I Love Ghana!

I hope this finds everybody thriving in their respective corners of the world!

Marina in 2 weeks: It's been a daily adventure, small discoveries amongst so much good will and friendliness. People are wonderful, warm, open and laugh a lot!

Work started on right about an insane note – the very first day I was in a meeting with the director of the World Bank here and he said: “Well, we're thinking about this idea of exploring the opportunities of a growth pole area in the West of the country. Value chain and the likes... We want to go next week on a growth pole scoping mission, so why don't you go ahead and organize the trip?” Talking about immersion, no! I had 5 days to figure out how the Bank operates in Ghana, what projects they have, what's on the ground in the West, what are the opportunities and what are the constraints, who's out there doing what and find ways to contact and schedule meetings with them! It worked out somehow... The process was fascinating, I learned a ton, worked 12+ hours a day 12 days straight. We traveled west the beginning of this week – met the regional government and the traditional chiefs (making sure I got the right libation alcohol for the chiefs was tricky hey!), visited the ports, the railway, a gold mine, a rubber and oil palm plantations, sustainable forestry and carbon trading estates, wood and cocoa processing factories and numerous beaches (assessing the tourism potential, right!). One of the chiefs we worked with is an incredibly strong community leader – very inspirational. We became friends - I'm going back to the West next weekend to pay tribute to his family – a funeral occasion.

In a nutshell, I am working on mapping the value chain / growth pole realities on the ground in Ghana and looking for untapped growth potential in that field (looking into technology transfers and innovation as well). Nevertheless, my time's split between research and day-to-day tasks, report writing and meetings (I am amazed in how many meetings I sit daily – there is much donor agency dialogue here). Next week Ghana is hosting a big conference on Making Finance Work for Africa so that should be very interesting.

Accra I mostly see at night, going on food scoping missions and the like. There are parts of town that never sleep and parts of town that look dead after sun down. My friends – the place I stay in is FULL of Ghanaian and West African businessmen, so I spend tons of time listening out and discussing entrepreneurial ideas for... everything imaginable, including acne products for dark skin. By chance I got somebody's apartment for the summer – I have this super quirky place with a huge veranda with 100 plants overlooking the city, millions of self-designed switches leading to all sorts of tanks, tubes and generators and funny duck-taped appliances, a bathroom converted into a kitchen, spacious airy rooms in pink and yellow... It's a jewel (with an espresso machine)! Come visit me please (esp. the Liberia team!!! - free UN flight from Monrovia to Accra on weekends)! Also by chance I ended up at a celebration for Ghana's Music Awards yesterday, met the prominent musicians – quite embarrassing / funny since I didn't know any of their songs...

Ghana is insanely green, I love the mahogany trees rising above the coastal forests... The old colonial slave forts along the coast – such dreary / beautiful places... Come, we'll have akrantie soup with fufu!

Love ya,

Marina