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Ghana’s Funeral Economy Innovates and Exports

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

The West African nation of Ghana’s funeral economy is attracting innovation and grabbing attention outside the country. The nation’s elaborate – but expensive – funeral rituals provide craftsmen with a good income. And new products are being introduced to handle the financial consequences of this unavoidable fact of life.

As Africa undergoes the biggest shift from rural to urban in its history, the continent is experiencing a technology boom, mainly led by the mobile phone. Mobile phones have become important transactional tools in daily life, enabling people to communicate and to do business, thanks to micropayments and prepay. Interwoven in these twin phenomena of greater urbanization and the mobile phone economy is a rising and growing middle class population with spare cash to spend on more than just the basics of survival. And all of this is throwing up new economies and new products to sell to these middle class customers.

It is in this context that Ghana’s flamboyant and vibrant funeral ceremonies have become an economy unto themselves.

Ghana’s crafty craftsmen have developed a global reputation for their bizarre but highly skilled coffin designs. They build striking coffins of elaborate designs and shapes and flamboyant colours. The coffins usually take on the shape of an aspect of the deceased’s former profession or vocation. For example, a pilot gets buried in a mock-up of the plane they flew, or a farmer is buried in his main crop, like a giant corn cob.

It is proof the creative economy works and adds value to existing products and services. What were just simple coffins for a utilitarian task (burying the dead) becomes an elaborate work of art and transforms burial into a grander experience.

One of the most popular designs is the now-ubiquitous and much-coveted mobile phone: Africa’s great electronic connector. And it is the mobile phone that is allowing people to buy life insurance to be able to pay for the coffins and elaborate funerals.

Mobile money is a dynamic and fast-growing industry that is firmly established in the global South. Some are forecasting the market in mobile payments will reach US $60 billion by 2015.

A range of companies are now offering life insurance policies that can be paid for in small “micropayments” by mobile phone. This is an important service for people who may not have a formal bank account and who can be devastated by the costs of a family member’s funeral.

The two companies pioneering this “micro-insurance” service are Hollard Insurance (http://www.hollard.co.za) and Mobile Financial Services Africa (http://mfsafrica.com). Both are offering funeral insurance by mobile phones. Working with MTN – Africa’s largest mobile phone group (www.mtn.com.gh) – they are launching the mi-Life insurance product, sold for between US 0.80 cents and US $4 for a month’s coverage.

MTN pioneered its Mobile Money service in 2009. Out of 9 million MTN mobile phone subscribers in Ghana, 1.8 million have signed up for the opportunity to pay bills and make other financial transactions over their mobile phones.

Selling life insurance by mobile phones is radically altering the marketplace for this product. Life insurance had been out of the scope of most Ghanaians just as bank accounts were beyond the reach of the poor.

Jeremy Leach, head of micro-insurance at Hollard, told AllWestAfrica (allwestafrica.com), that 55 percent of Ghanaians say they can’t afford life insurance. “In terms of affordability, we’ve tried to address that.”

MTN Mobile Money Ghana’s general manager, Bruno Akpaka, told the Financial Times mi-Life is 50 to 70 per cent cheaper than comparable policies.

Subscribers sign up by using their mobile PIN (personal identification number) at a local kiosk, or send a short message service (SMS) on their handset. Once signed up, a monthly premium is taken from their account. When it runs out, they top it up at the kiosk again.

It currently offers basic funeral cover: a lump sum to the family when the main income earner dies. This money is used towards the costs of expensive funerals. Other products in the pipeline include insurance for school fees.

For the coffin craftsmen, the fast-growing economy of African online shopping is helping with sales. The elaborate craft coffins can be bought online from various platforms including eShopAfrica.com, which promises to sell “fair trade direct from Africa.” Its dedicated Ghana coffin pages (www.eshopafrica.com/acatalog/Ga_Coffins.html) advertise small coffins that take a month to make, and larger ones can take up to three months to build. Prices advertised on the eShop site range from US $1,500 for a full-sized, six-foot coffin, to US $175 for a “desk top chest.”

Designs range from a mobile phone to a Ferrari race car to a computer mouse. But it is not just the resting places for the deceased that are on sale. The cabinet- and coffin-making skills are also turned to making a wide range of storage cabinets in bright colours and imaginative shapes, from a football to a red pepper and a beer-bottle shaped drinks cabinet.

The global attention for the craftsman has been impressive. They are lauded by fine art collectors around the world and have been shown in galleries such as London’s Jack Bell Gallery (www.jackbellgallery.com/paajo.html). The legendary coffin artist Paa Joe is one of the most featured in gallery shows.

