During the past days, a number of different news and blog posts led me to think hard about e-waste, how it is generated, treated and dumped around the world, and how this relates not only to environmental issues, but algo to the global economy. First, it was this post at Subsaharska, in which Miquel argued that e-waste

"is a big problem and it's only going to get bigger. It's one of the things that makes me truly cringe about the information age in that the leftover components are all getting dumped in countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa. People have few ways to fight back other than to deal with what is dumped upon their shores. And when they do fight back, suddenly, they're called pirates...For anyone who thinks that they need the latest iPod/iPhone, or laptop marvel, they should come and stay for awhile in rural areas in Africa where the trash is burned daily and you're breathing in an ungodly amount of things you'd rather not know about (mainly damnable petrochemicals.) For me, in a few months, I won't breath this anymore, but for the people here, it's constantly in the air and it's only growing more. Think the next time you buy an electronics item, stop and think if you really and truly need it."

Not only e-waste, but numerous other types of waste (often of the most dangerous ones - such as nuclear waste, toxic substances, deathly chemicals...) end up being dumped on the poorest areas of the globe. In some cases, this is done with the encouragement of the country's government, who expects to benefit from their "comparative advantage" in the global economy by providing the services at a very low cost - needsless to say the real costs being born by the workers on these areas, who work in awful conditions and without the necessary safety requirements. One of the industries where this is most visible (and horribly spectacular) is the ship-breaking on Indian and Bangldeshi beaches (See this blog entry and this El Pais article (Spanish) .

Photo from the El Pais article

In other cases, toxical waste is disposed in more shady deals, sometimes completely illegally ones. For example, the N'drangheta (Calabrian version of the Sicilian mafia) has recently been found to have made a big business by getting rid of nuclear way in "un-ortodox" ways, such as sinking boats on the Mediterranean sea, or shipping the waste to Somalia, where it was buried after bribing local politicians. Also it was recently revealed that, the British company Trafigura, was found guilty of dumping

"400 tonnes of toxic waste from the cargo vessel Probo Koala...at the West African port of Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. The waste was loaded on to trucks and dumped around the city.Over the following weeks, thousands of residents found themselves choking and coughing, some vomiting. At least 10 are said to have died and many still bare the scars"

. Trafigura finally agreed to a $45m (£30m) payout as compensation, which those affected began receiving earlier this month. I blogged about this at the time (here, in Spanish), and you can read the full story here.

Growing amounts of e-waste are fast becoming ones of the most pressing and dangerous type of waste; often this is just dumped on the landfills of the poores countries. For example, see this series of photographs by Andrew McConnell on the Agbogbloshie suburb in Ghana's capital, Accra, which has become a dumping ground for hundreds of tons of e-waste from Europe and the US (via Subsaharska too). As McConnel notes, this waste often enters these countries thanks to unscrupulous trades who label the goods as second-hand goods, or charity donations. This opens another aspect of the debate: the import of used and second-hand goods into African countries. Recently, it was reported, here, that Uganda was

"reconsidering its ban on the importation of used electronics following complaints from traders and other stakeholders over the indiscriminate nature of the policy...(Prefering instead) a more targeted approach to the implementation of the ban to focus on technology that is harmful to the environment instead of uniform application to all secondhand goods".

This was a similar story as the one coming from Pakistan, a country where e-waste is a serious threas, and whose country is considering a ban on the import of used computers. You can read here a nice article debating how, as well as disadvantages, importing second-hand computers can make these more affordable and therefore available to more people. My opinion here is that prevention is better than cure, and if importing used computers is going to becoming a back-door for dumping of e-waste, then a ban should be adopted.

Photo Andrew McConnell

Furthermore, as this BBC "Have Your Say" debate suggests, there are indeed arguments for banning not only electronics but also other type of second-hand and charity goods (such as clothes) which harm local production. Again, here I support the protection of local industries, and a ban od second-hand cloths will be a positive development - although unfortunately here not sufficient for saving local textile industries, whose biggest competitor is cheap Chinese products (and as you can imagine, African countries would not risk losing Chinese investments and support by rising their import duties on Chinese goods...). I think perhaps the answer for textile producers and designers in Africa is to turn their already beautiful, good quality pieces into fashionable products which can can be sold (and priced) as luxury items - something for which they need only a good branding and marketing campaign...

