Category: Lifestyle

The story of mPharma

It was an early morning in downtown San Francisco a few months ago and I was sitting in a Starbucks, thinking about what next to do with my life. After two successful interviews with Google, I had a good feeling that I would receive a job offer, but something just did not sit right with me. Around 9am, I received an email from a friend which had a link to an investigative article titled “Dirty Medicine” on CNNMoney. It tackled the issue of criminal fraud in Ranbaxy Laboratories, an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company. This article marked my return to Africa and my quest to use big data to help African governments develop better drug surveillance and monitoring systems.

The piece on Ranbaxy outraged me. The author writes that in a conference call with a dozen company executives, one brushed aside fears about the quality of the Aids medicine Ranbaxy was supplying for Africa. “Who cares?” the executive said. “It’s just blacks dying.”

At that moment, all I could think about were the 84 children who died in Nigeria in 2008 after consuming adulterated baby teething mixture and the many other families who have lost a loved one due to substandard/fake drugs. I was frustrated by the silence on the part of drug regulators in Africa. Why were they not dragging executives of Ranbaxy to court? Why was no one in prison for betraying the trust of consumers? Why? Why? Why?

I moved from asking myself why to thinking how. How do we develop technology solutions to address the challenges with pharmacovigilance in Africa? Out of the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, only four have proper drug monitoring systems in place. The reality is that African drug regulators have limited to no means of monitoring medicine use or effective pharmacovigilance capabilities at hospitals. Doctors in turn are unfamiliar with the practice, overburden due to the low doctor to patient ratios and wary of admitting liability. Pharmaceutical companies also lack the incentives to adhere to them. Only 17% of countries in Africa mandate pharmaceutical companies to conduct post-marketing surveillance.

(Pic: Flickr/hitthatswitch)

We need a better way to collect, store and process data on adverse drug effects. We need to develop a population based approach to drug monitoring. Luckily, the tools to build these solutions are right in front of us. A few decades back, not only would we not have known what data to measure, we also would have lacked the tools to record the data we measured. Today, with Africa leapfrogging the world when it comes to mobile technology, we can turn every individual into a data collector. mPharma is building an integrated drug monitoring system that connects hospitals, patients and pharmacies to a cloud-based software for the easy collection, and analysis of adverse drug reports.

Currently, mPharma is collaborating with the Zambian health ministry and the Food and Drug Authority in Ghana to pilot the system in their respective countries. I am inspired to see other African innovators develop tools to fight counterfeit drugs. My friend Bright Simmons pioneered the concept of serialisation and built mPedigree to enable consumers check the authenticity of their drugs through simple SMS messages.

Since returning to Ghana, I have been inspired and encouraged by the enterprising character of Africa’s millennial generation. Out of the many challenges the continent faces are massive opportunities to build disruptive technologies to solve these problems. Africa will soon see the birth of a massive technology economy. A lot more young people will build tools to solve problems in their communities that could turn into profitable businesses. The West shall look to Africa for answers to their problems and the continent will no longer be, in the words of Juliet Roch, “global consumers of solutions but rather creators”.

Gregory Rockson has worked in the healthcare sector in Africa since he was 16. He founded the Westminster United Way Free Health Fair to provide free health services to the uninsured in Missouri, USA. Connect with him on Twitter.

Rockson is one of 10 young Africans shortlisted to be a One Young World delegate at this year’s summit. At this event, the M&G’s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.

12 years ago

Nigeria: Tech for sex education and social good

As an IT professional I have always viewed technology as a unique tool for solving many of Africa’s challenges. It is a medium to express creativity and passion with limitless possibilities.

While studying at university I acquired technology skills by self-tutoring myself with the help of e-books and video tutorials. I got the opportunity to apply my technology skills early in my career by providing unique solutions to national security and defence institutions in Nigeria. I also received specialist training from military defence contractors in America.

But what about developing technology solutions to impact lives and cause positive change? There are many problems that can be solved through technology in Africa. As my vision and passion evolve towards leveraging new media and technology for social good, I constantly reach out to young individuals and organisations who are effecting positive change with technology.