Published: April 2011

Resources

1) Shop Africa 53: An online shopping website allowing independent traders to vend their products to the rest of Africa and the world. Website: www.shopafrica53.com

3) Going into Darkness: Fantastic Coffins from Africa by Thierry Secretan, details the culture and the craftsmen, behind the iconic coffins. Website:www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500278393/cordelinetwebstu%22

4) Creative Economy Programme: The creative economy is an emerging concept dealing with the interface between creativity, culture, economics and technology in a contemporary world dominated by images, sounds, texts and symbols. Website:www.unctad.org/Templates/StartPage.asp?intItemID=4577&lang=1

Bangladesh Coffin-Maker Offers an Ethical Ending

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

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanaian-coffins-prove-design-and-craftsmanship-boost-incomes/

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

Categories
Archive Development Challenges, South-South Solutions Newsletters Southern Innovator magazine

Accessing Global Markets Via Design Solutions

ByDavid South,Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

The power of design to improve products and the way they are manufactured is increasingly being seen as a critical component of successful economic development.

The importance of trade – both South-South and South-North – as a reducer of poverty in developing countries is now widely acknowledged. Countries that have made the biggest gains in reducing poverty, like China, India and Brazil, have done it through trade.

The power of trade in high quality goods to raise incomes has been proven for more than a decade. South-South trade grew by an average of 13 percent per year between 1995 and 2007. By 2007, South-South trade made up 20 percent of world trade. And over a third of South-South commerce is in high-skill manufacturing. Making finished goods, rather than just selling raw materials, improves workers’ skill levels and increases the return on trade.

But trying to get other people to desire and buy your products is very tricky. Design plays a major part in understanding the unique demands of countries and markets, and what people find appealing or repellent.

A product that has both a successful design (people want to buy it) and is produced efficiently (a well-designed manufacturing process), will generate a good profit.

In India, the Craft Resource Centre or CRC Exports Limited of Kolkata (http://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta)has been successfully selling leather travel bags to the Vodafone (>http://www.vodafone.com/hub_page.html) mobile phone company in The Netherlands. It did this by teaming up with Dutch Designers in Development (http://www.ddid.nl/english/index.html), an NGO focused on matching European importers and retailers and professional designers with small and medium enterprises in the South.

Founded in 1989, CRC applies the concept of adding value to turn small-scale and poor artisans into successful and sustainable businesses. Many of these traditional handicraft artisans subsist on low incomes. CRC provides artisans across India with marketing, design, finance and exporting help. It also connects them with other artisans and helps to divide projects between them. This has the power of using networks to help in bad times while also sharing opportunities when they come up.

CRC’s director, Irani Sen, has divided the more than 15,000 artisans they work with into 15 different trading groups. CRC has also consulted to over 350 projects across Asia.

“The best thing fair trade gives (artisans) is the continuity of work … and with the continuity comes the basic security,” Sen said on the CRC website. “With that security they can develop, they can plan and then we try to motivate them for education, health (and) education for their children.”

It all began with a need: Dutch company Unseen Products (http://www.unseenproducts.com/home) needed somebody to make high-quality leather travel bags for their client, Vodafone, who in turn wanted the bags as an incentive for their employees. Unseen Products is a business connecting European retailers with small producers in the South to build long-term business relationships. They seek to make “unseen or hard to find products accessible at commercially interesting prices.”

They approached Dutch Designers in Development (DDiD), which in turn recommended CRC.

As a matchmaker, DDiD puts together European clients, Dutch designers and small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. The designers share their knowledge of European consumer tastes, product development, design and quality standards.

DDiD receives orders from companies, NGOs and government agencies to stimulate the production and sale of sustainable products from developing countries in Europe.

The Dutch group works with producers to develop skills and adapt producers’ products to present and future demands in Europe. By following this approach, Southern producers can reduce the risk of making products nobody wants, or that lack originality in the marketplace and thus won’t sell.

DDiD explains to producers the importance of design and how it improves the product and the business. Good design, the group believes, should reduce production costs and the time taken to get to market, and boost the reputation of the product brand and maker.

Well-known Dutch bag designer Ferry Meewisse (http://www.frrry.com/hiep/Entrance.seam?labelId=1) was brought in to work with CRC’s artisans to craft new bags and a new way of making them.

Meewisse said he was uncertain at first whether the artisans would be able to make the highly complex bags. The solution was to break down the bag into smaller parts. And that is where the knowledge of design process comes into play.

“The button bag for example is a complex bag that has been taken apart: compartments, pockets, handles,” said Meewisse. “This provided us with elements that were each really simple to manufacture. After that the pieces would only have to be clicked together with the buttons. And there it was: a complete bag with all the elements you need in a good bag.”

The bags can be seen here: http://www.frrry.com/hiep/guest/GuestSeries.seam?seriesId=9&conversationId=30930

Stella van Himbergen, a project manager at DDiD, said the concept is about introducing a new way of looking at things through the prism of design.

“Small producers in developing countries are not lacking craftsmanship,” said Himbergen. But, she added, “it is important for producers to receive support in production-led design, and not only in aesthetic design.”

Conceptually, this is the difference between designing and making something because it is aesthetically pleasing, and taking a market-driven design approach – letting market demands lead to the design solution. As a different way of looking at things, it takes in the company’s vision, brand values and positioning in the marketplace, production requirements (costs, sustainability), organization, and client’s needs.

DDiD helps producers learn how to quickly create new products based on market demands. They also raise the level of awareness of design to global standards, and show how to apply this across the production process, from graphic design, to packaging, retail and exhibition space, brand design and design management. Since 2005, the group has completed 46 international projects.

