Serwaah, 65, and her husband, Kofi Agyei, 77, own two cocoa farms and three homes. Each farm produces enough food to sell at markets in Kumasi and Accra.
And the profits are enough to feed the entire family. So, when Newmont Mining Corporation talks about expanding the Ahafo Gold Mine in nearby Kenyase into Mehame—claiming that the one-time fee for their land will improve their quality of life and bring development to their community—Serwaah reacts with suspicion.
Having visited nearby Kenyase, where her sister-in-law once lived, she says she's witnessed firsthand what "development" can mean to a mining company.
"I get sick when I hear about the project. My heart races," she says. "I was so sad to see places that had been cocoa farms turned into rocks and pits. The farmers have no food because their land has been taken over. They use money for everything and can't live off the land anymore."
That's a stark difference from Serwaah's life right now. While still very poor by Western standards, she says she is wealthy in other ways. "The land is everything to us. It's worth more than gold. Even if a [cocoa] tree falls, we can eat the mushrooms that grow off of it."
Beyond the land itself, the village of Mehame is already lit up by electricity. And Serwaah's family need only walk a short distance to collect free, potable water. Many families, relocated from Kenyase and the surrounding villages, live in structures smaller than their old homes, and many are not connected to electricity lines. In Ntotroso, a resettled community filled with former residents of Kenyase, residents must now pay for their household water, and report taking turns with family members just to bathe.
"Newmont told us a lot of good stories. But we've seen that they've really disappointed us," says Kojo Zica, 28, a resident of the Ntotroso resettlement. "Since we came to this settlement, most of us are not working—even the youth. Even the water we have to pay for. It is difficult to feed our families."
For these reasons, people in Serwaah's community have been attending workshops by WACAM, a local organization supported by Oxfam. WACAM teaches the cocoa farmers to understand their rights under national and international law. In Serwaah's case, these rights include saying "no" to mining if she so chooses.
No amount of compensation from Newmont could replace the lifestyle her family has cultivated over the years, she says. And while right now she can count on her cocoa farms yielding a harvest twice a year, whatever payment she received from Newmont would peter out over time.
"For us, development is not about having big, big things, but having your peace of mind. For us, development is about working for oneself and leaving something for the next generation," she says.
]]>The delegation of US representatives and their staff, led by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, visited Ghana as part of a three-country African tour. On March 28, they met with a number of groups in the capital city of Accra, including Oxfam America partners the Center for Public Interest Law and WACAM.
The subject of the meeting: Why does gold mining, Ghana's largest industry, make big profits for companies and the government, but bring few benefits for the poor communities where the mining actually takes place.
Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of WACAM, told the representatives that some farmers have not been not fairly compensated when mining companies purchased their land. "Companies will pay a farmer 9 Ghana cedis, about $8, for a cocoa tree, when the cocoa tree can earn a cocoa farmer about $20 per year for an economic life of 40 to 50 years."
He said gold mining has been a cause of environmental harm in Ghana, citing the US-based Newmont Mining Corporation's plans to build a gold mine in the Ajenua Bepo nature reserve—despite a petition from over 200 farmers asking them to preserve the country's rapidly dwindling forests.
The coalition also talked about the lack of transparency on the part of mining companies and governments. When contracts and payments are kept secret, corruption and mismanagement can spread, making it harder for poor communities to get their share of mining revenues. While the government of Ghana must create more transparent policies around mining, the US also needs to make a concrete commitment to help, Owusu-Koranteng said.
A new piece of US legislation could help communities by requiring mining companies to be more transparent about their practices. On May 12, Representative Frank and other members of the House Financial Services Committee will introduce the "Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act" in the House of Representatives. The bill will require oil, gas, and mining companies registered in the US to disclose the amount and type of the payments they make in the countries where they operate.
"Now that they've met our partners, and heard how mining affects people's lives, the Congressional Delegation knows that oil, gas, and mining companies must respect the rights of the communities where they operate—in Ghana and elsewhere," says Keith Slack, director of Oxfam's Right to Know, Right to Decide campaign. "We must urge other members of Congress to follow suit and pass this crucial legislation."
