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  • Online Education Could Boost African Development

    Online Education Could Boost African Development

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Education is recognized as a major catalyst for human development. During a high-level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html) in 2010, UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – pointed out the necessity of making rapid gains in education if all the MDGs are to be achieved. The goals deadline is 2015 – just two years away.

    Two of the eight goals are directly related to education systems. MDG2 focuses on boosting universal primary education by 2015, and MDG3 calls for the elimination of barriers to primary and secondary education for women and girls.

    UNESCO found that between 2000 and 2007, the share of total government education expenditure devoted to primary education across sub-Saharan Africa fell from 49 per cent to 44 per cent (Rawle, 2009). It also found total aid for education was on the decline and foreign aid for basic education began to stagnate in 2008. This contrasted, UNESCO stated, with the “strong advances made over the past decade.”

    Overall, in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, resources for education fell by US $4.6 billion a year on average in 2009 and 2010 (UNESCO, 2010).

    With funding for education dependent on fluctuating factors such as foreign aid, government budgets and the state of the global economy, alternatives are needed to retain the gains made in education and to improve them even further.

    Thankfully, one new innovative learning tool, dubbed massive open online courses (MOOCs) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course), is about to have a major impact in Africa. Rapid improvements in access to the Internet in Africa means that online learning tools could be a growing solution to the education deficit.

    MOOCs mean people will have access to a global treasure trove of free online courses in science, technology, engineering and math. Many believe the leapfrog into digital education will do for education what mobile phones have done for African’s ability to communicate and do business.

    These online courses vary in approach – some have set start and finish dates and can last from six to 10 weeks, while others are more loosely structured. But they all offer students the ability to learn from online video lectures and use online forums as a replacement for seminars, debates and question-asking.

    According to a recent paper by Harvard University Professor of International Development Calestous Juma, “There is a real possibility for Africa to dramatically improve its teaching – especially in science, technology, engineering, and math – through the deployment of MOOCs.”

    The diffuse nature of the Internet means many of the drivers behind promoting this trend in Africa will be found at the regional rather than the national level. The Internet helps remove the dependence on national governments and their education policies and funding – or lack thereof – to further education goals. This means the ability to make the most of the powerful new resource of MOOCs will be amplified by innovators within Africa, from entrepreneurs to information technology pioneers.

    Their solutions will help make it easier to access these learning resources.

    MOOCs are a variation on OpenCourseWare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCourseWare) university courses, created for free distribution on the Internet. MOOCs bypass the hazard in the past of digital courses going missing or being mislaid: they are online and always available. Nobody can mislay the content by accident.

    The Khan Academy (khanacademy.org) is one of the best-known popular MOOCs pioneers. It was founded in the United States in 2008 by Salman Khan, who quit his job as a hedge fund manager to run the business full time. Khan is academically highly accomplished – he has three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard University. The Khan Academy targets mainly secondary school students and claims to have 5.5 million unique users a month. It is run as a not-for-profit and receives donations to keep it going.

    It does this with a staff of just 37: proof of how much can be achieved when the power of the Internet is leveraged to pass on knowledge.

    The Khan Academy platform greets readers with questions such as “What is the eccentricity of an ellipse?” or “What if there’s a negative exponent?” And if you do not know, you better get cracking doing their problem sets. Students can practice their math skills, answer other students’ questions or watch a video walk-through of the services on offer on the website. The main categories are math, science and economics, computer science, the humanities and help with preparing for various standardized tests such as the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test). There are over 4,000 videos on offer on the website.

    “Each video is a digestible chunk, approximately 10 minutes long, and especially purposed for viewing on the computer,” the website states.

    “I teach the way that I wish I was taught. The lectures are coming from me, an actual human being who is fascinated by the world around him,” states Khan.

    MOOCs offer not just course materials, videos, readings and problem sets but also discussion forums for the students, professors/teachers and tutorial assistants to build a community. This is considered an ideal model for reaching students over great distances and in remote regions. So-called “open” educational resources are used and often no fees or tuition are charged.