DDiD also stresses sustainability, encouraging the use of environmentally friendly materials such as biological cotton, bamboo and water hyacinth for paper and rope.

Apart from Vodafone, the CRC-made bags are sold in shops and on the web.

The extra attention to design seems to have paid off. CRC’s bags have been such a success that a second order has been placed. And CRC has picked up another project from Dutch importer Global Goodies (http://www.globalgoodies.nl/). 

Published: March 2009

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/12/afro-coffee-blending-good-design-and-coffee/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/02/20/baker-cookstoves-designing-for-the-african-customer/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/12/20/better-by-design-in-china/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/29/brazilian-design-for-new-urban-middle-class-world/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/08/02/design-collaborations-revitalize-traditional-craft-techniques/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/26/designed-in-china-to-rival-made-in-china/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/17/fashion-recycling-how-southern-designers-are-re-using-and-making-money/

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

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/ghanaian-coffins-prove-design-and-craftsmanship-boost-incomes/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/06/11/indonesian-wooden-radio-succeeds-with-good-design/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/19/a-local-drink-beats-global-competition/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2020/04/30/local-fashions-pay-off-for-southern-designers/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/22/popular-characters-re-invent-traditional-carving/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/04/putting-quality-and-design-at-the-centre-of-chinese-fashion/

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.  

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Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4:https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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

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

© David South Consulting 2025

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A Local Drink Beats Global Competition

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

For many decades, strong American and multinational food brands have penetrated markets in the South. This is a global business success story for those companies, but the downside has been the marginalizing of local alternatives. This not only reduces wealth-creating opportunities for local entrepreneurs, but also leads to products like sugary soda pops (http://tinyurl.com/yzwal98) pushing aside healthier, local alternatives like tea.

But one company in Indonesia has been pioneering a healthy local drinks empire while also seeing off aggressive foreign rivals. Teh Botol Sosro, a tea drink in Indonesia bottled by family-owned business Sosro, was not only the first bottled tea brand in the country, but also in the world, it claims. The company started bottling the jasmine-flavoured black tea drink in the 1970s.

The Indonesian company has shown that it is possible for local flavours to beat powerful international brands like Coca Cola in the battle for drinkers’ palates. While Coca Cola has tried to sell many bottled tea drinks in the Indonesian market, they have not been able to push aside the local product, The Teh Botol Sosro. Brewed by the Sinar Sosro company, it has captured 70 percent of the non-carbonated drinks market.

It is a drink of cool, black, sweetened tea with a hint of jasmine. Invented by the Indonesian family of Sosrodjojos, Sosro (http://www.sosro.com/) was founded in central Java in the 1940s.

Culturally, Indonesians have either coffee or tea with their meals. The brand’s marketing slogan plays on this: “Whatever you eat, you drink Teh Sosro.”

The company has aggressively fought off competition not only from local rivals, but also from Coca Cola’s Frestea brand and Pepsi Cola’s Tekita. The company stayed sharp in its business strategy, never letting a rival product take hold. Just as a rival would introduce a new product, Sosro would reply with a new drink attuned to Indonesian tastes. This ability to not be complacent about the company’s success, and to use its knowledge of local tastes to always outsmart foreign competition, has kept the company where it is today.

Sosro pioneered bottled drinking tea with its launch in 1970 and started with a dried tea only distributed in Central Java.

The journey to cold, bottled tea is an amusing one. The company first wanted to promote its tea in Jakarta, the capital, by having public tastings. But by brewing the tea on the spot, the too-hot tea took too long to drink for impatient Jakartens. The solution was to not brew the tea on the spot, but instead to brew it off-site and deliver to markets in big pans on trucks. But the bad roads made this a bit of a mistake as well: the tea would spill on the journey.

The ‘aha’ moment came when the idea arose to store the brewed tea in bottles. The bottles were eye-catching and have evolved in design over the years.

The drink now comes in various packages, from a returnable glass bottle (220 ml) to a Tetra Pak (1 litre, 250 ml, and 200 ml) and a 230 ml pouch.

The Botol Sosro (http://www.sosro.com/teh-botol-sosro.php) is not the company’s only product: it also brews Fruit Tea, The Botol Kotak and S-Tee. The economic benefits of these popular brands stay local, as Sosro gets the tea from PT Gunung Slamet, which operates three tea estates covering 1,587 hectares in Indonesia.

Published: March 2010

Resources

1) Just Food is a web portal packed with the latest news on the global food industry and packed with events and special briefings to fill entrepreneurs in on the difficult issues and constantly shifting market demands. Website:http://www.just-food.com

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

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

4) Growing Inclusive Markets, a web portal from UNDP packed with case studies, heat maps and strategies on how to use markets to help the poor. Website:http://www.growinginclusivemarkets.org

5) Tea Genius: A website from Taiwan packed with information on tea, its health benefits and rituals. Website: http://www.teagenius.com/

Cited

As cited in Export Now: Five Keys to Entering New Markets by Frank Lavin and Peter Cohan (Wiley).

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