We are pleased to welcome Moses Kambou to the Greengrants West Africa Advisory Board. Moses is the Executive Director of the Organization for Capacity Building for Community Development (ORCADE) in Burkina Faso. ORCADE is a research, human rights and advocacy group that works to build the capacity of civil society in Burkina to improve the livelihoods of the country’s poor and vulnerable. Moses also teaches at the University of Ouagadougou in the faculty of Languages, Arts and Communications and has a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Moses tells us, “I set up ORCADE to help the community because as a university professor, I saw that teaching wasn’t as effective if the students did not have food or jobs to sustain them in school.” Moses’ experience with environmental advocacy and higher education in Burkina Faso brings a valuable new perspective to the West Africa Advisory Board and extends its reach to a new geographic region.
Challenges Facing Burkina Faso and West Africa
West Africa is riddled with open-pit gold mines that cause destructive environmental and socio-economic impacts. One of the more destructive gold mine projects was, and continues to be, the Poura open-pit mine in Burkina Faso, which closed in 1999. “The company did not rehabilitate the open pits or get rid of the remaining oil spills, cyanide deposits, and dynamite. People continue to dig in the pits, collecting rocks and trying to extract the gold by using toxic mercury treatments. People throw these barren rocks and powder everywhere in town and the rains wash the toxins into the drainage system to the Black Volta, a major river that flows into Ghana.” As a result, the water supply has become contaminated not only for this community, but also for a host of communities downstream.
In addition to the environmental degradation caused by the mine, Moses emphasizes that the community surrounding the mine was also economically devastated. “Most of the workers were not prepared for the mine closure and did not know what to do so they resorted to artisanal mining—which is risky economically, environmentally, and physically. Others could not pay children’s school fees because they had no compensation, and some preferred suicide to this shame. Economic activities in Poura came virtually to a complete stop due to a lack of job opportunities and assistance for the workers. These socio-economic issues are still a reality in Poura today.” This type of situation demonstrates the interrelated challenges that people face in providing for their families while also promoting a clean environment that doesn’t harm their health. One of the first steps in addressing these challenges is to educate people about their rights and the specific activities they can pursue to ensure that these rights are protected.
Organizing communities in West Africa around environmental and social justice issues is difficult, as many have no experience with coming together to influence policy and act as decision-makers. “Communities that would benefit from advocacy campaigns have little or no experience in advocacy and see advocacy as something abstract; they are used to organizations that come and deliver services and food. Changing this mindset so that people understand that they can influence policy decisions is not an easy task, since they have never been consulted on their needs for development. Most of them are unaware of their basic rights as citizens.” In Burkina Faso, which is marked by post-colonial instability and extreme poverty, grassroots groups face immense challenges in organizing and educating local communities about the environmental issues affecting them and how they can work to stop the issues.
Working with Greengrants
Moses became involved in the environmental field through a research project on the effects of mining in his country and first heard about Greengrants through a contact at the Third World Network, which is a non-profit international network of organizations and individuals involved in issues relating to development. As the first advisor from Burkina Faso on the West Africa Advisory Board, Moses hopes to learn from other advisors in the region about lessons learned and strategies used to organize and promote environmental awareness, specifically around mining issues, as well as applying his expertise in finding groups doing great work in the region. Moses plans to support groups working to increase the visibility of the public voice in extractive-industry decision making, promote education around citizen rights, and strengthen networks among organizations working in Burkina Faso and other West African countries. When he’s not volunteering for the West Africa Advisory Board and working with ORCADE, Moses enjoys farming, teaching, and reading.