By Joanna Devane

Filming Outbound Africa had its challenges, to say the least. As Richard Harvey was fond of saying, we were “beyond the back of beyond,” a world away from the City. We spent the majority of our shoot “up country” – in the remote Upper West Region of Ghana – the country’s youngest, driest and most deprived region.

We traveled by way of the distinctive red roads, even going off-road at times. This area has the largest stretches of unpaved roads in Ghana. These bumpy, dusty, rugged roads tested cameraman Anthony Dalton as he tried to capture our journey out the window of a bucking four-wheel drive.

Here modern conveniences like electricity are scarce. Air conditioning is a luxury few can imagine – not to mention toilets! We were fortunate to stay in a motel in Wa which had both, though the power often cut out in the middle of the night. This meant we awoke each morning drenched in sweat and with the batteries for our equipment not fully charged.

The heat – and our sweating – were a constant theme for the week. Temperatures soared upwards of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day with very little shade in sight. And this was during the rainy season! Rain is becoming another scarce luxury.

There are no longer any forests or thick jungle here – nor any of the mosquitoes we were expecting. I travel a lot for my job, and I’ve never been to a place where the climate change has been so visual. With its depleted land, Northern Ghana lays bare and embodies the effects of climate change, yet as experts are quick to remind us, the desertification and deforestation will soon impact us all.

All of these things I mention – the lack of infrastructure, the heat, the climate change – may have been eye-opening for us but are “normal” for the people of West Africa. These are challenges they battle not just for one week but every day of their lives. Yet, we found that most people here don’t resent the fact that they have almost nothing, and they are willing to work incredibly hard – particularly when they understand the reasoning and the ramifications – to develop ways to improve their existence.

Along the way, we received plenty of hospitality and smiles. Although they have little, the people seemed eager to share. Rather than asking for food, the children would offer us locally grown mangoes. Even in the larger towns, we were rarely met with appeals for food or money – though pens were a popular request. It never occurred to me that what many of the children really want is to be able to write, to draw, to do schoolwork.

We learned that food aid, on its own, is never a sustainable solution. As Ian Williams of Concern Universal remarked, “The last thing we want to do is food aid, because it really messes things up.”

NGOs have the reputation of being anti-business, but Concern Universal believes that business in Africa is as necessary as rain. According to the CU approach, developing trade and enterprise is critical, as is ownership. Richard noted that interventions have failed in the past because they were missing these key ingredients. The local communities need to own the issues and be part of the solution.

In Africa, there is a saying, “When a lion is running and he looks back, it’s not because he is afraid, but because he wants to see the distance he has run.” The people of this vast continent have a long way to run, but we saw first-hand the readiness and motivation to cover the distance.

And these same people, Richard reminded us often, are the potential customers of the future – for everything from financial services to telecoms. In other words, business can help Africa, and Africa can help business.

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