An example of luxury goods made using the appeal of African textiles, done however by an Italian company, Moroso (More at Nosideup)

I think both e-waste and the textile industry's precarious situation are simply different faces of the key debate - the global economy and Africa's integration into it. The general debate on import bans and on the textile industry, is part of a larger and a well-known outcome of the development and globalisation debates (dating back at least to the 1960s and some African countries' attempts at import substitution industrialization (ISI)) E-waste is perhaps, a more clear product of globalisation, and how Africa is integrated into the global economy at present. Globalisation has facilitated the flow of information, goods and capital (much more than people, who remain still tied to their countries, especially if you come for a poor country), resulting often in positive outcomes. Most often however, the results have been largely negative - not only growing disparity between rich and poor, but also the appearance of gray zones. On the words of the anthropologist Carolyn R. Nordstrom, the global economy has meant increasing flows, but also increasing "fractures". These fractures can be physical spaces - such as war-zones and "failed states" like Somalia - but also all kinds of activities, from clearly illegal ones - terrorism, kidnappings and drug trading - to the gray activities of multinational corporations - pharmaceuticals, arms and oil producers of course, but also companies responsible for what Nordstrom labels "blood-tomatoes" (grown in war zones), the mobile phone industry's thirst for coltan (which as Mike in Mo'dernity, Mo'problem notes, cannot be stopped simply by consumer-power), and many others.

And it is not only in producing goods that the "fractures" of the global economy become relevant, but also - as e-waste shows - in the disposal of it. On this there is, as Miquel says, a certain degree to which individuals can contribute, by not going for the latest technology craze without thinking the implications through. Ultimately however, the inmoral and illegal disposal of dangerous waste is result of the "fractures" on the global economy, much like the competition faced by the African textile industry is a result of its "flows". In order for these problems - symptoms - to be solved, their root cause - the uneven global economy - must be addressed; if not, all we'll do, will be mere gap-filling.

The BarCamp movement continues to gain ever more momentum in a local context, and although there have been BarCamps with an Africa focus in the Silicon Valley and UK, there has yet to be a pan-African BarCamp taking place on the continent. This changes with the staging of the inaugural BarCamp Africa 2010 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, June 4-7.

Abidjan shares land borders (and thus easy and cheap transportation) with five countries, it has an excellent international airport and is a cosmopolitan world capital that can provide the necessary facilities. The event will be organized by the experienced local groups of Akendewa in Côte d'Ivoire and GhanaThink in neighboring Ghana, with additional collaboration from Maneno.

The year 2010 is an incredibly important year to have this event as it is marks the 50th anniversary of independence for many African nations in addition to Côte d'Ivoire, including: Cameroon, Togo, Mali, Senegal, DR Congo, Somalia, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR, Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, and Mauritania. A celebration and meeting between the people of these nations at BarCamp Africa will allow them to share the progress of their nations as well as exchange ideas and work together on what lies ahead for the future, looking back at the last 50 years, preparing for the next 50. Additionally, this marks the first year that the World Cup will be held on the African continent and the BarCamp will take place the weekend before the official start of the Cup.

The official main site is www.barcampafrica.org with 2010.barcampafrica.org serving for this year's event. The website pages are available in: French, English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Place a Badge on your site. Follow along on Twitter. Fan the event on Facebook. Register at Eventbrite. But most of all, attend and be part of the first event to bring together Africa and bridge the ideological and language divides.

BarCamp Africa is currently look for forward-thinking sponsors who realize the talented people and vast potential in Africa. Contact us if you would like to be part of this historic event.

This article on Koranteng's Toli was a great read. Actually, in general, his blog is a great read, but this article really stuck out as it's about the fact that Ghana doesn't appear to exist in the world of Apple:

Yes, take your i-something, open the Contacts App, create a new contact and add a new address. Alternatively just try to edit an existing address. Now try to change the country field to Ghana. Note, if you will, the result: Ghana is not in the list of countries. Search under "Africa (Western)" and you'll see nary a trace of Ghana.

He goes on to talk about how it's probably just a bug and that it will be updated at some point in the near future, especially if a stink is to be raised about it. But, it begs that question as to why it's not there in the first place. It's not like the list of all 193 countries in the world is that hard to find and yes, Ghana is on that list.

I could buy the bug issue as I saw this first hand when working at a company and looking at their international shipping to see that my country, Croatia wasn't in the list. I really scanned through the list and then found it under Hrvatska, which is how you say Croatia in Croatian. But, this was the only country like that. There was no España or Deutschland in the list. I asked my manager what the deal with that was and he admitted that they had just cut and paste the list from another site. So, in this case it was abject laziness and it could be in the Apple iApp situation that the same applies because Americans and by association, American coders are often unaware that Africa is a continent and not a country, they probably just screwed up.

