Ghana Needs Development Policies “Forensic Ethnography”- Bright Simons

The vice-president in charge of research at IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Bright Simons, has suggested a “forensic ethnography” for Ghanaian development policies.

He said this will be needed in those policies with international partnerships.

This, he believes, will enable the government to track and evaluate the progress of such development policies.

“Paper reports don’t pierce through. Let’s have independent civil society actors go to the ground and LOOK.”

From his observation, Ghana only likes international agreements.

“The country signs many of them, and it readily and enthusiastically generates the paperwork to comply with the standards and protocols in these agreements. The World Bank and other international collaborators top up with many reports of their own,” he wrote in a tweet.

Read His Full Post Below:

1. Ghana likes international agreements.

2. The country signs many of them readily and enthusiastically generates the paperwork to comply with the standards and protocols in these agreements. The World Bank and other international collaborators top up with many reports of their own

3. An example is the Paris Agreement, which aims to steer the world to a greener, clean energy, and low-carbon future. Ghana has committed to “nationally determined contributions” that it will make to the success of the Paris Agreement.

4. The Paris Agreement’s Article 6 “inherited” the provisions of the Clean Development Mechanism of the earlier Kyoto Protocol. Ghana has identified top technologies for it to switch away from dirty fuels to clean energy. It reports regularly to the UN about its progress.

5. At the top of both Ghana’s Priority Technologies and National Contributions lists to reduce carbon pollution and climate change impact is the switch from biomass (top example: firewood) to clean-stoves running on clean fuels, such as ethanol.

6. There are older policies that says that between now and when cookstoves can be run on the cleanest fuels, LPG (gas) should be encouraged as a nicer alternative to firewood.

7. The World Bank tells us that it seriously loves Ghana’s love for fighting climate change using clean cookstoves and has made $250 million available to help. See attachment.

8. Educational institutions, especially secondary schools, have been identified as a top priority in the goal of encouraging the switch from firewood to LPG (gas) in the interim and even cleaner stoves as soon as possible.

9. So, we took a look for ourselves. It was quite surprising to see that one of the most elite secondary schools right in the capital of Accra is expanding the use of firewood in open-fire stoves. The firewood does not come from sustainable forest woodlots and there are no clean stoves in sight. See picture in attachments.

10. It appears that the school has switched BACK from LP Gas to wood because it is cheaper and government subsidies per student have declined (or, more accurately, have shifted to other needs within the Free Secondary Education policy).

11. This case highlights multiple focuses of our recent policy advocacy: katanomics (policy accountability is low because there aren’t real policy audiences to track policy execution), fossilisation (a lot of policies and donor-backed programs cannot “come to life”), and climate realpolitik (pragmatic factors always win over ideals in climate policy.)

12. Above all, it highlights the need for “forensic ethnography” when it comes to evaluating development policy, especially those backed by multilateral banks and international development agencies. Paper reports don’t pierce through. Let’s have independent civil society actors go to the ground and LOOK.