Climate resilience through traditional resources: Shea and fonio boost women’s livelihoods in Ghana

May 10, 2024

By Pariesa Brody

1 min read

Traditional natural resources are unlocking environmental and economic opportunities for women in West Africa. Two companies partnered with the West Africa Trade & Investment Hub in Ghana are tapping into these resources to increase women’s incomes and resistance to climate change. Savannah Fruits Company, a shea butter exporter, is mobilizing women in cooperatives to process shea nuts into butter using artisanal methods with climate-smart adaptations. AMAATI is renewing an ancient African grain, fonio, to help women cultivate abandoned lands with this drought-resistant crop.

With support from the Trade Hub, these two companies are connecting the grassroots to the international market while ensuring that generations to come can profit from West Africa’s bountiful resources.

Togolese youth use new tools to avoid violent extremists and create positive alternatives

May 7, 2024

By Gloria Agyekum and Daniel Lynx Bernard

5 min read

In a narrow strip of northern Togo, the town of Cinkassé touches the border with Burkina Faso on its north and Ghana to the south. With high rates of poverty and a limited presence by the central government, the area is vulnerable to instability. In July 2022, extremist violence in Burkina spilled over in a deadly attack as armed groups targeted civilians and soldiers.

Despite the risks, youth frequently cross the borders to find work on farms. This transit makes them vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremist groups.

Such groups may reach out to youths via mutual acquaintances, enticing them with the promise of a job opportunity across the border. In some cases, youth may unwittingly leave their existing jobs and expend their remaining funds for the trip. When the opportunity turns out to be recruitment by a violent extremist organization, they may feel they have no option but to join.

Gobre Rafiou, a 21-year-old from Cinkassé, says he almost fell into that trap. “Several times I received calls from a childhood friend asking me to give up everything to join him in Burkina Faso for a well-paid job,” Rafiou says.

Fortunately, Rafiou recently participated in an awareness session that alerted him to these types of offers. “With the training, I realized that I certainly escaped a recruitment network of extremist groups,” Rafiou says of the session offered through the Littorals Regional Initiative, a locally focused program that is supported by the USAID/Office of Transition Initiatives

Young people receiving training and coaching on preventing violent extremism in Dapoang, Togo, in August 2022.

Since 2021, the USAID/OTI program and its partners have implemented activities in Cinkassé to raise youths’ awareness of situations in which they could face the risk of being recruited into violent extremist organizations. The Littoral Regional Initiative partnered with the local non-governmental organization Association Nouveau Visage pour l’Afrique to raise awareness of preventing violent extremism among youth and help them develop strategies to prevent the spread of violent extremism.

From July to November 2021, the association, with support from the USAID/OTI Littoral Regional Initiative, conducted a series of trainings and public awareness campaigns that built the knowledge of 80 young leaders while fostering positive relationships among them.

The efforts sparked action by the participants. For example, in the Komologo district of Cinkassé, Association Nouveau Visage pour l’Afrique’s activities highlighted that when youth cross borders to work on farms, they face a higher risk of being recruited by violent extremist groups. Recognizing this threat, the youths set up their own agricultural cooperative to engage in market gardening in their community.

The training sessions also emphasized the importance of fact-checking and debunking false rumors related to violent extremism. Youths who completed the training created a WhatsApp group called “Stop Violent Extremism” that grew to 57 members. The group serves as a platform where youth can counter disinformation, discuss extremist violence and share tactics for avoiding it.

Creating a space for positive youth engagement

Youth also cross the border to seek entertainment. With a lack of facilities and conservative social environments in their own communities, youth in Cinkassé often travel to seek amusement, whether across the border to Burkina Faso or Ghana or south to the Togolese town of Dapaong. These trips can bring them in contact with violent extremist groups.

Recognizing the importance of providing a space for positive youth engagement and collaboration, stakeholders prioritized the establishment of a youth center in Cinkassé.

A winner of a drawing contest receives a prize during a meeting with officials in Cinkasse in May 2022. LRI used art to raise awareness among low-literacy communities about preventing violent extremism.