But then there rises the issue that Jean-Patrick Ehouman ran in to when trying to run ads on Facebook in that when you choose a country to target in their system, Côte d'Ivoire is not in the list. Oddly enough, in this instance, Ghana is in the list as well as Nigeria. But, in West Africa the following countries are not available for ad targeting on Facebook: Mali, Cameroon, Liberia, Benin, Togo, Guinea, Senegal, The Gambia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, and Mauritania. That's a big list and I didn't even check for the rest of Africa.

So here is where you get in to a chicken and egg problem. Businesses will claim that there is no market for them in Africa. But, they are in effect creating the barriers to any kind of market developing by simple acts of non-inclusion. If Apple does some kind of Big Brother thing (which I wouldn't put past them) and looks at all the contacts that all their iPhone users have registered, they'll see none in Ghana and assume that there is no business in Ghana. The same goes for Facebook. They can easily say that they won't bother with West Africa because no one is buying ads for the region. Likewise, Google can claim that AdWords in Africa don't work because you can't register or get paid for running AdWords for most everyone on the continent.

The solution to all of this is basically for companies to stop sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to Africa. As I've said before, Google is making a good deal of headway in this department, although it's slow going. Facebook, Apple, and a great number of others still have some way to go. But just having all the countries in the world available as options would be a rather massive first step. An important second step would be to incorporate more languages. So what if you don't see any French or Spanish users on your site or for your product? Maybe if that version is made available the market will suddenly explode.

It all boils down to the fact that at some point, you gotta say screw it, roast the chicken, boil the eggs, and take a chance that in all likelihood will pay off big time.

I am typing this on a laptop that is just nearly four years old. This day and age, I can easily afford to upgrade. I mean, I could purchase a new Thinkpad (my preferred model) for as little as $450 USD, which is an amount that most any American can afford, even in this deep economic crisis that the country is in, albeit maybe spread over a couple of months' payment. Obviously, the more you spend, the fancier the laptop you get and further down the road potential upgrades might be, but that's not the point. The fact is that I could have upgraded manytimes by now, but I haven't.

There are many reasons for this, the first being that everything still works very well on this Thinkpad Z60m. I can edit video/photos fine and for web programming, it's a champ. It's still running Windows XP. I don't see it running Windows 7 though and at some point in the future, I will indeed have to upgrade, but until Windows XP user percentages drop below their current numbers by a large degree, that isn't going to happen.

But, the main reason I keep it around is waste. Andrew McConnell has a superb photo gallery up on his site about an electronics dump in Ghana, just outside of Accra. I've seen this dump and the cloud of horrid smoke that rises from it. If you had seen it and knew what it was, you would probably hang on to your electronics longer as well.

This is a big problem and it's only going to get bigger. It's one of the things that makes me truly cringe about the information age in that the leftover components are all getting dumped in countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa. People have few ways to fight back other than to deal with what is dumped upon their shores. And when they do fight back, suddenly, they're called pirates.

I despise the electronics industry for their constant push for people to upgrade and yes, I will bash on Apple right now as most any avid Apple enthusiast will tell me that when you have problems with the machine, that means it's time for an upgrade. An upgrade means more waste. More waste means more toxins shoved off to foreign lands on people who just have to take it and deal with the health consequences of toxin-laced groundwater and air.

For anyone who thinks that they need the latest iPod/iPhone, or laptop marvel, they should come and stay for awhile in rural areas in Africa where the trash is burned daily and you're breathing in an ungodly amount of things you'd rather not know about (mainly damnable petrochemicals.) For me, in a few months, I won't breath this anymore, but for the people here, it's constantly in the air and it's only growing more. Think the next time you buy an electronics item, stop and think if you really and truly need it. I doubt that most will heed this, as people like whatever is new and shiny, but if we can just even slow down consumption, we can buy time to deal with this growing mass of waste.

As a carbon-related side note, how much carbon waste is being generated in Africa with this Africa Carbon Forum and how much carbon will it reduce? I would like to put forth the strengths of teleconferencing, although I know that means a number of people won't get to travel business class to do it...

14thFeb-In the early hours of Sunday morning, around 4:20am fire gutted the official residence of former president Jerry John Rawlings leaving nothing to be salvaged. Accra experienced a heavy downpour of rain amidst power fluctuations, which many Ghanaian journalists speculate may have been the cause of the fire.

The house currently stands roofless on a brick frame that serves as a mount for the building. Smoke from the fire has left black patches on the walls as the fire decimated the entire house. No one was hurt.