Education as a Vaccine (EVA) is a youth-led NGO that successfully leverages mobile technology and digital mediums to educate young people about sexual reproductive health and HIV prevention. The organisation is co-founded by a visionary young Nigerian, Fadekemi Akinfaderin-Agarau.

In collaboration with partners such as OneWorld UK and Butterfly Works, EVA implemented the Learning about Living (LaL) project. It is based on the Nigerian Family Life and HIV/Aids Education (FLHE) curriculum. LaL uses ICT to provide information for young people, both in and out of school, about sex, HIV and health. The platform consists of two components: mobile learning and multimedia.

With “MyQuestion”, Nigerian youth send their questions via SMS to a short code and receive answers directly on their mobile phone. The service is managed by young, trained volunteer counsellors and ensures that the youth can receive accurate information without fear of being judged or stigmatised.

(Pic: Education as a Vaccine)

As we know, in traditional African society it is deemed inappropriate and socially unacceptable to discuss sex-related issues openly with young people. This innovative service creates an anonymous channel for their questions on relationships and sexual health. Even the shyest teenager would feel comfortable using the service.

Since its inception in 2007, the platform has received and responded to over 500 000 SMS queries about sexual reproductive health.

The second component involves multimedia. DVDs containing fun but educational cartoons are used to deliver the FLHE curriculum for upper primary and junior secondary school students. The multimedia clips are also accessible via a web based portal. The engaging story line and characters that young people can relate to allows for excellent knowledge transfer.

(Pic: Education as a Vaccine)

A platform for social good
One of the projects I am currently dedicated to is Aiderz, a web-based crowdfunding platform for social good. The portal is in a development phase and I have been invited to present it to potential investors during the Rhodes Youth Forum next month in Greece.

The case of 28-year-old student Crystal Nonye Mbanugo is a prime example of how Aiderz can be used to effect real, positive change. In May 2013 we successfully crowdfunded N2.5-million for Mbanugo to undergo surgery in India to remove a brain tumour. We began a social media campaign called #SaveNonye and contacted every media publication we could think of. The response was positive, the target sum was reached and her surgery was successful. Donations were made via cash payments. Once the Aiderz platform is complete, there will be online payment options and fundraising for causes like these will be much easier.

Aiderz hopes to utilise the power of the crowd – 45-million Nigerian internet users in this case – to effect change across the continent, starting with our country. Imagine: we post a campaign on the site to drill a freshwater well in a local community that has no access to clean water. If 1000 people donate N1000 ($7) each, we will generate N1000 000 to successfully deliver clean water to that community. And this is just one modest scenario.

Oscar Ekponimo is a software developer, consultant, social entrepreneur and founder of TrainingTeam. He is one of 10 young Africans shortlisted to be a One Young World delegate at this year’s summit. At this event, the M&G’s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.

12 years ago

Adventures in African cuisine

Have you ever considered what a culinary tour through Africa would be like?

My curiosity to find out led me to start my own African cuisine and travel blog, Chef Afrik. Since 2011, I’ve been indulging in exciting gastronomic adventures. Food from the continent is unimaginably diverse. The flavours we enjoy have been passed from mother to daughter (and sometimes son), mixed with influences from foreign sources. While African cuisine may not be all the rage in major international cities and gourmet magazines, you will always find it within the warmth of every African home.

I’ve discovered:

the sumptuous olives and olive oil monoculture of Tunisia

a sweet cup of mint tea in Morocco

the peanut butter flavour of maffe tiga in Senegal and Guinea

the aphrodisiac oysters of Namibia

the cocoa beans of Côte d’Ivoire

the incomparable palm oil flavors of Nigeria

the fragrant spices of a cup of Somali tea

the hot and fast life of the Ugandan street food “rolex”

the mysterious Mopani worm dishes of Zimbabwe

and the internationally recognised South African wines.

And this is barely a glimpse of the continent’s offerings. Starting with this inaugural foodie post for Voices of Africa, I’ll be exploring the history, culture and lifestyle of a country through the cuisine eaten there.

Take, for example, the strong Vietnamese culture in Senegal. With both countries colonised by the French in the early part of the 20th century, Senegalese men were sent to Vietnam as soldiers. A number of them took Vietnamese wives and brought them back to Senegal. You will find Vietnamese influences in Senegalese food, or even in the streets of Dakar where the oldest Vietnamese restaurant is called “Le Dragon”.