]]>In 2002, Bogoso Gold Mines, a subsidiary of Golden Star Resources, acquired the mine concession and started to aggressively expand the mine pit towards the town. Use of explosives in the mine pit damaged homes in the Krutown neighborhood, and repairs effected by the company were not adequate, according to homeowners. In the neighboring village of Dumase there have been two cyanide spills in the Aprepre River in 2004 and 2006.
"In 2004 we could see the surface mine approaching the town, so we complained to the government but no one came to our aid," said Dominic Nyame, a burly 43-year-old former miner turned community organizer with the Concerned Citizens Association of Prestea. Community members said the encroaching mine pits brought blasting too close to nearby neighborhoods and houses were being damaged. "In 2005 we demonstrated against the company, and the military came to town and shot seven people—fortunately no one died." There has never been an independent investigation of this incident.
The communities of Prestea, as well as Himan, and Dumase that neighbor the Bogoso/Prestea mine, are requesting a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the first phase of the Bogoso/Prestea project and for the company to respect their right to free, prior, and informed consent regarding the planned Prestea Southern Project.
The community of Dumase is also seeking damages in court from the 2004 and 2006 cyanide spills, and has formally requested that Golden Star Resources commission independent health investigations, but the company has not acted on this either.
Community members attended training sessions with Oxfam America's partner WACAM in 2005 to learn about their human rights, and how to teach others about their right to live in a safe environment and be consulted about the effects of the expanding mining operation. Community members went to Accra and met with reporters and got their grievances into the media, after which Bogoso Gold said they would reduce their blasting activity and form a joint committee to oversee future blasting.
But the issue of pit expansion is still a problem for people living in and near Prestea who fear being involuntarily relocated, or living too close to mine pits and blasting. The proposed pit expansion would also be within several hundred meters of a school, so many parents in this area are concerned about the safety of their children. In two prior incidents in 2006 security forces have moved people off of mine property by force, and the Concerned Citizens Association has had to use some of the training they received from WACAM to resolve these conflicts peacefully. "With WACAM we can calm the waters," Nyame said.
Bogoso Gold is currently suspending all mining activity and expansion while it negotiates with the citizens of Prestea, who are exerting their right to be consulted about how the mine operates, how it could possibly expand its operations into the southern part of Prestea, and the way it carries out any future blasting in the mine pits.
]]>In addition to details about Oxfam's work on climate change, you will also find deeper perspective on our ongoing work in Ghana focused on mining, an update on life in Darfur as the crisis continues with no end yet in sight, and a success story about a multicultural approach to fighting poverty in the mountains of Peru.
]]>When the government conceded the minerals under his farm to an international mining company in 1991, 37-year-old Ayensu and his wife and four children were out. Worse, he later discovered that the payment he was to receive for his land had been arbitrarily cut by two-thirds. "I was not happy, and I cried," Ayensu said later. "It was because of this farm that we could eat...now my children are out of school. I can't go to my farm ever again."
By law, the mine run by AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. must compensate farmers for their lands and for future lost income from their crops. The company reviewed the crops on each farm and assigned a value. After some farmers were paid, others found their offers suddenly rescinded, replaced with ones based on the total acreage of their farms.
"They should have negotiated this with us," said Emilia Amoateng, 30, chair of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie. "But some of the elders who were close to the company supported it....Those who should come to our aid—our district assembly and members of parliament—have been bought off and corrupted," she said.
It's a common story, one repeated in many other mining countries. Most farmers have no one to help them hold the company or their elected representatives accountable, to respect their property rights, to compensate them fairly, and to protect the environment. And in so many out-of-the way villages we have never heard of, farmers shrug, take what's offered, hope for a job they will never get at the mine, and do the best they can.
But in Teberebie and scores of other villages in Ghana, things are working out slightly differently. The farmers are shifting the balance of power by learning, understanding, and asserting their basic human rights.
The price of gold has been quite high the last few years, and recently topped $900 an ounce. Ghana is now the second largest producer of gold on the continent behind South Africa. In its 50th year of independence, Ghana is working hard to reduce poverty for its 10 million citizens.
But most of the wealth mining generates goes right back out to foreign companies operating the mines. A 2005 UN report estimated that just five percent of the $894 million from mines in 2003 was captured in Ghana, a mere $46 million in Ghana's $11 billion economy. "Our country is poor because our resources are under the control of those with all the money," says Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), an organization that helps people protect the environment and defend their human rights. "Ninety-five percent of the mining revenues go out of the country, and only five percent stays—along with 100 percent of the problems."
