The discussion so far suggests that there is an emerging new understanding about the role of communication in development. One of the motivations for this study was to look at the place of the state in the research on development communication. If the institutional agency of the state in development communication from the 1960s onwards was neglected by researchers, they may now have little opportunity to appreciate the instrumentality of the postcolonial state in the contemporary conjuncture. This is because there is something close to a paradigm shift from an active state to a diminished state, with the private sector assuming most of the developmental responsibilities of the state, development communication issues being inclusive.
9 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=12893
The denial of state responsibility for the democratization of media facilities in Ghana is part of a rather comprehensive attempt at redefining the role of the developmental state in the postcolony. At least this is a subject that has been specifically discussed at the board level of the World Bank (World Bank 2000b). A March 30, 2000 meeting of the board specifically framed its strategy around three themes one of which was changing the role of the state in Ghana. This implies both withdrawal from activities that the private sector can do better, as well as achieving sharp improvement in public service delivery (World Bank 2000b, 2). What is interesting is that the Bank articulates the rolling back of the state within a Ghana government plan to reduce poverty: “The overriding goal of the Government of Ghana’s development Strategy for Poverty Reduction and the support of the World Bank group is to eliminate hard-core poverty. Within that broad goal, the proposed business strategy of the Bank Group would help the government to i) raise the growth rate of the economy; ii) redefine the role of the State; and iii) implement their strategy more effectively on the ground” (World Bank 2000b, 7).
A careful reading of the Bank’s documents suggests that the Bank’s agenda to roll back the state is often tangentially tied to Ghana government programs. For instance, articulating the rationale behind the rolling back of the state, it ties it to two Ghana government programs, The Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy and the Ghana-Vision 2020. The Ghana-Vision 2020 does not explicitly state that the role of the state is being redefined. But the Bank puts it that its redefinition of the state to mean “less state” is premised on the Ghana-Vision 2020. It is a fraudulent articulation, which finds no resistance from the side of the Ghanaian State. And then goes on to say that: “it is the Bank staff’s view that the main factor which has limited the disengagement of the state is lack of commitment by the top level of the Government to go very far” (World Bank 2000b, 12). The fact is that the idea of rolling back the state is a World Bank initiative, but it is presented as the postcolonial state’s wish and initiative.
In the particular case of Ghana, the Bank pointed out that the state’s involvement in the business of media and utilities is an indication of the “overextended” nature of public service.
The bank defines the media and utilities as non-public goods and therefore conditions the future financial flows to the abandoning of these sectors (World Bank 2000b, 12). It argues that Ghana scores low marks on several indicators of the Bank because of what it terms as excessive state involvement in the economy. To reverse this trend, the Bank recommends,
“commercializing Government operations.” Who should replace the void? The private sector and Non-Governmental Organizations, the Bank recommends.
The labeling of media and utilities as non-public goods is a troubling re-articulation of the place of media in the nationalist project. This smacks of the worse form of economic fundamentalism. Even in most of the developed world where commodification of the economy is widespread and advanced, utilities such as water and some aspects of the media (very limited though) are still considered public goods with all the privileges of strong state regulation. According to the Ghana-Vision 2020, only about 56% of Ghanaians have access to reliable supplies of water. Only 39% of the rural segment of the population has access to safe drinking water. The development plan goes on to say:
The insufficient observance of hygienic practices in these areas as a result of an inadequate water supply contributes to the prevalence of water-borne diseases such as cholera in urban slums. In the rural areas, most communities rely on ponds and streams as their source of water, resulting in undue exposure to guinea-worm, bilharzias and other water-borne diseases. Poor access to water, in the both rural and urban areas, not only increase risk of morbidity and mortality, but also increases the drudgery of women and children, especially in poor households, since it is they who are assigned responsibility for the collection of water; hence the significance of water supply to the human development program (Ghana-Vision 2020 1997, 169).
Who should undertake the task of increasing access? The Ghanaian government says the state in collaboration with NGOs (Ghana-Vision 2020, p.171). The World Bank says private sector participation will improve access. Let us remember 30 % of the people cannot participate in a commodified environment because they earn less than a dollar a day. So the private sector will not border to increase water access to them. That is not important to the World Bank whose mission statement is to reduce poverty in the world. Whose idea wins in the water conflict in Ghana? One can confidently say it is the World Bank’s. How? Well, it tied government commitment to privatize water as a condition for the disbursement of certain grants and loans (World Bank 2000). The Government of Ghana has given in despite protests from civil society organizations such as Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC), which has been at the forefront of organizing the resistance movement called Coalition Against the Privatization of Water (CAP of Water). For Rudolph Amenga Etego, National Coordinator of CAP of Water, the issue is an ideological battle between international multilateral organizations including governmental agencies such as USAID on the on hand and civil society activists like ISODEC and CAP of Water. “They are ready to pump grants and loans to the private sector that they are preparing to take over public utilities such as water in Ghana. All they want to prove is that privatization works. But the very private companies they are preparing have clearly indicated that they are not interested in serving poor areas where there will be no profits.”10
Currently there is no civil society movement campaigning against the gradual state divestiture from the media. Probably the most important lesson we can derive from the handling of the privatization of water supply in Ghana is that it is only a matter of time that state-owned GBC and GNA will be parceled out to the highest bidder, leaving cultural minorities who are also economically marginalized without a forum to be heard within the national imagined community. For the World Bank, selling the state holdings in the media will help commercialize government operations and make it more efficient. What is not answered is whether state efficiency will be determined by how well it reaches out to the people or how well it balances its books. But the ultimate determinant of state efficiency, as Barnett (1997) argued, will be how it buys legitimacy among the various constituents that make up the nation by democratizing material welfare.
10 Interview in Accra on May 17th, 2002