Or how about the Arabic influences in Somali cuisine? All one has to do is look at the number of spices used in Somali tea – nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger and black tea. No surprise that these spices made their way to Somalia from the Arabic peninsula through trade and, at times, empire domination.

What is not included in a country’s cuisine is just as important. In Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest grower and exporter of the cocoa bean, chocolate doesn’t feature much in traditional cuisine. What does this say about the country and its relationship to the cocoa bean? You’ll have to keep reading this blog to find out.

I’ll also be sharing a recipe with you in each of my posts. This time I’ve chosen a recipe from a country that was in a region the Romans named Africa in ancient times. The word eventually came to describe the immense continent beyond this country’s borders. I’m talking about Tunisia.

Harissa, an all-purpose condiment and marinade, is a red hot sauce Tunisians commonly eat with bread as an appetiser. To me, it tastes very similar to the East African chili sauce kachumbari. These sauces are usually much hotter than Tabasco sauce.

I used Aliya Lee Kong‘s recipe but adapted it to my liking. If you’re trying this out and want a sauce that’s a deep red in colour, use sun-dried tomatoes instead of regular ones.

Ingredients
3 New Mexican / Anaheim medium-sized dried red chilies
4 Guajillo medium-sized chilies
2 tsp crushed red pepper or Urfa Biber chilies (If you can’t find this, use any two types of hot chilies)
1 tsp caraway seeds
½ tsp fennel seeds
Pinch of saffron (optional)
1 ½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
2 sundried tomatoes, packed in oil or rehydrated (I used a regular tomato)
2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
Lemon juice

Remove seeds and ribs from the dried chilies and place in a heat-safe bowl. Pour boiling water over chilies and let them soak for 15 to 20 minutes until softened.

Flavours galore: chilies.

(Though Aliya recommends removing the seeds in the chilies, I leave them in because my mum reckons that’s where the flavour comes from. I also did not soak the chilies as I did not want to dilute the heat.)

Blend the crushed red peppers or urfa chilies, caraway seeds, fennel seeds and saffron. Add ground coriander, turmeric, salt, sundried tomatoes, and garlic cloves. Add chilies from water and blend. (Mash and mix if you do not have a blender).

Pulse adding olive oil, a tablespoon at a time, until a thick paste is achieved and all of the chilies have been ground up. Add lemon juice to taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Transfer to a jar and cover the harissa with a layer of olive oil to preserve it. Keep refrigerated. It will keep for up to a month in the fridge.

The end result: perfect harissa.

Adhis runs the Chef Afrik blog which focuses on African food, travel and culture. She is currently preparing for ‘Eat, Pray, Africa’, a food tour starting in 2014. Follow her adventures and connect with her on Twitter.

12 years ago

Moroccan farmers reap rewards of mobile technology

In 2011, hoping to escape the brouhaha of the city, I retreated for a few weeks to an isolated inn somewhere in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Each morning, I was offered a basket of delicious red apples as a gift from the locals. Delighted by their warm hospitality, I insisted on meeting them and thanking them in person. Finally I was taken to Miloud, the owner of a surrounding farm. Judging from the size of the land, I expected to walk through the doors of an ostentatious residence. However, I was shocked by the deplorable state of his mud house and miserable living conditions.

Puzzled by Miloud’s situation, I mobilised a small group of students and we conducted a field survey to decrypt how the owner of paradisiac prairies receives such minimal benefits. Our findings highlighted how the market prices were five times higher than those charged by the village farmers. Miloud, who had never left his small town, totally ignored most of the market realities which in turn made him an easy prey for unscrupulous middlemen who atrociously exploited his ignorance.

I returned to the village determined to get Miloud to increase his selling prices. The notion of change terrified the man because he feared losing his clientele under the impression that all his neighbors would continue to charge low prices. After a long and heated discussion about his situation and that of his children, Miloud finally agreed to gather the farmers of the region in his house with the goal of finding a reasonable solution to put an end to the clear exploitation they were experiencing.

