As I make my way through the process of uncovering the behavior of microfinance institutions, I begin to realize how difficult it must have been to have created the Grameen Bank as Dr. Yunus did in Bangladesh. I think the word is clairvoyant. To possess the acumen recognizing that the poor will almost always pay back their loans is truly remarkable. Restoring confidence that there are investment opportunities in impoverished nations is an important one that help these nations help pull themselves up by the bootstraps into competitive free market democracies. I once heard that if you are able to make it alright on minimum wage, then you shouldn’t be getting minimum wage. Well here the institutions do their best to make sure that their monetary (and usually more than just monetary) illiterate clients know how to put the little capital bestowed to them to efficient means. In order to understand more of the process, I set up meetings today with two of the more apex institutions responsible for training and allocation of government funding. Both of these institutions received initial funding from the US and were pleasantly rewarded with a doubling of the amount as the Ghanaian government agreed to match the US’s donation in 2005. The African Development Foundation provides loans to small and micro enterprises with 0% interest and zero collateral to be paid back over five years. They provide money, technical assistance, but of course perform the due diligence to make sure that the client’s business is capable of earning a profit, that the product will replicate and that they create a positive social impact of generating income and jobs. One of the arguments against microenterprise is that it too infrequently creates new avenues of wealth as individuals remain with the self-employed handiwork and food selling businesses that will rarely lift them out of poverty. The ADF hopes to improve societies through successful SMEs that will involve augmentation of wealth and job opportunity in new market sectors…and that, is important.
When I was waiting for my meeting, I picked up the daily paper to read about the impending crisis dealing with expiring dam providing much of the country’s power. The government’s action seems more of procrastination than any formal plan to obviate crisis. The levels of the dam have reached all time lows and energy pundits are fearing the worst even as the energy council has decided it will take decisive action only when it gets below a certain point (although they have already had to shut down one of the four turbines). They need solutions, and not palliative ones that will only delay the crisis for a couple months. They have been lucky with the rain so far this year, but trouble is inescapably on the way if new ways to harness energy are not explored and employed.
The last commentary on the day has to do with the continued amusement I get from the Ghanaians. First, one of the stereotypical things I imagined I would see before coming to Africa is people carrying all kinds of things on their head all the time. Well, as it turns out, it’s kind of true. Plaintain, water, yogurt, crackers, towels, pastries, watches, chicken kebabs, fried potatoes and yams, eggs and sauce, fish, apples, CDs, books on how to learn English, you name it. The thing is, you really could name it and it’s probably been done. Before I came I emailed a friend of a friend who had been here and he maintains that he once saw a woman who had three baby goats fasted to a basket atop her head…I’ll believe it when I see it. Who knows, but I have seen a man carrying one suitcase in his hand and the other on his head with his second hand swinging freely. It’s almost as if they want to carry things on their hand. I mean this was a legitimate suitcase, not enormous, but a suitcase balanced on a person’s head, while moving. Impressive. If they had an Olympics of the book-balancing-on-your-head relay-race like we did in fourth grade, no doubt Ghana takes Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Aluminum, they’d take it all home. Secondly, their friendliness continues to amaze me. Coming home from the meetings today I stopped at a roadside vendor where a lady was cooking some spiced potatoes which I decided to try. I sat instead of taking it away being that I was in no rush, and a good thing to, because there was no way I was getting out within a half hour. I sit down, some school children come over (a side note: It’s always great to see children in their uniforms, because every time you see them trying to sell sachets of water in the middle of crowded intersections, it’s a little upsetting knowing that they should be in school, so this put me in a good mood from the start) and start asking me all these questions, because, you know, I’m so wildly different, when all of a sudden the lady running the operation plops her child right in my lap! Ok, so I’m talking with these kids, waiting for some frying spiced potatoes while babysitting…yes, literally sitting with baby. It was cool at least knowing that I wasn't alone in my state of confusion as this baby and I shared the common bewilderment of what exactly it was doing sitting in my lap. No complaints on my end though, and no crying on hers…and of course the kids thought all this was hilarious. Well the potatoes were excellent as getting used to spicy food has been a slow yet enjoyable process.
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