Ghana's Used Appliance Trade

Anyone who has spent any substantial time in Africa is familiar with the importance of the informal economy. In South Africa, for example, there are the parking guards and gardeners and maids and cooks and people willing to wash your car or clean your windows. And then there are the street peddlars, especially in towns and cities. They get up early and set up shop on sidewalks. They sometimes sit docilely waiting to make a sale, they sometimes engage in the hard sale, cajoling, pleading, begging, interoposing themselves physically in your path in ways that can for some be physically menacing, or at least that make traversing your chosen course a bit more difficult.

IRIN reports on one segment of the informal economy in Ghana, where there is a flourishing market in used electronic devides and appliances, most imported in bulk from the United States. The demand for these objects is great. But while this demand reveals an ingenious attempt to fill a niche in the marketplace, it also carries with it some problems. Because of a lack of regulation, many of the items are shoddy, and many more are not energy efficient, which can burden the countries energy resources. Furthermore, Ghanaians have been discarding these appliances in an area called “Abgogbloshie,” one of the most toxic and polluted sites in Ghanaonce they no longer function. This has created a significant health hazard.

The country is beginning to deal with regulating these imports, particularly to deal with the environmental impact that the flourishing used appliance trade brings. But the process will almost assuredly be spotty, as the demand is great and the domestic market simply cannot fill the people's needs. This is just one example of how the informal economy profoundly shapes culture, society, and the economy in Ghana, and I would argue throughout Africa. And it represents both a problem, but also an opportunity for African leaders and entrepeneurs.