    The OpenCourseWare (OCW) (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) seeks to “publish all of our course materials online and make them widely available to everyone,” according to Dick K.P. Yue, Professor at MIT’s School of Engineering.

    Through its website, it offers nearly all of MIT’s course content, a treasure trove from one of the top research universities in the world, a long-standing home for pioneers and innovators in science and technology.

    By way of the Internet, anybody anywhere in the world can access this resource. The most visited courses online as of February 2013 included undergraduate “Introduction to Computer Science and Programming,” “Physics I: Classical Mechanics,” “Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science I,” “Principles of Microeconomics,” “Introduction to Algorithms,” and “Principles of Chemical Science.” There are 2,150 courses and so far 125 million visitors to the website.

    Having access to the courses allows teachers to gain new insights into the subjects they teach and benefit from the impressive resources of MIT.

    MIT also sees it as a way to aid people to tackle the big development issues of our time, including climate change and health problems such as cancer.

    Other MOOCs providers include Peer-to-Peer University (https://p2pu.org/en/), Udemy (udemy.com), Coursera (coursera.org), Udacity (udacity.com), and
edX (edx.org), a not-for-profit partnership between Harvard and MIT to develop courses for interactive study on the Internet.

    In the United Kingdom, the Open University (open.ac.uk) and Futurelearn (http://futurelearn.com/) also offer online courses, as does Open2Study (http://www.open.edu.au/open2study) in Australia.

    Boosting access to MOOCs presents a great business opportunity for Africa’s mobile phone entrepreneurs and its mushrooming information technology (IT) hubs (https://africahubs.crowdmap.com/).

    “I view online learning as a rising tide that will lift all boats,” Anant Agarwal, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and president of edX, told The Financial Times. “It will not only increase access, it will also improve the quality of education at all our universities.”

    All of this matters because it means Africans will increasingly have the tools to participate in the global marketplace of ideas and products and services on a more level playing field. By far the biggest obstacle to competing is the lack of timely information and knowledge about what is happening in the global economy. It is a frequent complaint, from the farmer desperate for the latest news on market prices and trends and innovations, to the strivers in the growing megacities of the continent who have their sights set on global success.

    Published: May 2013

    Resources

    1) African Union’s High Level Panel on Science, Technology and Innovation. Website: http://belferinthenews.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/calestous-juma-to-co-chair-new-au-panel-on-science-technology-and-innovation/

    2) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering: The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering is a new global engineering prize that will reward and celebrate an individual (or up to three individuals) responsible for a ground-breaking innovation in engineering that has been of global benefit to humanity. Website: http://www.qeprize.org/

    3) Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs: The Belfer Center is the hub of the Harvard Kennedy School’s research, teaching, and training in international security affairs, environmental and resource issues, and science and technology policy. Website: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/

    4) A place to host MOOC news and information. Website: http://mooc.ca/

    5) OpenCourseWare Consortium: The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.  Website: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/

    6) Engineering the Future by Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard Kennedy School. Website: http://www.technologyandpolicy.org/2013/03/18/engineering-the-future/#.UUeWY1fm8
g4

    7) Hiobo MoPC: Joining the ongoing push to drive down the price of personal computers in Africa is the latest offering from Mauritian information technology company, Hiobo. Website: http://www.hiobo.com/mopc/

    Southern Innovator logo

    London Edit

    31 July 2013

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Global South’s Middle Class is Increasing Prosperity

    Global South’s Middle Class is Increasing Prosperity

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The global middle class is on the rise – and this is creating both challenges and opportunities. As poverty rates have come down across the global South, many countries have seen a rise in the proportion of their population categorized as “middle class”. Globally, being middle class is defined as a person able to consume between US $4 a day and US $13 a day (ILO).

    According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), most of this growth will be in Asia and the region will soon make up 66 per cent of the world’s middle class. Historical experience shows that members of the middle class quickly become absorbed in spending their accumulated capital on housing, equipment, industry and business, health and education. In countries with a growing middle class, policy makers need to show a strong interest in creating stable economic conditions to encourage this expanding consumption and domestic demand, the OECD advises.