USAID/OTI’s Littoral Regional Initiative provided financial support to rehabilitate an existing building starting in February 2023. The mayor’s office collaborated with youth representatives from 16 neighborhoods to select facilities to be included in the center. The center was inaugurated in August 2023 with a basketball court, auditorium, library, study room and administrative offices.

By offering a range of facilities, the mayor’s office and Littoral Regional Initiative hope the center will foster positive youth engagement and social cohesion, thus reducing the risk of violent extremism while providing opportunities for personal and professional development.

Equipping youth for regional efforts

The effort to engage youth in the fight against violent extremism expanded to the regional level. From April to September 2022, the Littoral Regional Initiative partnered with the National Youth Council (CNJ) and Timbuktu Institute to conduct a comprehensive training program for 150 young participants from throughout the Savanes Region, including Cinkassé, Tone, Kpendjal and West Kpendjal.

The activity helped the youth develop their skills in leadership and communication to promote community engagement among youth. The training program also covered advocacy, conflict resolution, violence against women and girls and organizational development. Through workshops and mentoring, the participants gained valuable knowledge and tools to address the issue of violent extremism.

The captain of a football team proudly displays the cup after her team won a tournament in Cinkasse in October 2021 aimed at strengthening inter-communal relations. Photo by:

Youth become trainers and community leaders to prevent violent extremism. The impact of this training program was significant, and participants demonstrated an increased understanding of violent extremism and its underlying causes. They developed effective strategies to engage their communities and raise awareness about the dangers of extremist ideologies. As a result, the trained youth leaders initiated various outreach activities in their neighborhoods, reaching a wider audience and contributing to the prevention of violent extremism at the grassroots level.

One participant, whose name was withheld for security reasons, says the knowledge gained through the program was as valuable as the chance to connect with fellow youth advocates from around the region. “Thanks to the training, I understood the genesis of this phenomenon,” he says. “The opportunity to share with our brothers from Lome, Kpendjal, Cinkassé, Kpendjal West and Tone allowed us to gain in-depth knowledge of the issue of violent extremism.”

Unraveling social media’s impact in a Ghanaian border town

May 3, 2024

By Littorals Regional Initiative Staff based in Accra

4 min read

In February 2024, government representatives, accompanied by security force escorts, shut down four popular radio stations in Bawku in the Upper East region of Ghana due to inflammatory language. The shuttered stations urged the government to reconsider its decision, citing a lack of evidence, concerns about press freedom, and the reputation of the stations and employees, as well as the socio-economic impact of the closures.

The event stemmed from the emergence of a concerning phenomenon just three years earlier, when Bawku’s seemingly outward calm was marred by an undercurrent of manipulated information as anonymous accounts, allegedly affiliated with the conflicting Kusasi and Mamprusi ethnic groups, shared derogatory and inciteful posts.

This new dimension added a gloomy forecast to longstanding ethno-chieftaincy conflict in the area, as manipulated information became the subject of public scrutiny, heightened inter-ethnic tensions, and recourse to violence by the conflicting ethnic groups and their supporters. The Bawku conflict revolves around a disagreement between the Mamprusi and the Kusasi ethnic groups over the rightful ownership of the Bawku chieftaincy.

Recognizing the weight of this situation, the USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative (LRI) program collaborated with Zinc Network, a London-based media research firm, and discovered that the online landscape in northern Ghana has numerous anonymous accounts publishing content that violates the community standards of social media platforms.

To address this problem while enhancing local ownership, LRI worked with FactSpace West Africa, an Accra-based International Fact-Checking Network-verified organization. FactSpace provided fact-checking and social listening training to 40 journalists of diverse ethnic groups in Bawku and northern Ghana to strengthen ethical reporting and contribute to reducing the spread of manipulated information. After the training, the journalists created an inclusive fact-checking network and started applying their new skills to promote accurate reporting and debunk inaccurate content. But local journalists still face risks to their personal safety in the local context, complicating their reporting.

