Some missing issues

Beyond issues of sometimes rather scant attention to socially or culturally contagious issues, the report neglected other issues in a more substantial way, given evidence and their potential (or prospective) impact on the Ghanaian populace.

Media freedom

With regard to process, it might be considered a grave neglect not to ask about media freedom in the country under review. The official guidelines of the APRM do not make any allusion to freedom of speech or press freedom or to the specific involvement of the media in the process. Neither is there mention of the media in the Memorandum of Understanding; the media are mentioned as one part of civil society that will be consulted by the country review mission. Boyle has elaborated more on the implications of this omis-sion for the process and its communication in South Africa (cf. Boyle 2008, 4). This omission at the continental level, however, was not fully repeated in Ghana. Media freedom was dealt with e. g. under the keyword of democratic

competition for political power (APR Secretariat 2005a, 21). Yet, one could argue that more – or more systematic – attention to media freedom and its practice would have been desirable and would clearly have been within the core governance focus of the APRM exercise itself.

Agriculture

Agriculture was another key topic for Ghanaians that did not receive system-atic attention in the APRM. It played only a secondary role in themsystem-atic areas of economic governance and management and corporate governance. The sector employs 70 % of the Ghanaian population in rural areas; these are usually the poorest regions in the country. But beyond subsistence, agricul-ture is also the backbone of the Ghanaian economy: it provides 34.3 % to the gross national income (GNI). Most of agriculture activities take place in the informal sector. Consequently, the US Millennium Challenge Account⁵³ in Ghana follows the idea of “reducing poverty through agricultural transfor-mation”⁵⁴ and provides 547 million US$ to reach this target. With regard to agriculture, one could argue that agricultural concerns were addressed suffi-ciently in other document and strategies. Yet, given the aspirations of the APRM to be a comprehensive assessment of a country’s governance, the negligence of key issues for the overwhelming majority of the population is, therefore, not fully comprehensible, particularly when shortcomings in agri-cultural performance are arguably an effect of governance shortcomings. The APRM report acknowledged that African economies rely on agriculture (APR Secretariat 2005a, 83) but further substance to this statement – or rec-ommendations around it – are to be searched in the report. The PoA addresses

“low agriculture productivity and over-reliance on rainfall” as well as “lack of proper storage and marketing of agricultural products” (APR Secretariat 2005a, 268 and 271) as an issue under the objective promote self-reliance in development and build capacity for self-sustaining development of the the-matic area socio-economic development.

53 In March 2002 President George W. Bush called for a new compact for global development at the United Nations Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey. It links greater contributions from developed nations to greater responsibility from developing nations. The Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) is a concrete mechanism to implement this com-pact. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/developingnations/millennium.html) 54 http://www.ghanaianprofessionalgroup.org/ghana_news25.htm

Furthermore, a meaningful governance assessment should include prospec-tive challenges for a country’s governance structures. This might also nega-tively impact on the usefulness of the APRM to advocacy groups. The topics of environmental issues and energy can therefore be taken as examples for the difficulty to include prospective challenges in the report.

Environment

The APRM report admittedly covers the environment in some findings of the self-assessment. Additionally, aspects are mentioned in the area corporate governance, objective 2: ensure that corporations act as good corporate citizens with regard to human rights, social responsibility and environmental sustainability. With regard to the programme of action, one can find envi-ronmental issues in the area economic governance and management even though environment is not mentioned in the corresponding part of the report.

Under the objective to promote sound macroeconomic policies that support sustainable development, one can find the issue environmental sustainability in policy and programmes signed. This, however, is scattered and scant cov-erage of a key issue for Ghanaian society and its governance.

The fact that Ghana is an economy that relies heavily on naturals resources stands in contrast to the low-scale coverage of environment issues in the APRM. Most commercial activities such as agriculture, mining, logging, fishing and construction do not only rely on but also affect the environment.

The neglect of environmental issues also stands in contrast to other develop-ment programmes. The Ghanaian GPRS II addresses environdevelop-mental sustain-ability and regeneration as one of six broad development objectives, and environmental sustainability is one of the MDGs (cf. UNDP 2003). The APRM, however, does not pay much attention to the issue, despite its impor-tance and demands for and its effects on governance in the country.

Energy

Due to economic growth, electricity has become scarce in Ghana. Energy is an issue in the thematic area of Socio-economic development, objective four:

Ensure affordable access to water, sanitation, energy, finance, markets, in-formation and communications technology, shelter and land for all citizens, especially the poor. Herein, access to electricity concerning the distribution of electricity is addressed. The PoA mirrors the “difficult access to secure and quality energy supply” (APR Secretariat 2005a, 242) and proposes

activities comprising the introduction of new power stations, independent power supply and the exploration of alternative sources of power.

