Oxfam in Ghana Quarterly Digest

1 OXFAM IN GHANA QUARTERLY DIGEST

Quarterly Digest

EDITORIAL COMMENT The Sustainable Development Goals simply known as the #GlobalGoals have been the subject of discussion for some time now. Civil Society (CS) groups, world leaders, international organisations are all urging governments to take strong actions and commitment to make the agenda 2030 a reality. This edition of the Quarterly Digest picks views from partners, staff, and other collaborators to get their side of the bigger picture. So, the big question is ‘which 3 of the 17 goals come across as your top most priorities’? Read on to know what others are saying about the SDG’s in Ghana.

This edition also shares insights of the Climate Resilient and Agricultural Food System project as we devise innovative ways of making everyone a part of the climate discussion. You will also read interesting articles from our Active Citizenship and Extractive programmes as well as telling the story of our GROW Campaign in fifteen minutes. Tips on our BST Corner and other special features well interspersed to make your reading pleasurable. We present to you the third edition of Oxfam in Ghana Quarterly Digest.

IN THIS EDITION• Oxfam Diversity Day

• Oxfam/Partners MEAL framework training

• Launch of GROW video documentary

• Connecting with Partners to connect to the world

• Changing the phase of climate reporting

• Extractive Industries exchange learning experience

• Here we come again! Rural Women’s Day at Bipoah

• Want to fight extreme poverty? Provide more, timely data

• BST CORNER

• OXFUN

GHQ003 - November 2015


OXNEWSOxfam Diversity Day

There is beauty in diversity. And as we often say, variety is the spice of life. Our diverse ways of doing things make us unique as individuals. Marking this day brought out the beauty in our different cultures as staff donned their traditional clothes.

The Country Director of Oxfam in Ghana, Sebastian Tiah crowned it with these words “The day for me reinforce the need for us to appreciate everyone differently and therefore will enhance my ability to work better with others. It was a great day for me and something that we need to continue to emphasise.”

Need I say more; but to borrow Malcolm Forbes words as he puts it beautifully; diversity is the art of thinking independently together.

Diversity is not about how we differ.

Diversity is about embracing one

another’s uniqueness -Ola Joseph

Taking it cool with the Agbadza dance Photo Credit/ Abdulkarim Mohammed/Oxfam

Francis Ayamga Abgere EI Programmes Assistant “It was great and I think we should continue with it. A single day to de-stress and connect with our age-old heritage.”

Sandra Akuamoah Finance Officer: “Our culture is indeed our identity; and our identity is our root.”

Staff doing the agbadza dancePhoto Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Francis, Karim and Moro dancing the takai Photo Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam


The 43 participants (40% female) of partners from the Climate Resilient and Agricultural Food System (CRAFS) project, SEND-Ghana, Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Alliance for Reproductive Health Right, IBIS among others had the opportunity to input into the Country MEAL Strategy. We shared and discussed minimum standards of CAMSA (Common Approach to Monitoring & Social Accountability) to enable partners effectively monitor and track contributions towards our collective ambition.

The three day training also presented a session for discussion on improving Oxfam/partner relationship. A platform was also created for partners to share best practices to improve MEAL in programming. Innovative MEAL systems, particularly on monitoring and data collection were explored and exposed to participants.

MEAL! If you hear it for the first time what comes to mind? May sound like a buffet party but in Oxfam, MEAL; Monitoring Evaluation Accountability & Learning may be that buffet to ensure objectives of our programmes are yielding the needed results in our quest to fight poverty and injustice.

Oxfam partners MEAL framework workshop

The workshop was very insightful as it provided easy and practical tools to conduct participatory monitoring and evaluation. I look forward to implementing these tools to maximise our project results.

Participants actively listening during a presentation Photo Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Time to explore with digital evaluation tools Photo Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Solomon Kusi Ampofo, the Communications and Campaigns Coordinator for Friends of the Nation.