For nearly a year, FactSpace also conducted digital research through public channels focusing on information publicly shared on WhatsApp, Facebook, X, and other applications, revealing the concerning role of social media in perpetuating the Bawku conflict between the two ethnic groups. The key finding highlighted that the problem does not stem from these social media platforms, but rather how they are used to share manipulated information and hate speech.

Based on the analysis of over 100 posts on Facebook from February to August 2023, FactSpace noted a correlation between the frequency of hate speech shared and the increased probability of physical attacks against the conflicting parties. Based on limited evidence, the tools and algorithms used by social media companies appear to be insufficient in detecting and flagging graphic content and manipulated information published in local and coded languages, given the scope and urgency of the problem in Bawku.

Within this context, the growing reliance on social media platforms for information raises concerns about a further increase in manipulated information. FactSpace’s preliminary stakeholder engagements with civil society and peace institutions revealed the importance of understanding social media’s influence on multiple local conflicts and the operational gaps in local peace institutions and frameworks in effectively addressing them.

The radio station closures in February 2024 highlight that rampant polarization and scrutiny exist in traditional media outlets as well.

Stakeholders believe FactSpace’s research findings can aid journalists in understanding complexities, prioritizing ethics, and sharing accurate information on local conflicts. It also provides a foundation for advocacy toward peace and reduces the spread of manipulated information related to the conflict. They, however, emphasized caution when sharing conflict-related information to prevent potential pushbacks from conflicting parties.

FactSpace plans to publish its findings later this year to catalyze discussions among civil society and government stakeholders on developing contextualized solutions that balance protecting human rights and freedom of speech while safeguarding the online space.

The question remains: does promoting information integrity and resilience contribute to slowing down the conflict? Measuring the impact of disseminating accurate information in Bawku is currently a complex task primarily due to security concerns. It is challenging to determine the extent to which accurate information reaches the community and sustains attention. Moreover, research from the Harvard Kennedy School (2022) indicates that accurate information often lacks the same level of traction and momentum as negative information.

Accurate information is often shared by actors intervening positively in the conflict, sometimes during ongoing facilitated peace dialogues with conflicting parties and community members, but their reach is limited. Additionally, some degree of balanced reporting is happening through media stations outside of Bawku and at the national level. However, quantifying the number of listeners in Bawku who engage with this accurate information is difficult, further demonstrating the importance of unobstructed local reporting by media stations in Bawku.

Despite the discouraging outlook, the potential to utilize social media for positive purposes remains significant—accounts and content that advocate for a decrease in violence and encourage residents to actively engage in peacebuilding efforts are available.

Press freedom is associated with the fundamental right of freedom of expression. Within this context, it allows media actors to freely express themselves and report on issues while giving room for diverse opinions, inclusivity, and constructive public discussions. In conflict-affected communities like Bawku, press freedom and amplifying positive local voices that disseminate accurate information can contribute to strengthening inter-ethnic collaboration, preventing violence and promoting a healthier online environment.

Une entreprise de karité respectueuse du climat promeut la plantation d’arbres en milieu rural

April 15, 2024

By Pariesa Brody

1 min read

Le beurre de karité est une ressource majeure génératrice de revenus pour les femmes rurales à travers le Togo. Alors que la demande mondiale pour ce beurre riche en nutriments ne cesse de croître, une entreprise de beurre de karité transforme l’industrie tout en veillant à ce que les communautés puissent bénéficier du karité pour les générations à venir. Au cœur de leur activité se trouve une campagne de reboisement des arbres de karité dans les parcs du Togo.

Après avoir formé des coopératives rurales aux principes organiques et écologiques visant à protéger les précieuses ressources du Togo, Label d’Or achète leurs noix de karité et les transforme en beurre dans leur usine respectueuse du climat. Le produit final tient compte de l’environnement à chaque étape du processus et est exporté vers les marchés américains et européens.

Cette entreprise de soja donne aux agricultrices les moyens d’atteindre l’indépendance financière

April 14, 2024

1 min read

Dans un petit village près de Sotouboua, au Togo, Rachida Djobo donne aux femmes les moyens de s’impliquer dans la culture du soja, leur offrant ainsi une indépendance financière et une autonomie. Avec le soutien du West Africa Trade & Investment Hub de l’USAID, AGROKOM, une entreprise agricole biologique, a établi des liens entre les agricultrices rurales et le marché international, transformant les communautés et créant des emplois pour les femmes dans le secteur agricole.