The problems go beyond farmers losing their land. The BBC reported in 2006 that at least 12 people have been shot in violent confrontations with mine security and police forces. There have also been numerous cases of cyanide spills near rivers and streams needed for drinking and irrigation in villages near mines. Owusu-Koranteng said that the five percent retained in Ghana from mining can't come close to redressing all these problems.
Oxfam America is funding the work of WACAM, Owusu-Koranteng's organization. WACAM teaches villagers about the constitution of Ghana and their rights under the 2006 Minerals and Mining Act. Armed with this information, farmers can then assert their rights to fair compensation for their lands and hold the companies responsible for damage to the environment.
The approach has proven effective in several towns. In Prestea, an industrialized mining town since the 1920s, 62-year-old Godfried Ofori said that the people of Prestea were being rocked by explosions in mining pits run by Bogoso Gold, a local subsidiary of Golden Star Resources of Denver. The blasts have cracked the cement houses in town, and waste dumps have clogged water springs in the area with earth and rocks dug out of the pits. And there is a threat of expansion: the mine wants to move the entire southern part of the town.
"They were using money to buy the support of citizens," Ofori said. "We went house to house to tell people about their human rights—and about the company's plan to blast just 200 or 300 meters from their houses and schools...so now they understand, they know they have human rights, and they no longer take money from the mine company and put their children at risk."
Golden Star stopped blasting and all mining temporarily while it negotiates to expand the mine.
Learning about basic rights that you never knew you had changes your perspective. When you learn how to negotiate with a mining company, speak to reporters, or show those in authority that they can't take advantage of you and get away with it, you realize that you have power. You deserve respect. It is this change in perspective that has helped the people of Prestea bring mining to a halt while they negotiate their future.
"Most people don't have money," said Ofori, "but they have their spirit."
You can see this spirit in the eyes of the farmers in Teberebie, where about 15 of them are disputing the compensation offered by AngloGold Ashanti. Their Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie staged a march to the nearby mining center of Tarkwa, where they were interviewed by the media. This brought a lot of visibility to their case, as well as a proposal to negotiate from AngloGold. Unfortunately, it did not lead to an agreement, but with the help of WACAM and the legal aid organization, Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL), both funded by Oxfam America, the claim is now in the courts.
Nana Molobah Nyamiketh, chief of the village of Abekoase, has a round, friendly face but a serious nature. And it was this serious side that went into action the morning of October 16, 2001, when villagers came to him with bad news: Their main source of drinking water, the Asuman River, was full of dead fish, and those who had come in contact with the water had developed skin problems. It was their worst fear: a cyanide spill. "We informed WACAM, as they had been teaching us how to negotiate with the company and understand our rights...and we got some journalists to cover the news of the cyanide spill."
The 400 villagers of Abekoase, half of whom had already been displaced by the Gold Fields mine, took the company to court in March of 2002. By the end of 2003, Abekoase and Gold Fields had reached a settlement out of court that included a community center building and a development fund of roughly $27,000 being used to build a new school and teachers' quarters. A palm oil processing center is also still under construction.
"The settlement was pretty good," Chief Nyamiketh said, crediting WACAM and CEPIL for their advice on the case. "If it had not been for WACAM, we would not have gotten any help, because it seems the government institutions are on the side of the mine companies."
Chief Nyamiketh said that they are even more pleased with the changed relationship with Gold Fields. "People are now better equipped to negotiate with the company," Chief Nyamiketh said, adding that the company now handles them differently also. "They were surprised we took them to court; they thought they would just ride over us. But we scared them...Now they know that this village took them to the high court, so when something happens, they react quickly because people here know their rights."
Chief Nyamiketh looked out the window of his house, into the daily afternoon downpour of a May afternoon, where the rain was smashing down into the red earth and thunder boomed in the distance. "It is a sign of respect," he said.
]]>Farmers in this area are typically informed that the government has conceded their land to the mine and that there is nothing they can do about it. Joanna knew better. "I know my rights, and I knew the law would take its course," she said.
Manu had attended a training session with Oxfam America's partner WACAM, where she learned that farmers can only be removed from their land if they have been compensated for it. This helped her make a strong argument. "I told the court that I was there before the company came and that it had not compensated me. So the company has no right to push me off this land."