    Growth of the world’s middle class took off after 2001, with an additional 400 million workers joining this group. The McKinsey group of consultants found the total number reached 2 billion in a dozen “emerging nations” in 2010, collectively spending US $6.9 trillion every year (McKinsey).

    Forecasters predict a further increase in the middle class across the global South will bring with it a surge in consumption (a combination of spending and demand). Areas being highlighted by various studies and reports include China’s small and mid-size cities, other areas of East Asia and Africa.

    Middle class spending in these dozen emerging nations could reach US $20 trillion during the next decade – twice the amount of consumption occurring in the United States right now (McKinsey).

    The result is a re-shaping of populations, with growing numbers of people now neither rich nor desperately poor, but landing in the middle of the income distribution.

    And local competitors in the global South are fighting hard for these consumers on their own turf.

    The Hangzhou Wahaha (http://en.wahaha.com.cn/) beverage maker in China has been able to compete against multinationals such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, according to McKinsey. It has turned itself into a US $5.2 billion business using a multi-pronged strategy: targeting rural areas, catering to local needs, keeping costs low and positioning itself as the patriotic choice.

    And this change is also occurring in Africa, where a growing middle class is fuelling sales of refrigerators, television sets, mobile phones, motors and automobiles across the continent, according to the OECD. In Ghana, for example, car and motorcycle ownership has risen by 81 per cent since 2006.

    According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), Africa’s middle class has reached 34 per cent of the population, or 350 million people. In 1980, it was 126 million people, or 27 per cent of the population.

    Countries with the largest middle classes in Africa include Tunisia and Morocco, while Liberia and Burundi have the smallest number of people in the middle class.

    The economic growth that is fuelling this middle-class surge is coming from a combination of increasing investment in the services sector, the tapping of the natural resource sector and better economic policies in the past two decades. Africa’s middle class is driving growth in the private sector and boosting demand for goods and services, most often also provided by the private sector.

    “The liberalization of African economies has resulted in improved efficiencies and led to a rapid growth in the service sector, which has spurred the growth of the middle class,” Lawrence Bategeka, a principal researcher at the Uganda-based Economic Policy Research Centre, told The East African newspaper.

    How important the middle class is to increasing consumption levels can be seen in the cases of Brazil and South Korea.

    According to the OECD, both countries had similar income levels and growth rates in the 1960s. But by the 1980s, high income inequality in Brazil capped the middle class at 29 per cent of the population. In South Korea in the 1980s, the middle class population reached 53 per cent. This larger middle class population enabled South Korea to switch from an export-driven growth strategy to domestic consumption.

    While Brazil wasn’t able to do this at the time, it has since made impressive gains in reducing poverty – from 40 per cent of the population in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2009. This has seen the middle class grow to 52 per cent of the population and boosted domestic consumption.

    While a rising middle class in the global South is good news for improving human development and living standards, the OECD found much of the new middle class was vulnerable and could easily slip out of that category. They also often lacked enough income to purchase more expensive durable goods such as automobiles (OECD Yearbook 2012).

    The success of this fragile but growing middle class will be key to how well the global economy fares in the coming years.

    A new report by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) argues that the global South’s growing middle classes are just the thing to spur growth across the wider world economy.

    “Over time, this emerging middle-class could give a much needed push to more balanced global growth by boosting consumption, particularly in poorer parts of the developing world,” said Steven Kapsos, one of the authors of the report.

    In Indonesia, an example of the economic impact of the middle class trend in action can be seen in the surging life insurance business.

    Association of Indonesian Life Insurance Companies (AAJI) chairman Hendrisman Rahim believes the growing middle class are potential customers for the country’s thriving life insurance industry.

“They are the ones who have the need to be insured and can afford to purchase a policy. Extremely rich people are financially capable [of buying], but may not have the need. Extremely poor people have the need, but require financial assistance to be insured,” he said to the Jakarta Post.

    As the Indonesian middle class increases, the life insurance industry is expecting to see revenue rise by 30 per cent in 2013.