How a climate-smart shea company is empowering rural communities to plant more trees

April 13, 2024

By Pariesa Brody

2 min read

Shea butter is vital in generating income for rural women in Togo. Recognizing the increasing global demand for this prized, nutrient-rich butter, one shea butter company ensures that communities can continue to benefit from shea for years to come. Central to their operation is a concerted effort to replant shea trees in Togo’s parklands.

The company, known as Label d’Or, has taken proactive measures to train rural cooperatives on organic and ecological principles, aiming to safeguard Togo’s invaluable resources. By purchasing shea kernels from these cooperatives, Label d’Or supports local communities and contributes to the preservation of the environment. The company then processes these kernels into shea butter in their climate-smart factory, where every step of the process considers the environment.

The resulting shea butter, produced with a focus on sustainability, is subsequently exported to American and European markets. Label d’Or’s commitment to ecological practices ensures that the final product meets the demands of environmentally-conscious consumers, setting a precedent for a more sustainable and prosperous shea butter industry in Togo.

About the Trade Hub

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the West Africa Trade & Investment Hub (Trade Hub) is a five-year (2019–2024) program that improves private sector productivity and competitiveness through market-based approaches.

The program partners with U.S. and West African private sector firms to generate new private sector investment in key industries as a way to create jobs and increase trade within and between West African countries, and with the United States through greater utilization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

It is an integral part of and contributor to the U.S. Government’s Prosper Africa initiative, which is supported by USAID Missions across West Africa.

This soy company is empowering rural woman farmers to reach financial independence

April 12, 2024

1 min read

In a small village outside Sotouboua, Togo, Rachida Djobo is empowering women to get involved in soy farming, providing them with financial independence and self-sufficiency. With support from the USAID West Africa Trade & Investment Hub, AGROKOM, an organic farming company, has connected rural soy farmers to the international market, transforming communities and creating jobs for women in the lucrative agricultural sector.

Q&A with Zyck Baggett, Senior Technical Advisor, Governance

April 11, 2024

By Daniel Lynx Bernard

4 min read

Elizabeth Mazyck (Zyck) Baggett joined Creative’s Communities in Transition Division with has more than 20 years of professional experience managing technical, administrative and financial aspects of international development projects.

We spoke to her about how her experience will translate into her new role.

Tell us about your local governance expertise.

I have spent the past decade of my career supporting governance projects, with a primary focus on improving systems at the central and local levels. I spent most of that time in the field serving as Deputy Chief of Party on projects in Liberia and Mali. With the Mali Sub-National Governance Project, we worked in all regions concentrating on strengthening local systems in public financial management and service delivery to increase citizens’ and the central government’s confidence in local governments.

Prior to that, I worked in Liberia on the Land Governance Support Activity as well as the follow-on project, the Land Management Activity. These projects worked extensively with the central government as well as very rural local communities to establish a robust land governance system to allow equitable access to land and formalize land rights. A central focus was implementing an inclusive and participatory process for communities to obtain deeds to their customary land in order to advance sustainable and equitable economic benefits. The initial project supported the central government in operationalizing its system, and the follow-on worked with communities to carry out the process of establishing their customary land rights and securing, for the first time, communities’ deeds to the lands they hold in common. Working on both projects was a great opportunity to see the continuity of the work and results over time.

What attracted you to Creative, and how do you envision leveraging your experience to support local governance efforts at Creative?

I have always liked the fact that Creative has a history of working in fragile and conflict-affected areas. After my time in Mali and Liberia, I was able to see firsthand the destructive legacy that conflict leaves behind and the real challenges that communities face trying to live, and local governments face trying to govern, in insecure unstable environments.