"And I am still farming there," Manu said, smiling just a little. "I learned this in my training, and it is thanks to this new knowledge that I could do this."
WACAM's training not only helped Manu defend her own rights and farmland, but also helped her become one of the key organizers in her community, Dumasi, a small collection of mud and concrete houses piled on the side of a hill on the road between two larger mining towns, Prestea and Tarkwa. Farmers line the road selling tomatoes and yams as trucks and cars blast past in the dust and heat. The forest looms over Dumasi; dark green surrounds the hardwood trees and small fields that farmers hack out of the dense brush.
Open-pit gold mining has had serious negative effects ranging from housing damage caused by the explosives used to blast apart the pit to reveal ore, just over 300 yards from the village, to pollution of the local drinking water source, the Aprepre River, in 2004 and 2006. Again, training from WACAM has helped Manu and her neighbors push the company to respect their rights and its obligations.
After the mine spilled cyanide into the stream in 2004, Manu and her father immediately collected water samples and dead fish, and sent them to WACAM and Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "WACAM taught us that cyanide is extremely poisonous, but that exposure to the sun reduces its toxicity," Manu explained. "Usually when we complain to the EPA they take 10 days to come here, so that is why we had to get the samples right away." WACAM helped secure medical care for sick villagers and convened a press conference so the villagers could pressure the company to clean up the mess and compensate people affected by the poison. WACAM and another legal aid organization funded by Oxfam America, CEPIL, helped the citizens of Dumasi take the company to court, and they are awaiting a decision.
Efforts like this have helped the people of Dumasi force the company to halt the blasting that hurled rocks into their houses and cracked their foundations. For now the mining has stopped while the company tries to relocate the village—but first it has to negotiate a deal with a group of citizens who will no longer allow the government and mining company to take advantage of them.
The training WACAM provided for the people of Dumasi has helped them defend their rights, but it is also changing the way they think about themselves and others. Manu realized that she can be a leader, someone who can make a difference in her village and the world. "After this training, I can see how important education is, so I am enrolled in school," she said. "I want to be a political leader, maybe a member of parliament."
Manu's motivations and sense of responsibility go well beyond her village. "I see fellow human beings as I see myself, and if they can't defend their rights, then I have to help them," she said. "I am saving humanity."
]]>The villagers, led Nana (chief) Kofi Karikari, successfully claimed in their civil case that Ghana Australia Goldfields, Ltd. unlawfully forced them out of their village and destroyed their buildings. The company, which was later acquired by the AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem mine, claimed that the village did not exist at the time the mine was established, and the structures were built later in a bid to extract compensation from the company.
"The Nkwantakrom community was able to prove that the village had been on the map of Ghana long before the establishment of Ghana Australia Goldfields in the early '90s," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, executive director of WACAM, the environmental and human rights organization that assisted Nkwantakrom in its case. "The community helped the first surveyor of the mine in locating important landmarks such as rivers when the company engaged in reconnaissance surveys. And Nana Kofi Karikari proved that he was made the chief of the community in 1968."
Nana Karikari and the villagers were represented in the high court by the legal aid organization Center for Public Interest Law (known as CEPIL), which with WACAM assists communities affected by mining. Both are partners of Oxfam America.
"Now through a court of competent jurisdiction, the guilty one has been found," Chief Karikari said after the court delivered the verdict. "Today, through WACAM and CEPIL, we have realized we have the right to live."
In addition to ordering the company to pay 4,000 Ghana cedis (US$3,800), the decision by Justice Francis K. Opoku also awarded:
Although AngloGold Ashanti has expressed its intention to appeal the decision of the high court, Owuso-Koranteng of WACAM said that the villagers of Nkwantakrom were pleased with the result of their 10-year legal case, and that the decision has built their confidence and the confidence of other communities engaged in legal cases against mining companies in Ghana.
]]>Having completed a training program with the environmental and human rights organization WACAM, partly funded by Oxfam America, Ayensu said he could tell what had happened: "WACAM has taught me how to identify a polluted stream," he said. Ayensu then went to alert others in Teberebie that there was a cyanide spill in the streams that supply water and fish for him and about 100 families that live along them.