It’s been four years of GROW campaign in West Africa. Ghana being part of the focal countries of this campaign has over the past years worked with campaign members to continually stress the need for responsible investment in small scale agriculture. The year also presented an opportune time to pause, reflect and project on the next phase of the campaign. This was done nicely in a 15 minute documentary that was put together to tell the Ghana story. The Ghana story of #oil4ag campaign, the Ghana story of budget tracking, the Ghana story of advocacy on national platforms for women peasant farmers and their access to land and services and the Ghana story of farmers manifesto for political parties. Just spare 15 minutes to watch the full story. https://goo.gl/BvKL8A

Connecting with Partners to Connect to the WorldOxfam believes in empowerment; empowerment to engage effectively to tell the Oxfam story. Understanding the trend of social media platforms and the role it plays in our campaigns and project has therefore become a necessity. For these and many more reasons, we organised a training session for partners to develop creative ways in campaigning that will amplify the voices of poor people.

The training was facilitated by the West Africa Civil Society Institute who educated partners on new developments in digital technology and the potential of this technology to transform the ways we communicate. Partners and staff of Oxfam were taken through series of activities to communicate more effectively in order to appeal to the wider public.

The training afforded partners like the Civil Society Coalition on Land (CICOL) and Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (@PFAGghana) to open Face book and Twitter accounts respectively while WiFDAF Ghana reactivated its twitter account (@WiLDAFGhana).Here are quotes from participants

Practical sessions during the digital training Photo Credit/ WACSI

Launch of GROW video documentary


Abigail Edem Hunu, Media Officer, WiLDAF The digital training organised by Oxfam in Ghana for its partners was the most helpful and productive training I have attended in recent time. The resource persons were awesome! Their presentation skills were on point. With the help of this training, my organisation is now on twitter, I had downplayed the importance of our social media presence till I attended this workshop. We are taking social Media by Storm with informative and educative messages on how we can all help to reduce poverty and injustice in Ghana and globally!

Kwabena Adjei, Peasant farmers Association of Ghana: It was very educative, exciting and an eye-opener as it has really broadened our scope in actively and effectively managing our website.

If you were the field officer for a climate adaptation project, how would you interpret words like ‘risk, vulnerability, hazards, disasters, capacity, adaptation, etc’ in your local language? Are you struggling to couch the right words to communicate these terminologies for your local people?

In fact, you are not alone, as Oxfam implementing partners and allies for the Climate Resilient Agricultural Food System (CRAFS) had a real tough time to get accurate words, phrases, clauses in their local dialects to represent these terminologies.

Participnats in a special ‘fruit salad’ dance Photo Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Participants expressing one thing or another at the training Photo Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

PARTNER INTERACTIONLet’s get local with climate change terminologies


After going back and forth with these terminologies, they finally settled on some clauses and words in the Mampruli, Daagare and Kusau languages to make communicating the issue of climate change and adaptability easy for their respective communities.

The translation wasn’t easy because you can’t use a word to get out the meaning in most cases unless it’s explained. The process however helped to get a deeper understanding of climate change.

Some of our partners shared their experience after the tough exercise.

Josephine Terpeng, Field Officer, ProNet North; “It’s not so simple to get the exact words to mean the same thing. It was however nice to hear some of the explanations to them. It gives you a clue. But I believe some experienced people in the community can help.”

Obed Asunka, Project Officer Presbyterain Agric Station Garu; “The translation wasn’t easy because you can’t use a word to get out the meaning in most cases unless it’s explained. The process however helped to get a deeper understanding of climate change.”

Nabilla Abu, Field Officer at Partners in Rural Empowerment and Development for the CRAFS project also had this to say; “It was extremely difficult for groups to give straight forward definitions for the terms and I also realised some similarities in the Kusau and Mampruli languages.”

At least for now, I know vulnerability is ‘Tarinsi’ in Mampruli and ‘Tadong’ in Kusau.