We currently see a trend of regions and countries that were once thought to be stable and democratic now facing complex threats and challenges they have never experienced before. This context requires a different way of thinking and working. Shifting or putting a focus on local government is the right approach, and I think that Creative offers unique combined expertise in governance, civil society and stabilization that can offer good solutions and programming. I also like that it is a company started by four women and has a lot of women in senior management positions. That is not something you see often in this industry.

What are some key lessons and considerations for effective local governance programs from your experience?

To me, it is all about having a people-centered approach that is designed in a culturally relevant context. We need to actively listen to what local governments and citizens want and need and to let them drive and lead the programming. Then, implementation needs to be done with programs and tools that are culturally relevant, otherwise it will not be sustainable nor have an impact that reaches all parts and peoples of the community. So much of what is done is still seen as “brought from the outside,” so we need to try to shift that perception, focus on local buy-in, and drive further into locally led design. We like to talk about capacity-building, yet there are so many culturally relevant capacities that are not ever considered when implementing a project.

Is local governance just about the delivery of local services?

Local governance is about service delivery, but it is also about identifying and addressing challenges in a community. It is about the government listening to the people they serve and finding ways to support their communities during increasingly challenging times. Although most of the time people look to the central government to provide stability through larger economic policies and other macro-level actions, I think local government is where people often feel that they have a voice, can be heard, and can make the changes that are needed. If citizens have a level of trust and confidence in the people they have chosen to lead, then governments can be a place that provides a forum for dialogue and innovative solutions, fostering a sense of community and social cohesion.

Demo Days empower West African women entrepreneurs

April 5, 2024

By Daniel Lynx Bernard

5 min read

Women entrepreneurs from across West Africa made their pitches to potential investors during a series of online events that demonstrated the value of public-private partnerships in overcoming barriers to economic development.

Akouvi Agbon, right, joins her staff in celebrating the growth of her company, Akouvi’s White Eagle (AWA), which processes palm kernel from 150 women growers in Togo. Agbon was introduced to private-sector investors through the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment Hub. (Photo courtesy AWA)

Business owners from Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo met private-sector investors during “Demo Day” events on March 22 and 28, 2024, supported by USAID’s West Africa Trade & Investment Hub. The 21 presenting companies had been selected as the most promising graduates of a business accelerator program run by the investment firm ShEquity and the nonprofit MBC Africa under a grant from the Trade Hub.

“Many investors say that they want to invest in women-led and owned businesses but that they can’t find a good pipeline,” said Pauline Koelbl, Managing Director of ShEquity. “So, we are here to address that—we provide that desired pipeline.”

While describing their progress to date and how much funding they need to get to the next level, the entrepreneurs described how they had integrated social and environmental concerns into their business models.

Awa Dembele returned to Mali after earning a master’s degree in environmental science in France. She wanted to see if she could help provide a solution to several problems in agriculture—an overreliance on chemical fertilizer and an abundance of organic waste—all while creating jobs. Her company, Damegreen, does just this by composting organic waste into organic fertilizer.

Dembele told investors she has found an eager market of customers but needs new capital to expand. For example, she is ready to sell in Senegal but first must pay for certifications. “We can go there if we have the necessary investments,” Dembele said.

Dembele sees her product as part of the concept of the circular economy, reusing instead of discarding.

Awa Dembele, right, presents the accomplishments of her organic fertilizer company Damegreen—sustainable and clean agriculture, a circular economy, hot composting and 1,500 tons of recycled waste in 2023—while vying for private-sector investment during a Demo Day organized with USAID’s West Africa Trade & Investment Hub.

In Cote d’Ivoire, Padianhoua Salimata learned at a young age the trade of growing pineapples and mangos from her father. Seeing how potential income was lost to spoilage and short seasons, she founded Layaki, which processes the produce into dried fruit and mango butter, thus increasing growers’ income.

Salimata has found strong demand in the UK. To sell in other countries, she told investors she needs support to expand her factory and obtain certifications.

“The development of this project will allow me to achieve one of the dearest goals of my life—namely, to create a foundation for the prevention of sickle cell disease so that no more women are forced to resign to take care of their children living with this disease,” Salimata added.