Ayensu's colleague Emilia Amoateng, leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, immediately started an investigation. Knowing that cyanide is used to separate gold from ore in the mining projects surrounding Teberebie, she centered her investigation on the polluted streams near the south gate of Gold Fields Ghana mining company, and behind the waste piles of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mines. However Gold Fields has a drain from its tailings dam (a waste storage area) that runs into the stream. She also found that BARBEX Technical Services, a chemical supply company to the various mines in the area, has also constructed a drain from its warehouse into the stream. An accidental cyanide spill from either of these sources would therefore enter the streams quite easily. Recent heavy rains increased the likelihood that water overflowing from these sites would carry any spilled chemicals into the waters.
Moses Ayuba, the district program officer for Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said water tests had shown extremely high levels of acidity, but that he was unable to identify the cause of the acid in the river. He said that further testing on fish and water should help identify the source of the pollution.
Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the director of WACAM, said that the pollution represented a serious public health problem. "Some people who mistakenly went swimming in the river had their skin peeled off," he said. "Those who drank the polluted water and ate some of the fish are having serious stomach problems. We have helped seven of them get medical attention."
Owusu-Koranteng went on to say that the mining and chemical supply companies have been reluctant to take responsibility for the pollution. "The mining companies and EPA initially tried to push the blame on 'galamsey' [small-scale mining] activities and later shifted the blame to chemical fishing." He went on to say that chemical fishing is unusual in this area, and in any case would never be done during the rainy season when the rivers are high. He also said that people living near the Barbex Technical Services had been previously warned by the company not to drink from the river, and were permitted to take tap water from the company.
Villagers in Teberebie are now calling on the EPA to help them defend their right to live in a clean environment, and are planning a demonstration to bring media attention to this incident.
]]>"This award is dedicated to the poor mining communities," said Kwarteng. "Their struggle has been recognized. I hope this will encourage people to continue the fight against irresponsible mining."
Kwarteng has served as an advisor to Oxfam America's partners in Ghana that are working to help communities affected by mining pollution and other social problems.
Kwarteng's article described the problems of acid mine drainage, which pollutes rivers and streams with acid leaching from rocks exposed in mining. He wrote about a report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on an environmental impact assessment for the proposed mine run by the Newmont Mining Corporation of Denver.
Kwarteng gained access to the report after a petition was filed under the US' Freedom of Information Act. When the EPA report became available to the public, it revealed that the testing carried out by Newmont on the potential of acid mine drainage was inadequate. His article was published in the Daily Graphic, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Ghana.
The EPA report also noted that the amount of cyanide that would be allowed in water discharged and held in waste holding areas would be above acceptable standards. Kwarteng's article quoted the EPA report: "Cyanide will be discharged into the tailings facility at 1,000 times the aquatic life water quality standard and 100 times the drinking water standard, thereby setting up for future water quality problems."
Press articles critical of the mining industry in Ghana are unusual. Kwarteng said that access to technical data made his award-wining story particularly strong. "Most of the mining companies here have a way of controlling information, but in this case I got some primary data," he said. "These are facts that could not be disputed."
Kwarteng has also been threatened with lawsuits by mining companies when he published stories about controversial subjects. "Mr. Kwarteng has made great sacrifices to report on many critical mining community issues such as military and police brutalities in mining communities, cyanide spillages, forced evictions of mining communities, and environmental problems," said Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, director of WACAM, an environmental and human rights organization in Ghana that works in partnership with Oxfam America.
]]>She was also furious. "This should not happen to us," she said later, referring to the residents of her village of Teberebie, which had been relocated to accommodate a new mining operation in the area. "What did we do wrong?"
Mr. Baidoo had been walking away from a confrontation between farmers and a military force when he was wounded. The protest arose after the military began blocking a road the farmers used to travel to their fields where they grow cocoa and palm trees, yams, cassava, and other fruits and vegetables. Having recently been denied this route through the mine property, and tired of the alternative—a longer, 12-mile round trip on foot—the entire town turned out in February 2006 to demand access to the road. Baidoo and one other man were shot, and several people were beaten.
Amoateng immediately called WACAM, the environmental and human rights organization partly funded by Oxfam that had trained her and others in the community. "I reported that Anthony had been shot, and was lying in his own blood," she said. After WACAM's director Daniel Owusu-Koranteng called the head of the AngloGold Ashanti mine company, Baidoo got the medical care he needed to survive at the company's expense. After recovering for eight months in the hospital he is now disabled.