Working time for partners from PAREDPhoto Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Discussions on DRRPhoto Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Well, the next time you want to start a discussion on climate change in your community, try interpreting these words in your local dialect but just in case you know the Akan word/clause for vulnerability, I would be grateful if you share with me.

Obed Asunka, Project Officer Presbyterain Agric Station Garu


Reporting on the complex phenomenon of climate change has never been easy. The huge responsibility lies on journalists to play a critical role in explaining the cause and effects of climate change, in describing what countries and communities can do to adapt to the impacts ahead, and in reporting on what governments must do to minimise impact.

But the question is; do journalists themselves understand the reality of climate change in order to report adequately? The idea behind Oxfam’s training for 30 media practitioners in Northern Ghana was to expose them to the practical aspect of climate change reportage and programming. Most of the journalists we interacted didn’t mince words in affirming the challenge in climate reporting.

“The challenge has always been the issues, most of us do not know the issues and once you do not understand the issues yourself it gets difficult to probe to understand what the issues are. The focus over the years has been on political reporting and paying much attention to that at the expense of other important issues”, Matina Bugri, of Joy FM stated.

Selecting media persons from the Northern part of Ghana

was to ensure they take the fight against climate change upon themselves as their regions are highly vulnerable to hazards.

The facilitator, for the training Benjamin Fiabgor of Farm Radio further explained the difficulty the media have had over the years with climate change reporting as most of them have been ignorant about the issues of climate change and therefore find it uncomfortable to report on climate change and its related issues.

Oxfam in Ghana realised that, the need for a more informed public, especially on issues related to climate change, is greater than ever because communities that face the greatest climate-related risks are those who receive the least information through mass media. Following this need, 30 journalists from seventeen media houses plus partners making up 34 (seven females) participants benefitted from the climate change training.

For Issac Nogya of Metro TV, one key thing which became clear during the 3 day training was the practical exercise on climate terminologies and information sharing with colleagues on making climate change reportage interesting and practical.

Out of this training, a 20 week radio programme has been designed with all four of the CRAFS partners to discuss issues of climate change within communities of their operations. Key topics will include weather information, building adaptive capacity of communities and climate

Changing the phase of Climate reporting

Journalists discusing how to make climate change reportage practicalPhoto Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Oxfam partners and journalists in a group picture


smart activities to preserve the vegetation. Some of the media partners will also be part of Oxfam’s communication tours and monitoring visit to project areas. Benjamin encouraged journalists to be action oriented in their climate change reportage to cause the necessary action to improve livelihoods.

Links to media reportage on the training:

http://goo.gl/yNdAfGhttps://goo.gl/7vZKn4

Here we come again! Rural Women’s Day at Bipoah

The spontaneous dance that accompanied her winning of an award during the international day of the rural woman showed how appreciative she was to Oxfam and other organisations that made this possible for them. Maame Akua Serwaa, a 64 year old yam farmer from Tuobodom in the Brong Ahafo region was among the numerous women who received awards for their hard work.

Over 1200 women came from all the ten regions of Ghana to exhibit their produce and other food items at Bipoa in the Ashanti Region. Some of them shared their joy for the celebration of the rural woman.

“We take the opportunity to discuss rural women’s challenges because during the celebration, we get a lot of stakeholders from the agricultural value chain’s participation and this serves as a platform for the rural women. I must add that some of our women were able to access fertilizer after the issue was raised during last year’s celebration. They also use it to network and learn from other women groups”, Gladys Serwaah Adusah, Women’s Leader, of Middle Zone Farmers Organisation stressed.

In a similar vein, the Day was massively patronised at Garu Tempane in the Upper East Region. After Oxfam supported a partner, the Presbyterian Agric Station-Garu to commemorate the Day for the first time in 2014, the District Chief Executive fulfilled its promise of advancing women leadership by appointing six women as government representatives at the Assembly out of the 13 slots given in his district. The District has now embraced the concept and committed to mark the Day in subsequent years.