In Togo, Akouvi Agbon helped organize a cooperative of women growers to meet her company AWA’s demand for palm kernel oil.

“This also creates jobs for these women who live in rural areas and do not have a sustainable income,” Agbon said. “To date, AWA has enabled more than 150 women to have an income-generating activity at regular intervals.”

Noticing how much plastic packaging was discarded, Agbon added a new business activity—recycling. “The recycled plastic is then used in packaging for the production of palm kernel oil,” Agbon said.

Each of the entrepreneurs shared financial challenges—which they said are compounded by narrow perceptions of their role as women in business.

Fatoumata Traore’s Africa Mining Agency provides training and management services to Mali’s growing mining sector. But some clients are surprised to discover the company is led by women. “Women are really marginalized in these sectors,” Traore said. “Men say it’s not a job for women, that they belong in the home.”

Business owners noted that supporting African-owned processing companies keeps more jobs and income in Africa than the old model of exporting raw materials and importing finished products.

Sylvie Sagbo-Gommard of Lysa & Co. notes that the Senegalese company’s nut products are a healthy, locally made alternative to sugary imported treats. Aramatou Coulibaly made a similar case for the Ivorian grain processor Rama Cereal and noted that 80 percent of the company’s employees are women.

Other enterprises showcased were processors of foods and cosmetics African Foods Nutrition from Burkina Faso, Pneuma Food Scientifics and Savana Essence of Ghana, and BeautyList, Melting Moments, The Nut Place, Pleroma Foods, and Roki Foods of Nigeria; digital financial companies Amira Global Technologies of Cote d’Ivoire and Alajo and Rouza of Nigeria; logistics provider VDL Fulfilment of Ghana; recycling company Chanja Datti of Nigeria; educational content provider Ker Imagination Education Services of Senegal; and AskCare of Senegal, which sells medical equipment and supplies to rural clinics.

Rukayatou Saka presents a photo of her team at the online payment platform Amira Global Technologies during a Demo Day through USAID’s West Africa Trade & Investment Hub. The regional company hopes to expand throughout Africa.

Through its co-investment grant from the Trade Hub, ShEquity has provided technical support, mentoring and skill-building to 120 companies through its SHEBA business accelerator, readying them for investment. While the Demo Day events raise the companies’ visibility and chances of receiving new investments, they also strengthen the entrepreneurs’ skills in seeking support in the future.

The USAID West Africa Trade & Investment Hub, implemented by Creative Associates International, provides co-investment grants to help promising companies leverage additional funding from the private sector. Since its launch in 2019, the Trade Hub has awarded $83 million in co-investment grants to 92 private-sector companies in West Africa, enabling $408 million in private-sector spending which drove new revenue and job creation.

Closing the Gap: How two companies are improving health care accessibility in Senegal

April 4, 2024

By Pariesa Brody

1 min read

Mbour, Senegal — “I became a mother before I became a midwife,” says Ndeye Bigué Ndiaye. “During my first pregnancy, my mother’s midwife looked after me.”

Now, people stop Ndiaye on the street to tell her stories of the children that she delivered.

Midwives play a crucial role in women’s health care in Senegal, where there are only 1,450 doctors for a population of more than 17 million. And 70 percent of these doctors are in urban Dakar.

Despite this disparity, Senegal’s health system is still doctor-centric.

Beyond Clean Water

March 27, 2024

By Pariesa Brody

4 min read

When Marieme Diallo first took a sip of Diam’O water, it tasted like opportunity. It wasn’t just that the water was smoother and cleaner than the water from most people’s taps in Senegal. It was the promise of a new business venture.

Recognizing the need for clean water in Senegal, Diallo harnessed her entrepreneurial spirit and opened a Diam’O drinking water kiosk.

“At home, we all know the water we drink isn’t suitable,” Diallo explains. “So, when we saw these kiosks opening up, we started buying from them. My family liked the water, so we knew it would be a good chance to start a business.”

The Dakar-Mbour-Thies triangle, which includes the capital city, is home to more than half of Senegal’s population. However, the high population density in this region has led to challenges such as pollution and overuse, threatening the availability of clean water for the local population.