    Published: February 2013

    Resources

    1) The $10 Trillion Dollar Prize by Michael J. Silverstein. Website: amazon.com

    2) The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the Middle Class in Africa. Website: http://www.afdb.org/en/blogs/afdb-championing-inclusive-growth-across-africa/post/the-african-consumer-market-8901/

    3) McKinsey Quarterly: Capturing the world’s emerging middle class. Website:http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Capturing_the_worlds_emerging_middle_class_2639

    4) OECD Observer: An emerging middle class by Mario Pezzini. Website:http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/3681/An_emerging_middle_class.html

    Southern Innovator logo

    London Edit

    31 July 2013

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • African Countries Re-branding for New Economic Role

    African Countries Re-branding for New Economic Role

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Africa’s diverse countries have been subject to years of negative stories in the media. The effect on global audiences has left many to cast the whole continent in a bad light and to know little about the individual countries and cultures.

    This has damaged business confidence over the years. Just like products and people, nations need to have a strong and positive brand to do well in the global economy. Nation branding, the process by which countries alter people’s perceptions, has taken hold in Africa as the continent seeks to reverse the bad vibes.

    South Africa is the continent’s leader in nation-branding, and countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana are newly pursuing it. South Africa’s ‘Proudly South African’ (http://www.proudlysa.co.za/) campaign is known around the world.

    The past decade has seen economic growth and rising tourism in many African countries. But the reality that many people around the world can’t tell the difference between most African countries, or have mostly negative impressions formed from news reports, means they are unaware of the positive developments and opportunities.

    Author and researcher Simon Anholt, in his book Brand New Justice, claims Africa’s biggest obstacle to growth is the image of the continent itself. He argues that in a globalized world it is the responsibility of good governments to understand, measure, and exercise control over a country’s reputation if it is to prosper. However, he has criticized nation-branding if it is just a marketing strategy without substantial changes to how things are done in a country.

    And it is clear the winners in nation re-branding will be the countries that prove on the ground that they are changing and living up to the fine words and catchy phrases.

    In Nigeria’s Lagos State (www.lagosstate.gov.ng), Governor Babtunde Fashola – known as ‘Nigeria’s Obama’ – has launched a campaign to turn around the country’s long-standing reputation for corruption. Using the slogan Good People, Great Country, the city of Lagos has set itself ambitious goals that are dependent on significant increases in investment.

    Lagos wants the city to be transformed into a place anyone can do business and be attractive to tourists.

    The city has seen its population triple in the last 50 years and is on track to be the third largest city in the world by 2015. Thinking long term, plans are in place for the city to eventually be home to 40 million people.

    Critics are blunt about their hostility to the re-branding exercise: “How do you re-brand a product when the content stinks?” asked Akinola M.A. on news website Mynaija News. “I can’t understand the meaning of this project when basic facilities like good roads, water and electricity are virtually not available.”

    Supporters say the governor’s strategy is based on action, not words. Investment is going into a Rapid Bus Transit (BRT) system, traffic management, security, street lighting, beautification, and public-private partnerships to improve services.

    “Nigeria cannot wait until it solves all her problems before it can stand to give serious thought to re-branding its battered image,” Nigeria’s information minister Dora Akunyili told Online Nigeria. “This is because our development is tied to our image. This negative perception has had destructive effects on our people and stymied our growth and national progress.”

    Showing the power of trans-African approaches, the Wisdom Keys Group, a Nigerian company founded in South Africa (http://www.wkg.co.za/network.html) and working in 16 countries with partners, was contracted to do the campaign.

    As the pioneer of brand power in Africa, South Africa’s International Marketing Council (http://www.imc.org.za/) heads a relentless campaign to engage an international audience and expatriate South Africans. It is a sharp, multi-media outfit tackling every aspect of South Africa’s domestic and international reputation. Products include e-newsletters, campaigns to lure back expert South Africans, a vast network of web content, and a highly targeted advertising and marketing campaign that lures businesses and tourists to the airport (via ads on taxis and in subways) and on to flights to South Africa.

    For Kenya (http://www.brandkenya.go.ke/), the focus is on instilling pride within the country. As Kenyan media consultant Kwendo Opanga told the Nation Branding website, “it is not branding Kenya for foreigners that is difficult. It is branding Kenyans for Kenya and Kenya for Kenyans that is a tough call.”