Maame Akua Serwaa showing some dancing steps after receiving her awardPhoto Credit/ Naana Nkansah Agyekum/Oxfam

Exhibition at the celebrationPhoto Credit/ Pascal Kudiabor/ SEND Ghana


In Tamale in the Northern Region, stakeholders once again stressed the need for women’s access to agricultural services. Prior to the celebration, GROW members embarked on a massive social media campaign with the hash tag #FromRhetorics2Action and #GROWinGhana. The social media activities and other media engagements threw more light on the day for partners to raise the voices of rural women on different media platforms

District chief executive celebrates with womenPhoto Credit: Lillian Kuutiero/Oxfam

Some women with their placards during the celebration at GaruPhoto Credit: Lillian Kuutiero/Oxfam

Lois Aduamoah-Addo, Programmes Officer of WiLDAF-Ghana on TV3 News discussing significance of the Day Photo Credit: Abigail Edem Hunu/WiLDAF-Ghana


Extractive Industries exchange learning experience

OXFAM in Ghana hosted colleagues from Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to share insights from our partners Friends of the Nation (FoN) and Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) on budget tracking of extractive revenues. The visit was also to showcase the linkages between the different strands of Oxfam in Ghana’s work.

The team had interactive sessions with the Shama District Assembly and Community Environmental Management Advocacy (CEMAG) members in the District.

Colleagues shared some lessons and best practices of partners’ research and advocacy work in the Extractive Industries (EI) and Active Citizenship they have picked from the visit.

Julie Kim is the Programme Officer managing NORAD grants and she says

“Our site visit to FoN in Takoradi gave our team great insights into the local, community-level work that the organization is doing with frontline communities affected by petroleum activities. In particular, their support to the Community Environmental Monitoring and Advocacy Groups provides a useful example of how partner organizations can promote grassroots advocacy on human rights abuses and environmental impacts. Our program teams in Mozambique and Tanzania, which are just beginning to develop their EI programmes under the NORAD grant, took back many new ideas and lessons to apply to their own work back home.” Richard Hato-Kuevor, the EI Programmes Officer for Oxfam in Ghana added that the visit was an opportunity to share with colleagues.

“My experience in Ghana during the exchange programme was enlightening especially because it happened soon after the summer school on governance of natural resources. The field visit gave me an opportunity to see the excellent work being done by partners FoN and ACEP and learn from them. The knowledge I gained as well as the contacts I made will continue to inform and strengthen the work we are doing in Tanzania as far as contributing to improvement of national resources governance is concerned.” Dastan Kweka, the Extractive Industries Programme Officer for Oxfam in Tanzania added.

Oxfam team’s visit to Shama Photo Credit/ Richard Cobbinah/FoN Interaction with Oxfam and Friends of the Nation

Photo Credit/ Richard Cobbinah/FoN

Our program teams in Mozambique and Tanzania, which are just beginning to develop their EI programmes under the NORAD grant, took back many new ideas and lessons to apply to their own work back home.

Julie Kim, Programme Officer managing NORAD grants.


“To some people in the developed world, it may be difficult to imagine that there are millions still deprived of such basic amenities, but I am a living example.

I know what poverty is and I know what it means to be extremely poor. Born into a broken home, my father abandoned my mother, my siblings, and me just weeks after I was born. From that time, until I was sixteen, I grew up in a poverty-stricken environment. I shared one tiny bedroom with my mother, two sisters and brother. I put on shoes for the first time when I was twelve years old. When I think about it, I can’t believe we drank the water we drank and ate

the food that we ate and survived.”

You want to read more on this article, don’t you? Just follow the link below to read the full version of this one put together by Albert Kan-Dapaah, Former Member of Parliament and Minister of Ghana also doubles as the Executive Director of FAT-Africa, an Oxfam in Ghana Partner.

http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2015/10/want-to-fight-extreme-poverty-provide-more-timely-data/

Aid policies and programs should empower citizens and civil society to have access to information as well as the space to operate, track and verify development spending from all sources.