Although there has been an improvement in overall access to drinking water in Senegal, numerous areas still face challenges due to brackish and fluorinated water sources.

Many depend on bottled water or water sachets to drink. However, the high cost of water bottles renders them inaccessible to most of the population. The ubiquitous water sachet is produced and sold without regulation, increasing the risk of contamination. Both options contribute to plastic waste and pollution.

Marieme Diallo stands in front of her Diam’O water kiosk in Rufisque, Senegal. After she began purchasing Diam’O water, she realized the potential to open a kiosk herself. Photo by: Jim Huylebroek

Changing the Paradigm

West Africa Water (WAW), the company behind the brand Diam’O, set out to change the paradigm by establishing independent kiosks equipped with their own water filtration systems. Customers can refill their reusable containers at these kiosks, reducing the need for single-use plastic like bottles or sachets.

With support from USAID’s West Africa Trade & Investment Hub, West Africa Water successfully opened 25 new kiosks and improved dozens of existing ones. There are over 100 kiosks in the Dakar, Thies, Mbour, and Kaolack regions.

“Before, entrepreneurs weren’t able to get by financially. The production volume wasn’t enough and maintenance costs were too high,” says Serge Ndao, General Manager for West Africa Water. “The cooperation with the Trade Hub made our model sustainable. We optimized the distribution of kiosks. There’s been work to the kiosks’ specifications to make them more attractive.”

Beyond Clean Water

By taking care of initial installations, West Africa Water allows entrepreneurs to bring clean water to their communities with minimal startup costs. The company also provides regular quality testing, technical assistance, and marketing, finance, and customer service training to each kiosk.

WAW has created 401 jobs —219 for women and 268 for youth—through employment across its kiosks.

As a female entrepreneur, Marieme Diallo sees her Diam’O kiosk as a means to support her family and community.

“It’s not just about drinking the water, which is the most important thing. But you also have a source of revenue. You can take care of your family and children,” Diallo says. “And you know that people love the job you do, love the water you provide them, so it’s a success.”

Reaching the Community

The moment Marieme Diallo opens the doors of her kiosk in Rufisque on Sunday morning, people start appearing out of nowhere with empty blue water bottles ready to be filled.

Refilling a 20-liter bottle at Diam’O costs less than buying a 1.5-liter bottle at a store. The quality of the water is continually tested to ensure its quality.

In central Mbour, Ousmane Sarr’s kiosk is one of the largest in the West Africa Water network. But rather than depending on foot traffic, most of Sarr’s sales are through delivery. Through its partnership with the Trade Hub, West Africa Water has acquired delivery vehicles that allow kiosks to bring drinking water to their clients’ doorsteps.

“Delivery is a way for us to reach far more customers,” Sarr explains. “Most of our customers live far away, in areas where access to water is a real problem. Every neighborhood knows exactly when it’s time for the car to pass through.”

As the Diam’O delivery truck passes through the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Mbour, a loudspeaker plays a looped recording lauding the benefits of drinking the brand’s clean, accessible water. Hearing the familiar sound approaching, residents gather their bottles and come outside to flag down the water truck.

The driver then fills their containers from the 2,000-liter tank in the back. For those who don’t yet have their own containers, the truck holds new refillable bottles, too.

“The majority of the population, I would say 90 percent, knows that tap water is not quality water,” Sarr says. “Most water-borne illnesses are due to poor water consumption. And today, we’re raising awareness. We’re always explaining the quality of our water, what they’re currently consuming, and the dangers of drinking water that isn’t potable. The awareness-raising aspect has enabled us to reach many people, many of whom have now become customers.”

With around 5,000 customers per day, West Africa Water has provided access to drinking water to more than 325,000 people since its partnership with USAID began in November 2021.

In Ghana, a Queen Mother rallies her community

March 25, 2024

4 min read

At health centers in rural areas of Ghana, nurses stay on site overnight so they can provide care quickly in emergencies. In the farming community of Duong in Ghana’s Upper West Region, the nurses’ quarters were destroyed by a heavy rainstorm in 2020, so nurses had to live off-site, leaving a gap in service.

