The case of Ghanacoop : from a bilateral agreement to a social contract between migrants communities and the country of origin

Results: Social field : MIDCO (Migrants Initiatives for Development in the Country of Origin) label for the recognition and tutorship of migrants entrepreneurial initiatives : www.ghanacoop.com/midco ; “Light for Ghana” project and “Switch light in Africa” campaign, in partnership with WWF Italia and Fairtrade Italia for the implementation of photovoltaic implants for rural development; SAR Rural Health project, in partnership with NordiConad. Economic field : importation of Fair-Trade certified exotic fruits and MIDCO certified ethnic products; agro-food production through a controlled farm, according to environmental-friendly parameters; diversification of products and suggestions for the large-retailers demand (snacks, dry fruits and fresh fruits, fruits salades); vocational training and advising on work opportunities and administrative assistance for (Ghanaian) migrants.

Trasferability field : import of organic products from Poland to Italy, through the intermediation of Polish migrants communities in Modena and Bologna; import of organic products from Albania to Italy, through the intermediation of Albanian migrants communities (mainly second generations ones) in Modena. Outputs: At the end of 2007, Ghanacoop reached a global economic result of almost € 1.000.000,00, as the main result of the economic initiative. Lessons learned: After a few years of implementation and management, at least many lessons may be pointed out, either at the general and specific level. Ghanaian government has a lot of difficulties in passing from rhetoric to action, since in many cases, excepting from the Ministry of Agriculture, it is not really interested in giving chances to diasporas to participate in development. In particular, Ghanacoop project faced the main obstacles during the first phase of the agreement and especially during the stipulation.

The main factors were correlated to the absence of trustful relationship between migrants and Italian institutions and to the weak use of formal channels for transferring money or goods into the country of origin by migrant communities. In Ghana, insufficient access of the rural population to banking services remains a critical issue, as banking networks rarely extend beyond large cities and in many cases financial institution lack capacity of remittances management, according to the inefficient system of financial intermediation. Then, there have been many other factors relied to personal migrants attitude, training and culture such as lack of competences, delays in fulfilling actions, traditional functions, too much expectation and no attention to quality in every step of the productive and distributive chain (since Ghanacoop is a key example of a social zero Km chain, being both producer and seller).