    “We even work with the school system to ensure that this is in the curriculum so that children are told that they need to start living dignified lives.”

    Rwanda, despite experiencing a horrific genocide in 1994, is gaining attention for turning its image around. It has taken a different approach and has targeted building powerful networks of support around the world to make deals. As Rwandan government adviser Elaine Ubalijoro told FastComany, “How do you take a country that’s been through hell and bring it to security and prosperity? This is about healing, and this is about hope. We think it can be done.”

    The Rwandan strategy is hinged on exploiting a global network of high-profile and powerful contacts that includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Google chief Eric Schmidt. The results include a training programme where British civil servants work in Rwanda. Starbucks, meanwhile, has become one of the top purchasers of Rwandan coffee.

    Ghana’s newly launched Brand Ghana office was set up to coordinate the development of an engaging national image for the country. Its head, Mathias Akotia, told Nation Branding: “We are in competition with other nations for attention, wealth, tourism and for the export of products. Country branding is about the management of our national identity and values in a way that will take us forward.”

    Still in the early stages of re-branding, Ghana plans to hold a national summit to draft a plan and identify the country’s values and identity.

    Branding is not merely slogans and catch phrases. Word-of-mouth can radically change a country’s image, and its prospects. The international magazine Monocle (www.monocle.com), a publication that prides itself on spotting the next big thing, has highlighted the East African nation of Burundi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi) as the place to watch. The magazine thinks that by reinventing itself as a place of tourism, coffee and oil, with some of Africa’s best inland beaches and a wealth of art-deco architecture recalling Miami’s South Beach area, Burundi can distance itself from past conflict and become a must-see destination. At present, 80 percent of its earnings come from coffee and tea exports. It is hoping to become a tourist and transport hub with a new port, linking central and east Africa.

    As the magazine says, “Bujumbura has got all the substance – and architecture – required to turn Burundi’s backwater capital into an African success story, and the country’s upcoming elections are a chance to create lasting peace after 15 years of civil war. But corruption could still derail the dream.”

    The Nation Branding website (http://www.nation-branding.info/) (“everything about nation branding and country brands”) is the place to visit for all those interested in nation branding, country brands and how countries can improve their image abroad. Upcoming nation branding events can be found here: http://www.nationbrandingevents.com/nationbranding.

    Published: November 2009

    Resources

    1) Monocle Magazine: Launched in February 2007, Monocle is a global briefing covering international affairs, business, culture and design. Developed for an international audience hungry for information across a variety of sectors, the magazine is a consistent champion of Southern countries and their economic opportunities. Website: http://www.monocle.com/

    2) A BBC radio documentary on Nigeria’s experience of nation branding. Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2009/html

    3) Brandchannel: The world’s only online exchange about branding, packed with resources, debates and contacts to help businesses intelligently build their brand. Website: www.brandchannel.com

    4) Small businesses looking to develop their brand can find plenty of free advice and resources here. Website: www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

    5) Catwalk for Africa: A fashion show taking place from December 4-6, 2009 in Tunisia. Website: http://www.catwalkforafrica.com/accueil/accueil_en.php

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/11/african-breakthroughs-to-make-life-better/

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    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/19/african-culture-as-big-business/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/african-hotel-boom-bringing-in-new-investment-and-creating-jobs/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/african-ingenuity-attracting-interest/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/15/african-innovators-celebrated-in-prize/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/21/african-media-changing-to-reach-growing-middle-class/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/02/african-online-supermarket-set-to-boost-trade/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/01/16/african-theatre-becomes-european-success/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/african-tourism-leads-the-world-and-brings-new-opportunities/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/22/happy-nigeria-west-african-nation-has-good-attitude/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/online-education-could-boost-african-development/

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    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Ghanaian Coffins Prove Design and Craftsmanship Boost Incomes

    Ghanaian Coffins Prove Design and Craftsmanship Boost Incomes

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    In many parts of the world, indigenous ingenuity and craft skills are finally getting the recognition they deserve. The quirky but very inventive gadgets and solutions featured on the Afrigadget blog (http://www.afrigadget.com) never fail to inspire and amaze. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) fashionable gentlemen (http://www.henryherbert.com/gentlemen-of-bacongo/) grabbed the attention of – and inspired – European fashion designers with their creativity and flair. And then there are the Africa Maker Faires, gatherings of clever and innovative thinkers and inventors who get down to work generating solutions to today’s problems.