Teberebie is a farming community in the Wassa West District of Ghana's Western Region. The community was resettled in 1991 to make room for the AngloGold Ashanti, Iduapriem Mine, which is now producing over 300,000 ounces of gold per year. It is just one of many scenes of violence over the last several years, as Ghana has thrown open its doors to foreign companies and relaxed its rules on investment to encourage more mining. The shootings in Teberebie were just two of 15 reported by the BBC in 2005 and 2006.
Amoateng is now a leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, which consists of 35 farmers who have worked with WACAM to learn about their human rights under Ghana's constitution and Minerals and Mining Act. She is leading this group in a legal case against AngloGold, alleging non-payment of compensation for their lost farms, which are now buried under piles of waste rock.
Amoateng, 30, said she is now more aware of how the government and mining companies in the area are violating the rights of people in her community—and what to do about it. "Because of WACAM, I now know where to go and who to contact in case of any problem in the community," she said. Her recent activities have included leading a march to the nearby town of Tarkwa, where radio, television, and newspaper journalists interviewed her about the situation facing farmers in Teberebie.
In Ghana, as in many other countries in Africa and other parts of the world, women do not usually lead political struggles. Speaking out publicly is simply out of the question for most women in communities affected by mining in Ghana. Men are normally perceived as the voices of the community. But with the right training and personal ambition, women like Amoateng are showing they are strong leaders.
To more effectively represent her community, Amoateng is presently studying to finish high school and prepare for university. She aspires to be a lawyer and an advocate for women and children.
Her concerns center on basic justice for Teberebie. "The 1992 constitution and the Minerals and Mining Act are my closest friends now," Amoateng said. "I don't want the mining company to cheat my community. And I know my rights as a citizen living in a mining community."
Amoateng's work is a good example of how WACAM uses education as a tool to empower mining communities in their struggle to improve their living conditions. Her training with WACAM has strengthened her community as well as her own ability to represent her neighbors. "This has made me very powerful in the sight of both the mining company, and the men in my community," she said. "I am proud of myself."
Jerry Mensah-Pah is a radio and newspaper journalist based in Tarkwa, Ghana, and has been covering human rights violations related to communities affected by mining for four years. He works for WACAM in the Western Region of Ghana as its assistant programs officer.
]]>In 1996 he and about 25,000 others from several villages were informed they were being evicted from their farms in Ghana's western rain forests to make room for a gold mine run by Gold Fields Ghana, Ltd. "I was not happy," Pelpuo said. "But at the end of the day I had to accept it because the government gave the land to the company. They are not treating us fairly, giving the land to the company without informing the community members."
Since the government of Ghana retains the rights to the minerals under his land, there was not much a farmer like Pelpuo could do—or so he thought. He, along with others from several villages being moved to a new town called New Atuabo, attended a training program led by Oxfam America's partner WACAM, where they learned about their basic rights to own property. They realized that they had a right to negotiate compensation for their lost homes and lands. "Initially we had no knowledge, and we had to learn that what the company was doing was not right," Pelpuo said.
Gold Fields and government representatives did negotiate with community representatives, but the talks became difficult. One community representative was intimidated and eventually arrested for allegedly insulting representatives of the military and local chiefs supporting the mine's offer, according to Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, Executive Director of WACAM. After convincing him to publicly apologize to the chief, the company and its allies then got 95 percent of the relocated families to go along with the deal.
However, Pulpuo and about 125 others refused to accept the compensation offer, and took action themselves late in 1996. With the help of WACAM and the legal aid organization CEPIL, they began negotiating with Gold Fields, a company with mining operations in four countries that last year made a $69 million net profit with over 700,000 ounces of gold from their Ghana mine alone.
At the heart of the disagreement between the company and the group of farmers, which became known as the Lawyer's Group, was the so called "value for value" calculation used by the company to determine what size concrete house would replace existing homes, many made of mud with thatch roofs. "I had 12 rooms," said Agnes Ackon, 68, a mother of five and grandmother of 12. "They were going to replace them with six."