Want to fight extreme poverty? Provide more, timely data

ZERO TOLERANCE APPROACH TO BRIBERY

“Though the bribe be small, yet the fault is great.”Edward Coke

The business dictionary defines bribery as the act of

taking or receiving something with the intention of

influencing the recipient in some way favourable to

the party providing the bribe. Bribe is also defined by

the Cambridge English dictionary as trying to make

someone do something for you by giving them money,

presents or something else that they want.


Oxfam has a zero tolerance approach to bribery and we consider this contrary to our fundamental values of integrity, transparency and accountability. Our service providers and partners are expected to adopt a similar position.

In Oxfam, the following behaviours amount to bribery

• Where an individual improperly offers, gives or promises any form of material benefit or other advantage, whether in cash or in kind, to another in order to influence their conduct in any way. The payment need not be made directly to the individual but could be to a third party at the instruction of the person to whom the bribe is offered.

• Where an individual improperly requests, agrees to receive or accepts any form of material benefit or other advantage, whether in cash or in kind, which influences or is designed to influence their conduct in any way. Facilitation payments are also considered as bribe. Facilitation payments are amounts paid to expedite routine business activities e.g. paying an immigration official to speed up the processing of a visa.

• Personal gifts offered or accepted as part of a specific business transaction could be considered a bribe if the effect or intent is to influence a decision made in favour of the individual offering the gift or there is a condition attached to accepting the gift. Oxfam’s own policy is that any gifts received should be donated to Oxfam.

• Provision of hospitality (entertainment, travel and accommodation) in furtherance of enhancing a business relationship or fulfilling obligations to enable officials to visit programmes or projects would not be considered a bribe unless the intent was to encourage the recipient to behave improperly or the value of the hospitality was disproportionate.

• Where an individual requests favours for their family or friends as part of a contractual negotiation e.g. a job, this is also considered bribery.

OXFAM IN GHANA QUARTERLY DIGEST13

Alright so the Millennium Development

Goals are gradually fading out and in its

wake come Sustainable Development

Goals. The new hash tag trending in town

now is #SDGs. Let’s hear the top three

priorities from some individuals.

OXFUN


Pascal Kudiabor, Communications Ofiicer, SEND- Ghana

Goals 2 End hunger, achieve food security, improved, nutrition and promote sustainable

agriculture 3; ensure healthy lives and promote well being for all and 5 Achieve

gender equality and empower all.

Naana Nkansah Agyekum, Media & Communications Lead, Oxfam in

Ghana; ; I will go for goals 1; End poverty in all its forms, 5; Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and 13 which

calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

Victoria Adongo, National Coordinator Peasant farmers Association of Ghana; Mine are goals

1,ending poverty in all its forms; 2 ending hunger, achieving food security,

improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture and 3 ensuring

healthy lives and well being for all at all ages respectively.

Abdulkarim MohammedActive Citizenship Campaign Advisor, Oxfam in GhanaGoal 7; ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all: followed by goal 1 which seeks to end poverty in all forms everywhere and goal 13; taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Jimm Fomunjong, Communications and Information Officer, West Africa Civil Society Institute; Goal 4 which is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all is paramount for Jimm; followed by goal 5 aimed at achieving gender equality and empower all” but beyond just women and girls. The 3rd priority is Goal 3; ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.

Eunice Agbenyadzi, National Policy Advisor, IBIS. My topmost priority is goal 4 which calls for inclusive and equitable quality education followed by goal 3 which is to ensure healthy lives for all and the final one is goal 17 strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.

OXFUN

Here we go...

We will appreciate your comments, suggestions and any feedback so reach the media and communications officer on [email protected] or https://twitter.com/oxfaminghana or on our face book page https://www.facebook.com/OxfamInGhana

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Oxfam in Ghana Quarterly Digest