However, one of these nurses also held a traditional leadership role in the community.

Dr. Damien Punguyire, Director of Health Services for Ghana’s Upper West Region, left, watches as Dalia Haj-Omar, Deputy Country Representative for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, prepares to cut a ribbon with Dr. Hafiz Bin-Salih, Regional Minister for Upper West Region, on September 14, 2023, inaugurating health facilities constructed as a result of efforts by the Queen Mother of Duong village, Rosemary Bangzie, behind Haj-Omar. Photo by: USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative

Rosemary Bangzie works with the Duong community health center as a public health nurse for the regional health directorate. She also had been selected as the Queen Mother (Pognaa) of Duong village by elders and representatives of the local royal family.

In Ghana and other African countries, Queen Mothers play a pivotal leadership role in their communities and are often charged with community development and ensuring the local population’s well-being. But many Queen Mothers come into the role with little training or discussion regarding the expectations of their role.

Supported with training from the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives’ Littorals Regional Initiative, she was able to transform a loss in community resources into a gain.

In early 2023, Bangzie participated in a comprehensive training program through the USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative focused on leadership, conflict resolution and preventing violent extremism. A collaboration with the Otumfuo Center for Traditional Leadership, the training program showed Bangzie new ways to leverage her skills to address critical issues in her community.

She began by tackling the lack of adequate facilities at Duong’s health center. In addition to the loss of their living quarters, the nurses had been operating without toilet facilities for five years. Recognizing that the burden upon the nurses was also a hardship for the community as a whole, Bangzie raised the matter in a meeting with community elders.

“The idea of this project came up during one of my general meetings with my elders to discuss issues concerning the development, health and well-being of the entire community,” Bangzie recalls. “This was the period I was undergoing training on leadership, conflict resolution and violent extremism. The training empowered me to make the bold decision that has yielded this building today.”

Bangzie sought and received the support of traditional leaders at the regional level, the Upper West Region House of Chiefs. Underscoring the broader benefit to the community, Bangzie proposed to build not only a two-bedroom apartment for the nurses but to add an adolescent health corner at the health center. Applying lessons from the training in leadership and communication, she initiated fundraising efforts, securing significant contributions within the first two weeks, and kick-started the construction of the new building.

Bangzie had succeeded in uniting the community in support of the project, including financially. However, the ambition of the project exceeded the residents’ ability to donate funds.

“Despite the overwhelming support I received from the community, this project would have taken us more than two to three years to complete,” she explains. “When we finished the first level, we faced resource constraints, and it became challenging to seek individual contributions.”

Representatives of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives and its Littorals Regional Initiative gather in front of nurses’ quarters and an adolescent health corner constructed after advocacy and fundraising by Rosemary Bangzie, the Queen Mother of Duong village. Photo by: USAID OTI Littorals Regional Initiative

Undaunted, Bangzie turned to the organizers of the training program that had inspired the project. She submitted a formal request to the Littorals Regional Initiative to help complete the construction.

The USAID/OTI Littorals Regional Initiative focuses on promoting inclusive development, amplifying marginalized voices and addressing violent extremism. Through partnerships with local NGOs, the initiative provides support for targeted activities in Northern Ghana, where tensions and vulnerabilities create opportunities for extremist expansion.

Organizers of the Littorals Regional Initiative were impressed by the community’s efforts and the progress that Bangzie had already made in fundraising for the health center. They saw that her project matched the goal of inclusive development and that her organizing work had contributed to social cohesion. So, the initiative responded to the Queen Mother’s call for assistance and provided technical expertise and a grant of $25,000 to complete the project.

“With their assistance, we were able to complete the project within two months,” Bangzie says.

The new facilities are now fully functional and have significantly improved working conditions for the nursing staff. In September 2023, the Queen Mother joined representatives of the Office of Transition Initiatives and the Littorals Regional Initiative and the Regional Minister for Upper West Region, Dr. Hafiz Bin-Salih, at a ribbon-cutting inaugurating the new facilities attended by many community members.