"We learned the language of the court, and got paralegal training to understand our rights," Pelpuo said. "When we met with the company we did not entertain any fears, because we knew our rights. And out of this, the company could see what we were saying at first, and we started to get some of the things we need."
While they were negotiating, many of the Lawyer's Group members stayed in their existing homes as the mining activity moved in around them. One group of homes lost all their clean water as mine activity affected nearby streams, and all suffered from loss of income as their fields were converted to mining pits and waste rock dumps. Many were forced to pull their children out of school because they could no longer afford the fees.
The Lawyer's Group and Gold Fields struggled to come to agreement until Agnes Ackon came up with the solution in 2001: "I suggested that the hospital was now too far away since we moved, and we needed a clinic here now," she said. So in exchange for accepting a new house with fewer rooms and some cash, the Lawyer's Group secured a health clinic for New Atuabo.
"We had to sacrifice for it," Pelpuo said. It was particularly generous of the Lawyer's Group members as they had suffered already at the hands of the company and their neighbors, who had treated them as foolish renegades for disputing their compensation. Yet the Lawyer's Group thanked them by negotiating a public benefit the whole town could enjoy. They even got a commitment from the regional health authority to staff and supply the clinic after construction was completed.
Like many real-life stories, there is not yet a happy ending in New Atuabo. Although the town's neat concrete houses with metal roofs are now arranged on straight streets, they mask the problems of unemployment among the displaced farmers, many of whom are illiterate and unable to secure jobs at the mine.
The new housing comes with new costs, as well. As Pelpuo puts it, "Where we used to live we did not have to pay for water, but after resettlement all this cost is now on the community members. We have to pay for water, sanitation, and we have no jobs."
The members of the Lawyer's Group also suffered an insult when the new health clinic was officially commissioned in 2002. At a public ceremony, the health ministry and mine company took full credit for its construction, and failed to recognize that the money used to build it came out of the compensation fund negotiated from the relocated farmers in the Lawyer's Group.
Despite this indignity, the farmers did learn about and stand up for their rights—a real achievement. "There was lots of intimidation" said Owusu-Koranteng of WACAM. "But they persisted, and it led to a better settlement for the entire community."
]]>West Africa has made enormous strides toward democracy in recent years. Amid enduring poverty, vibrant networks of farmers, young people, and human rights activists—men and women alike—have emerged, uniting and mobilizing to confront injustice. With funding, training, and advocacy support from Oxfam, these energetic groups are seeking to improve their lives, to participate in decisions that affect them, to speak out, and to break away from the fate of poverty.
]]>?The stage is set for important improvements in the way aid is delivered. But the Accra Agenda needs to be backed by urgent action if it is to live up to its name. It won?t have any impact on the lives of people living in poverty unless its promise is put into practice,? said Robert Fox, head of the Oxfam International delegation in Accra.
?This agreement must be a floor, not a ceiling. We encourage all donors to go further in accelerating the pace of reform. Oxfam knows that when aid is delivered well, it brings real results for women and men living in poverty. If governments north and south match their words with action, we could see real progress in tackling poverty.? said Robert Fox.
The Accra accord calls for donors to make longer-term aid commitments and sets a new target for donors to deliver aid through developing countries? own systems. This will be a challenge for donors, said Oxfam, citing a recent survey showing only 46 percent of aid went through recipient country systems. It also includes measures to make aid more accountable.
?We are pleased to see a stronger commitment to transparency, showing what donors fund and how recipients spend,? said Fox. ?And we welcome the recognition that citizens and their organizations have a vital role in defining development priorities and holding governments to account.?
A compromise agreement was reached among official negotiators on Wednesday, without any time-bound targets. But developing country and European ministers arriving in the Ghanaian capital Wednesday night argued for specific commitments and dates for action.
Developing countries and non-governmental organizations have pointed to the urgent need to reform aid to prevent waste and give developing countries more control. Uganda, for instance, had to deal with 684 different aid agreements, from 40 different donors between 2004 and 2007.
?There is much more that can and must be done to improve quality, but equally important we need to boost the quantity of aid if we are going to end poverty and improve access to health care, education and clean water,? said Fox. ?At the UN meetings later this month on the Millennium Development Goals and the November meetings on development finance, donor countries have to get serious about scaling up aid to meet the enormity of the challenge. With more and better aid, we can make a real difference.?
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