Canadian NGOs and Grass Roots Leadership/ Democracy in Ghana

Presented at Ghana Golden Jubilee Symposium, Kwantlin University College, Vancouver, BC. Introduction: Grass roots leadership and democracy in Gold Coast's independence struggles provide an important key to understanding success and failures of Canadian and other foreign NGOs in post-independence Ghana. Those NGOs that tap into Ghanaian grass roots leadership and democracy are able to facilitate development in civil society. Those that do not tap into this vital resource contribute to growth without development. NGOs emerge to fill gaps in civil society left by disconnect between State/Government and grass roots. Many Canadian NGOs in Ghana are motivated by love for Africa, to help poor and disenfranchised--A LAUDABLE GOAL. However, because of their disconnect from grass roots leadership and democracy they become mere charities creating social parasites and deepening dependency syndrome of Ghana. For Canadian NGOs in Ghana to empower civil society, particularly poor and disenfranchised, they need to take cues from key ingredient used to achieve success in Gold Coast independence struggles. The key was Nkrumah and CPP's effective connection with grass roots leaders and their democratic practices. Leadership and Grass Roots Democracy in Ghana's Independence Struggles: Ghana's independence struggles began formally with establishment of United Gold Coast Convention. This first political party of Ghana aimed to rely on vanguard or elite to organize struggle for independence. This organizations and governance system was foreign and antithetical to indigenous governance of various ethnic groups of Gold Coast. In these communities, governance thrived on grass roots leadership and democracy. Kwame Nkrumah's strategy proved to be a different one. He turned to the people, grass roots, to facilitate a democratic mass movement. His background of poverty on margins of Gold Coast gave him more credibility as a populist leader than all his overseas education. The poor youth, farmers, women and wage earners of Gold Coast were far removed in social spectrum from intellectuals and professionals of colony. The grass roots were already directed against colonial government. They were therefore natural allies to Nkrumah in his search for a wide-ranging grass roots coalition to challenge local colonial authorities. The democratically operated mass movement consisted of three main grass roots groups (Birmingham, 1990): detached youth (Verandah Boys), cocoa farmers, women, and workers. * The Youth Movement The core of youth movement was composed of school leavers and drop-outs who came to urban centers in search of employment and slept on back verandahs of distant relatives. When Nkrumah broke with UGCC in 1949, it is this youth movement that was turned into initial autonomous Convention People's Party (ibid). * Cocoa Farmers To gain a broad base of support from voters, Nkrumah connected with and motivated cocoa farmers to organize a democratically strong movement in support of CPP's independence struggle against Colonial government that was exploiting these farmers (ibid.). * Women The liberation movements of Africa discovered that one way of mobilizing support was to seek approval of women. Powerful market women of Ghana were leaders who democratically organized grass roots women to facilitate Nkrumah's early organizing ventures. In independent struggles, Gold Coast grass roots women were cheer leaders, fund-raisers, street-demonstrators, boycott organizers in support of cause represented by Nkrumah and grass roots in general (ibid.). * The Workers The Gold Coast wage-earners, especially railway workers trade union movement of Takoradi, were a significant source of support for Nkrumah-led independence struggles. …

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