More and more newspaper articles report about the problematic energy sup-ply in all parts of Ghana. The Volta dam in Akosombo, once the biggest dam in the world, throughout the year often disposes of too little water to run the hydroelectric turbines and to satisfy the needs of the population and economy of Ghana (cf. Asare-Kumah 2007). Even in the capital Accra, electricity is cut off regularly.⁵⁵ Future negative effects on economic growth are likely.

Evidence shows that in Ghana “access to electricity in rural areas is low (16,1 %)”(APR Secretariat 2005a, 130). Total demand of energy for 2007 was 2,030.4 Mw. The production at the Akosombo dam and the Aboadze thermal plant left a deficit of 708 Mw (cf. Asare-Kumah 2007). Measures against the shortage of energy are the installation of the West African Gas Pipeline linking Ghana with Nigeria and of the Bui Hydro Plant which is planned to provide 400 mW from 2015 on. These measures – one of NEPAD’s showcases in West Africa – will take time to show effects, even though shortage of energy is no new issue. Yet, despite some recommenda-tions, the APRM report did not foresee the (re)-occurrence of the acute en-ergy shortage in 2007 to its full extent.

4.6 Conclusion

The range of issues covered in Ghana – in line with the continental frame-work – was indeed very ambitious and wide ranging. While the report is thus offering a broad range of topics and is useful, a general weakness in the APRM and the PoA is the lack of prioritising topics or at least prioritising action taken on certain issues.

Ghanaian stakeholders in their vast majority found their issues in the report;

hardly any criticism on the scope of the report was heard. In its entirety, the report can be regarded as covering the aspects of governance in a predomi-nantly meaningful way and the Ghanaian adaptation of the questionnaire apparently was done in a careful way. Topics could be included and excluded by the stakeholders in the process. Consequently, most issues are covered – at least those that are brought up by organised groups in Ghana. Yet, some

55 The average consumption of electricity per capita in 2000 was 288 kWh, far below 810 kWh, the average for developing countries (cf. Asare-Kumah 2007).

sues are more difficult to organise around. This, indeed, is reflected in the presentation of issues in the APRM.

The inclusion of corruption as a over-arching issue into the APRM is to be commended. Issues raised by APRM report in the context of corruption were indeed critical and included substantial and practical details with potentially far-reaching consequences. One such detail was the recommendation to ap-point permanent heads of SFO and CHRAJ, as the non-permanent position could negatively impact on the personal independence of position holders.

Adequate mainstreaming did not take place in all cases, though, e. g. on un-employment. Topics like agriculture, the informal sector, or energy, were not covered to an extend by the APRM that they would merit – with regard to their importance to the Ghanaian populace.

Unsatisfactory mentioned issues come from both social taboos (topics that cannot be voiced) or amorphous interests (the group of interested is too broad and faces collective action problems). These topics of specifically marginal-ized groups can be brought to the agenda by certain advocates, as seen in Chapter 3. Several feedback-loops and advocacy institutions such as CHRAJ or the Panel of Eminent Persons (in the CRM) were provided and created possibilities to set issues or to give them different weight. For the APRM’s merits in Ghana, social taboo topics (like witchcraft, but not homosexuality), or politically/socially difficult issues (like chieftaincy) can indeed be found in the review. They were carefully phrased and restrained from absolutist cism; yet this style might make it easier for Ghanaian society to accept criti-cism.

Consistency of the various components of the report is an additional critical point: Country Self-Assessment Report (CSAR), findings of the Country Review Mission (CRM) and the PoA do not fully match in all cases. This is to be expected, and positive in cases of differing emphasis between CSAR and CRM, e. g. in the topic of chieftaincy, and illustrates that the peer review works in these areas. However, some issues are to be found in the recom-mendations and not in the PoA and vice versa. Recomrecom-mendations not in the PoA are for instance conventions to be ratified. There are also new issue in the PoA which are not mentioned in the report.

A key problem appears to be with prospectively important topics. The energy crisis apparently was not an urgent issue when the review was conducted, even if it will have been looming by then, it (a) was a governance issue and

(b) had severe implications for the economy – if not for all citizens. Ghana had suffered from energy crises in the past. At the time of the APRM con-duct, it was for experts to issue a word of warning on prospective develop-ments – but it was not a topic affecting the general population. This shows a general problem with setting priorities through stakeholder consultation only.

A similar rationale applies to other prospective topics like environmental damage or adaptation to climate change etc. These types of topics are diffi-cult to include if experts are not explicitly consulted.