    Beyond the grim stories of development failures and human tragedies, there is another Africa full of creativity and can-do attitude.

    Amongst the Ga people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga_people) of Teshi, Ghana there is a tradition with a twist: custom-designed coffins. A Ghanaian pioneer has been transforming the way people deal with that most sombre and respectful of rituals, the funeral. Coffin-artist Paa Joe is drawing on a modern-day tradition in Ghana dating back to the 1950s. Coffins – which are normally made from wood and follow the standard template of a narrow, body-length box – are transformed into grand and lively statements about the deceased person’s life.

    Designs have included a giant pink fish, a Ghana Airways plane, a souped-up Mercedes Benz and an African eagle.

    “The Ga people (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/tribes/ga.php), from the south-east coast of Ghana, revere their ancestors and give great importance to funeral celebrations,” Jack Bell, a London gallery owner exhibiting the coffins, told The Observer newspaper. “Their tradition of creating beautifully carved figurative coffins originated in the 1950s.”

    Paa Joe was born in the Akwapim hills north-east of Accra in 1945. He is considered the top sculpted coffin maker of his generation. He apprenticed with the pioneer of the craft, Kane Kwei (http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?153) – the man who began this unique vocation in the 1950s. The skill and artistry involved is now recognized in museums around the world, including London’s British Museum.

    The community had a history of highly skilled woodwork and elaborate carvings were regularly created for village chiefs – giant eagles or even the surreal spectacle of a giant cocoa pod.

    The bespoke coffins are an example of how long-standing skills were applied to a new product. The idea of making custom-sculpted coffins begun by Kane Kwei evolved from being a livelihood for Kwei to an apprenticed craft passed down to younger craftsmen. When Kane Kwei’s grandmother died in 1951, without fulfilling her lifelong wish to fly on a plane, Kane made a plane-shaped coffin for her. This coffin was admired by others and Kane got the idea of setting up a workshop and making custom-designed coffins symbolizing the
    deceased’s status and achievements in life.

    “Families commission the coffins – sometimes to a brief designed by the deceased – to represent the aspirations or achievements of a deceased relative, or to characterize their personality: a car for a businessman, a cocoa pod for a farmer, a bible, or even a camera,” Bell said.

    For people with modest means, there are simpler designs of boats, canoes and books. Prices are negotiated with the coffin maker.

    Where there were none, now there are multiple workshops providing custom coffins for funerals. Traditional Ghanaian funerals are lively, colourful events, but the coffin sculptures of Teshi are a modern phenomenon and proof that innovation and good design can transform the most sombre of items into something special.

    Published: December 2010

    Resources

    • Maker Faire Africa: Flickr photo gallery: A clickable archive of the Maker Faire inventors and their inventions. Website:http://www.flickr.com/groups/makerfaireafrica/pool/
    • Afrigadget: Afrigadget: ‘Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity’: This blog never ceases to amaze and fascinate. Website: http://www.afrigadget.com/
    • E-machine Shop: eMachineShop: This remarkable service allows budding inventors to download free design software, design their invention, and then have it made in any quantity they wish and shipped to them: Amazing! Website: http://www.emachineshop.com/ 4) Maker Faire Africa 2010: Catch up on the last Maker Faire Africa. Website: (http://makerfaireafrica.com)
    • Afrigadget: ‘Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity’: This blog never ceases to amaze and fascinate. Website: http://www.afrigadget.com/
    • International Development Design Summit: The Summit is an intense, hands-on design experience that brings together people from all over the world and all walks of life to create technologies and enterprises that improve the lives of people living in poverty. Website:http://iddsummit.org/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/bangladesh-coffin-maker-offers-an-ethical-ending/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanas-funeral-economy-innovates-and-exports/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator. 

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

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