globalization experts argue, to not only refine Africa’s inhibiting values but also add to Africa’s already good values for progress. In this context, the enlightened African thinkers and writers, who are expected to drive the African Renaissance process, are expected to be simultaneously magicians and alchemists in the global development system. In designing and owning the African Renaissance process, African thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants are not only to juggle simultaneously African values and traditions with the dominant neo-liberal ones but also mix them where appropriate.
So African elites, as Mr. Mensah argues, have “to tap” into “the existing support from the international community, especially funds in the private sector, to enable the continent to reach middle-income levels within set times.” The reason is that for both historical and material realities, Africa finds itself in a funny position, in the progress scheme of things, and needs remarkably brilliant policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, drawn from its values and traditions, to deal with an international community that’s unfair to it. Mr. Mensah is aware of this dilemma and advises that “as things were now, too many of the decisions that could make or break the African Renaissance were unfortunately within the power of the development partners.” And its here that African policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants could intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress by cutting-and-pasting from the global development values in relation to Africa’s values and traditions for the sustainable operations of the emerging African Renaissance process.
J.H. Mensah and Owning the African Renaissance
By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong
Mr. J. H. Mensah, 78, is Ghanaian President John Kufour’s economic development czar. He is simultaneously a nationalist, an Africanist, and a globalist. Added to these are his attributes as top policy-maker, bureaucrat, politician, economist, and consultant across the Ghanaian, African and global development scene. Over the years, Mr. Mensah’s innate awakening has come about by battling imperialism, take-on brutal military juntas, exiled for his believes in the democratic process, and locked horns with multi-lateral institutions like the World Bank over policies he thinks are counter-productive to Africa.
That’s why Mr. Mensah says that, “Africa must own fully her renaissance.” This underpins Mr. Mensah’s years of observations, despair and relief, failures and successes, and vast experiences on the Ghanaian and African situation. It is from such background that Mr. Mensah calls ”for Africa and her leaders to own the African Renaissance before they can hope to realize any dividends from it” (July 27, Ghanadot/GNA). He is not only talking from many an exaggerated visions and unrealistic propaganda of yesteryears, but from practical experiences and wisdom.
What is African Renaissance? It is African cultural rebirth or African cultural awakening. And why the cultural rebirth or awakening? As Mr. Mensah noted, from the Europeans to the Asians to the Latinos, their renaissance was born out of the fact that there were too much inhibitions within their norms and values that was stifling their progress and have to be awakened and refined, and at the same time use fully the good parts for progress. The attempts are to refine certain cultural inhibitions are universal as societies attempt to develop: the Europe of the “Dark Ages” had all these strange values and erroneous thinking. But European elites, through the Enlightenment thinkers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Galileo Galilei, Michel de Montaigne, René Descartes, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and David Hume, summoned the intellectual will to overturned such inhibiting values by campaigning that human reason could be used to fight ignorance, deadly superstitions, tyranny, and to build a better world.
More critically, the European, Asian and Latino renaissances emanated from the schisms within their respective values and traditions and not imposed. It was not also a mass thing. Few of their elites, who thought they were enlightened enough, waged sustained campaigns from almost all spheres, sometimes at the risk of their lives, to refine the cultural inhibitions that were blocking their societies’ progress. Such need to awaken the African culture for progress has dawned because either the extremely long-running colonial rule, which profoundly suppressed African values for developmental metamorphosis or post-independence African elites’ weak grasp of Africa’s values in its progress, certain parts of Africa’s values deemed negative have not seen conscious attempts to refine them from within African values for its greater progress.
Nowhere do we see this more than the exclusion of African values and traditions in not only policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies but also intellectualizing, thinking and philosophizing about Africa’s progress. The European, Asian and Latino renaissances that Mr. Mensah is talking about first emanated heavily from within their innate values and traditions before appropriating from other cultural values. This is where their confidences and faith grew from. The lack of these innate mechanisms has affected Africa’s confidence and faith in its progress. No doubt, Mr. Mensah “blamed the state of African economies on lack of faith and confidence of African leaders in themselves, and in their peoples to initiate and manage the necessary change needed to lift African states from the doldrums of poverty into globally competitive economies.”
Post-independent African leaders such as Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and his associates not only failed to appropriate African values and traditions in deeper policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, and in this consideration, also intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress, but blamed almost everything on the “imperialists,” that’s the ex-colonialists. This blinded Nkrumah and his associates not to examine critically their very values and traditions for the higher progress of Africa. If today, a large of number Africans blames certain challenges of their lives on witchcraft, it is because of that. This weakened the very African values and traditions that were to be used as platform to launch Africa’s progress – as all renaissances have done. No doubt, with confidence and faith in their very values weakened many an African thought he or she has no value and that all values for progress come from the Western world – hence the heavy sway of Western values driving Africa’s education system.
In awakening African values for progress, the central issue is not only appropriating African values and traditions in policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, and in this sense, also intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress, but how the enlightened African thinkers and writers could be able to cut-and-paste pretty much of the global development values, as some globalization experts argue, to not only refine Africa’s inhibiting values but also add to Africa’s already good values for progress. In this context, the enlightened African thinkers and writers, who are expected to drive the African Renaissance process, are expected to be simultaneously magicians and alchemists in the global development system. In designing and owning the African Renaissance process, African thinkers, writers, policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants are not only to juggle simultaneously African values and traditions with the dominant neo-liberal ones but also mix them where appropriate.
So African elites, as Mr. Mensah argues, have “to tap” into “the existing support from the international community, especially funds in the private sector, to enable the continent to reach middle-income levels within set times.” The reason is that for both historical and material realities, Africa finds itself in a funny position, in the progress scheme of things, and needs remarkably brilliant policy-makings, bureaucratizing, and consultancies, drawn from its values and traditions, to deal with an international community that’s unfair to it. Mr. Mensah is aware of this dilemma and advises that “as things were now, too many of the decisions that could make or break the African Renaissance were unfortunately within the power of the development partners.” And its here that African policy-makers, bureaucrats, and consultants could intellectualize, think and philosophize about Africa’s progress by cutting-and-pasting from the global development values in relation to Africa’s values and traditions for the sustainable operations of the emerging African Renaissance process.
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