The feelings of fear and inexplicable dread were shared by all the farmers, but they were concerned about the future of their families and hoped to offer them a better life. After paying a listening ear to their insecurities, I suggested that they put their harvest in the same basket, decide together on the selling price and never let anyone exploit them again. With the help of business students, we developed an action plan for the farmers’ co-operative Rhamna, and stayed in touch with them during their first two years of operation.

Today Rhamna co-operative has developed several added-value products and benefited from the support of the NIHD (National Initiative for Human Development). As a result, in less than two years the income of the farmers has jumped substantially by a staggering 70%.

Farmers harvest barbary figs, used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, on August 6 2011 in the Skhour Rhamna region near Marrakech. (Pic: AFP)

Miloud’s success story inspired me to start Fair Farming, an initiative that promotes fair trade and helps smallholder farmers derive maximum benefit from their products. Since its inauguration Fair Farming has partnered with several agricultural co-operatives and impacted hundreds of farmers throughout the country. Fair Farming has been awarded by the Global Changemakers program (British Council), and was adopted by We Are Family Foundation under its Three Dot Dash initiative.

Miloud’s continuous phone calls to update me on the success of Rhamna co-operative made me realise that farmers are not as isolated as I thought. They all had access to mobile phones that could serve as a door to crucial information. During the two years I worked with Miloud’s farming co-operative I continuously updated them on weather forecasts, market prices and best farming practices from the Ministry of Agriculture using SMS or the classic phone calls. The access to basic information helped the farmers take smarter decisions and thus boost their harvest and revenue.

I quickly realised the key role access to relevant information could play in curbing poverty in Morocco and other developing countries. Using a combination of SMS and voicemail we have, over the last few months, been able to reach to hundreds of farmers as a prototype for a scaling-up project that would hopefully benefit millions of farmers in the country.

Looking back at the modest initiative I started two years ago always reminds me that small actions can and will change the world around us for the better.

Adib Ayay has a passion for agriculture and business. In 2011, at the age of 17, he founded Fair Farming, a student-run organisation that seeks to help farmers boost their revenue using mobile technology. He is one of 10 young Africans shortlisted to be a One Young World delegate at this year’s summit. At this event, the M&G’s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.

12 years ago

Fashion Week kicks off in DR Congo

While the army is battling rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unstable east, models prepared to sashay down the catwalk at the first Fashion Week in the capital Kinshasa.

Gloria Mteyu (29) told AFP that she had organised the three-day catwalk and fashion exhibition “to show that in Congo, there is not just war”.

Back-to-back wars that ravaged DR Congo from 1996 to 2003 have given way to a complex web of rebel groups still terrorising the eastern provinces, which are rich in mineral assets.

Even the world’s largest UN peacekeeping force has not managed to stop atrocities including the killing of civilians, using child soldiers and rape on a scale that has given the country the label of “rape capital of the world”.

Mteyu, who lives in New York, said ahead of the catwalk that beyond showing another side of DR Congo, she also wanted to give homegrown talents a platform.

“Because I myself am a designer, and since I have had the chance to go to other countries on several continents … I wanted to come home, do the same thing and organise a catwalk to showcase our talent, our Congolese style,” she said.

“We have not seen many Congolese at other Fashion Weeks so here is the first chance to showcase Congolese designers who work well,” she said.

(Pic: Kinshasa Fashion Week’s Facebook page)

Twelve Congolese designers including Okasol, who dresses Papa Wemba, one of Africa’s most popular singers, and eight foreign designers including South Africa’s David Tlale, have been invited.

According to the event’s Facebook page, the organisers also made a casting call for models in Kinshasa this month.

Local residents however complained that ticket prices to the show were out of reach to most in the country where two-thirds of inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day.

A regular seat costs $150, while a package including two nights of catwalk and access to exhibitions costs $300.

“It is shocking. No one has access, only the rich are targeted. There is no chance for everyone to experience this. Even the middle class can’t go,” said Clarisse, who earns $200 a month.

Decrying the “astronomical prices” on the show’s Facebook page, Muriel T. Munga asked: “Who are you targeting? The Kinshasa High Society? If that’s who you’re targeting, then you have succeeded.”

“The first three rows will be packed… but the other rows will be empty,” she said.

Habibou Bangre for AFP