A team of IBM specialists working with the Peace Corps has presented recommendations to Ghanaian authorities on a range of issues aimed at supporting Ghana’s drive for technology utilization, academic development, gender equality and social transformation.
The IBM team members’ month-long, pro bono consulting assignment in Accra saw them working on several projects at the country’s Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, and government agencies responsible for national academic programs and curriculum development, female empowerment and mentorship. Designing programs to promote education, training and opportunities for young women and disadvantaged citizens, they also worked with TECHAiDE, a technology-focused social enterprise that addresses girls’ empowerment and citizens’ development needs.
The 12-person IBM team, from eight countries, was the twelfth group since 2010 to provide assistance to Ghana as part of IBM’s Corporate Service Corps, which provides problem-solving support from IBM’s top employees to educational institutions, small businesses, non-governmental organizations, and governmental agencies in emerging markets.
For many aspects of this deployment, IBM collaborated with Peace Corps volunteers to support Peace Corps’ Let Girls Learn program in Ghana. Launched by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in 2015, Let Girls Learn is a U.S. government effort that aims to address the range of challenges preventing 62 million adolescent girls from attending and completing school, and from realizing their potential as adults.
This was the first overseas collaboration between IBM and the Peace Corps since the two agencies launched an innovative public-private partnership to allow highly skilled corporate professionals to serve overseas in short-term, high-impact pro bono consulting assignments through the Peace Corps Response program. The project in Ghana will serve as a model for at least two more overseas collaborations later this year — one in the Philippines that will focus on disaster preparedness and resiliency, and the other in Mexico, focused on environmental issues.
As one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, Ghana urgently seeks to improve girls’ education, women entrepreneurship and empowerment, and the integration of women into its national development process. Jobs creation, mass literacy and youth empowerment have been identified by the United Nations as crucial to Ghana’s economic and social development agenda.
“Ghana continues to make very good progress in her quest to foster academic, economic, social and financial inclusion,” said Dr. Stephen Adu, Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service in the Ministry of Education. “Our work with IBM and the Peace Corps will help us solidify ongoing plans to bring women and disadvantaged sections of society in to the mainstream of development efforts.”
IBM presented its recommendations and findings to the following pro bono clients:
The Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection and the Ministry of Education: using analytics to measure the effectiveness of previous social marketing campaigns on girl child education, an IBM team developed an extensive female mentorship strategy supported by a web-based information management system. The team made recommendations for institutional ownership, outreach, and continuous impact analysis, being critical success factors for the proposed national Girls Empowerment and Mentorship (GEM) network.
TECHAiDE: IBM’s recommendations for TECHAiDE were consistent with ongoing efforts to expand access to education through ICT enabled solutions to the disadvantaged in Ghana’s urban, sub-urban and rural communities. The IBM team helped create a prototype and content strategy for TECHAiDE’s flagship ASANKA product. ASANKA (acronym for All Subjects And New Knowledge Access) is a digital solution which increases access and affordability to educational and socially relevant content. The IBM team proposed a sustainable business model around organizational transformation, financing, marketing, product development and supply chain to assure widespread adoption of the ASANKA product, nationally.
In addition, the team helped establish relations between TECHAiDE and Peace Corps Ghana for on-going collaboration in support of Let Girls Learn programs. One IBM CSC volunteer will remain in Ghana for a few weeks to ensure wholesale transfer of data, recommendations and consulting support to the Peace Corps office in Ghana.
Ashesi University: Demonstrating their civic and innovative citizenship credentials during a day out in the community, the IBMers fostered cross mentoring activities between Peace Corps volunteers, undergraduates of Ashesi University – a leading not-for-profit Ghanaian institution – and 24 girls from selected Peace Corps supported schools, enabling the youths to acquire lifelong skills.
“IBM is once again delighted to be an enabler and a positive influence on the Ghanaian government’s plans for social growth and development,” said Angela Kyerematen-Jimoh, IBM’s Country General Manager for Ghana. “I am particularly pleased as Ghana will reap numerous development dividends from this historic alliance between IBM and the Peace Corps. It is a timely intervention which will boost ongoing efforts to advance the personal development and professional prospects of a significant but under-represented section of society.”
Since the launch of Let Girls Learn, with the help of corporate partners and individual donors from all over the U.S., Peace Corps has funded more than 100 Let Girls Learn projects in 22 countries throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central America. In addition, more than 800 Peace Corps volunteers have already received training to become catalysts for community-led change to improve girls’ access to education and empowerment.
“When we invest in the next generation of female leaders, we build a stronger global community,” said Tonia Wellons, Associate Director, Office of Strategic Partnerships for the Peace Corps. “The impact of empowering one woman with education and paid work ripples outward to positively benefit her children, community, country, and —eventually—the world.”
More than 130 Peace Corps volunteers are in Ghana working with their communities on projects in agriculture, education, and health. During their service in Ghana, Volunteers learn to speak local languages, including Dagaare, Dagbani, Ghanaian Sign Language, Gurune, Likpakpaln, Mampuli, and Twi. More than 4,495 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in Ghana since the program was established in 1961.