Meanwhile, GRIDCO, the main power distribution company in Ghana has confirmed that a fire outbreak the critical sub-station equipment in Tema was the cause of the energy fluctuation that happened around 1.00am. The Public Affairs outfit of the company has described as “unfair and premature” comments blaming them for the fire at the ex president’s residence before even investigations have been completed.

Five fire tenders from the Ghana National Fire Service headquarters got to the grounds in 4minutes after a distress call was made to them. But public comments have suggested the need for government fully resource the Service as they could not help the situation.

This incident is coming after recent fire attacks at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the offices of the Ghana Education Service at Tudu, a section of the Ministry of information, the Tema Oil Refinery and the Kumasi and Accra Asafo markets within the last one year of the President Mills administration. Former president J.A. Kuffour, in a statement to show sympathy and solidarity with the Rawlings, said the latest fire unpleasant incident was “one too many” and called on government to act swiftly in looking in to the affairs of the fire service to make them efficient.

At the time of posting this article, the cause of the fire had still not yet been established. Government says it is treating this occurrence as a national security issue. President Mills, in a directive, have asked the office of the Chief of Staff to hastily look for a temporary residence to house the former first family.

The president was among top government and National Democratic Congress (NDC) officials, who went to witness on first hand the ruins of the devastation. Police barricaded the residence to prevent party activists and sympathizers as well as surging reporters.

But there is an interesting twist to this ill fate suffered by Rawlings. Days before the fire attack, a well-known NDC activist and supporter of Jerry Rawlings was widely reported in local tabloids to have cursed the former president. Alhaji Bature said Rawlings would incur the wrath of God if he did not stop being overly critical of the current regime.

Rawlings founded the National Democratic Congress party in 1992 after 12years of Military rule. The NDC lost power in the year 2000 only to return in 2008 under the leadership of President Mills. Interestingly, Rawlings has been more critical of the government than the opposition parties, describing the president as “slow” and calling Ministers in the regime as “greedy bastards.”

Mr. Rawlings, who described the situation as a “painful loss” to journalists was not in the house when the fire broke. He had to drive to Accra from the Volta Region where he had gone to help local farmers at Wume, near Sogakope in a weed clearing project over the weekend. Former first lady and wife of Rawlings, Nana Konadu, was alone with eldest daughter, Yaa Asantewa at the time the inferno started. The Rawlings’ have lived at the colonial designed ridge bungalow since the 1980’s during the PNDC (Provisional National Defence Council) days till date.

In 1997/98 and 2006/07 Ghana suffered major energy crisis having to undertake a power rationing programme which lasted a full year each in both cases.Exactly a week ago the Daily Graphic reported that Ghana’s capacity to generate energy for industrial, commercial and domestic use is in serious crisis read >>

The National Identification registration exercise has been characterized by long queues and sporadic skirmishes since it started last November. Apparently this is not an unusual phenomenon to law abiding Ghanaians who always have to spend long hours waiting in winding “lines” to get their particulars filed. The last time a similar thing occurred was in 2008 during the registration for the voter’s identification card and seemingly during the presidential election in December. read >>

It’s been a week since last Thursday that residents living in Accra-West saw the last drops of water flow through their taps. People have had to travel long distances looking for portable water. Wielding water containers of all sorts from yellow jerry cans to washing basins and buckets women and children are seen in long queues at fortunate neighborhood spots with running water or wells.

The management for water distribution in Ghana, Aqua Vittens Rand, a merger of two companies of the Netherlands and South African origin, cannot assure residents of the affected areas when the situation will be finally resolved. Stanley Martey, PRO for the company says "there is an on going repairs work at the Accra-West sub station where the control panel and some equipments have broken down,unfortunately we cannot say when the works will be over".

Mr. Martey told Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Joy fm’s Super morning show host, that the company has organized a number of water tankers tasked to distribute water to the affected areas. But many have sent in complains that they are yet to be reached. The situation has forced some households to purchase bags of water sachet to bath and cook. Sometime later in the weeks ahead, the price of a sachet of water, famously called “pure water”, is expected to increased from 5pesewa to 10pesewas.

Tap owners have taken the opportunity to cash in on the crisis before it is solved. They charge 5pesewas for a bucket of water and 10pesewas for big basins.

Over the weekend, some workers have also had to visit their family relations with large storage plastic tanks in to do their laundry. Seth Quartey is an audit trainee with a Chartered Accountancy firm and lives at Anyaa –one of the areas hit by the crisis, he says, “...the situation is unbearable and I plead that work been done on the equipments must be done quick time because I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get water in my house by tomorrow morning”.