US and Russia are vying to build Ghana’s nuclear energy plant

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ACCRA, Ghana — The United States and Russia are locked in a race against China, France, and South Korea to build the first nuclear power plant in Ghana.

The West African country is among several nations on the continent looking to nuclear power as a low carbon source of energy as they seek to broaden access to electricity.

Ghana is turning to nuclear power to complement its existing mix of hydro, thermal and renewable energy. The winner of the ongoing bidding process will be announced at the end of 2024 by outgoing president Nana Akufo-Addo, Stephen Yamoah, executive director of Nuclear Power Ghana, which is supervising the project, told Semafor Africa.

Yamoah said a target to build the plant by 2030 would be missed because “we still haven’t settled on a vendor.” Construction, which is expected to last five years, is due to begin in 2026.

Ghana is projecting that nuclear energy will make up 5% of the country’s energy mix by 2030 and 35% by 2070, according to Dr. Robert Sogbadzie, deputy director of power at the Ministry of Energy. “Every country is coming in based on its proposal,” he said, stressing that the cost and technology used will be the determining factors, rather than solely politics.

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South Africa has the continent’s only nuclear power plant but Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya have in the last year announced plans to develop this energy source.

Ghana laid out its current nuclear plans in 2015 with the expectation of having its first commercial nuclear power plant in 2030.

The current nuclear program took off in 2008 after a nationwide power crisis in 2006 and 2007. The plan then was to have a nuclear power plant by 2018, but that target was revised due to a lack of political and financial commitment from successive governments. “Having an interest in pursuing a nuclear program is one thing, and understanding what it takes to pursue a nuclear program is another thing,” said Yamoah.

Electricity demand is estimated to have grown by 7%–10% a year since 2010, according to Ghana’s energy ministry. As of 2020, 85% of the population had access to electricity.

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Ghana will now have to choose between competing options which analysts say range from large-scale nuclear power plants to small modular reactors.

People who are privy to the ongoing process are giving the US an edge because of the relationship between the two countries. But another school of thought says the Russians may be favored because the Soviet Union built a research reactor in the 1960s under Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah.

Russia also has a track record. Its state-owned nuclear company, Rosatom, has signed agreements with a number of countries — including neighboring Burkina Faso, Egypt and South Africa — to develop nuclear technology.

Authorities here in Ghana are currently struggling to provide stable power for citizens. While electricity generation and access have improved in the country in the last decade, inefficiencies in electricity distribution and high demand are causing a major shortfall in power supply. That has led to frequent, prolonged power cuts which Ghanains have endured since last year.

The situation led to the president giving a directive earlier this month to the power generation company to halt the export of electricity to neighboring countries Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin and Côte d’Ivoire to focus on local demand.

Frustrated Ghanaians have compared the current electricity problems to the energy crisis that gripped the country between 2012 and 2016, when the opposition was in power and the country was governed by former president John Mahama. A popular term used then — “dumsor,” which roughly translates as “lights out” — has reemerged.

“What we’re experiencing now is the same as what we experienced under Mahama,” Amanda Nkrumah, an entrepreneur in Kumasi, lamented. “We just want a timetable like what we got then to plan because it is getting really frustrating to not have power for 12 hours in a day. How do we plan?” said Nana Poku, a tailor based in Accra.

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Ben Boakye, executive director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy think tank, said inefficiencies within Ghana’s energy sector meant independent power producers were not paid properly. That could undermine the country’s nuclear aspirations because it would be difficult to attract private operators to run the plant, he said.

“The way the power sector is structured today, thinking about nuclear is only idealist thinking because no one is going to put in money when the power sector doesn’t pay,” Boakye told Semafor Africa. He said Ghana may need to “revise” its plans for the plant “because the guarantees are not there.”

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Neighboring Burkina Faso signed an agreement with Russia last October for the development of a nuclear power plant. Russia will, under the memorandum of understanding, help develop nuclear infrastructure and technology in the West African country, while also providing assistance in nuclear safety and security.

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South African plums, nectarines ready to satisfy demand in the US

South African stonefruit body Hortgro is on a mission to elevate its offering of stonefruit in the US market.

Hortgro plans to do this by focusing on education and sales growth. Stonefruit is often associated with summer in the US – a perception the fruit group are hoping to change.

“Most people in the US view stonefruit as a summertime fruit, and do not expect to find high quality products or availability during the winter months,” Wilechia van der Westhuizen, the trade development manager at Hortgro, told Fruitnet.

“Since our fruit is harvested at peak of season during our summer months from December to February in the southern hemisphere, we are able to provide the US market with high quality and great tasting fruit when it’s least expected to elevate demand.”

South Africa’s climate, reminiscent of the Mediterranean, creates an ideal environment for growing stonefruit like plums and nectarines.

The warm days and cool nights, combined with nutrient-rich soil, contribute to the exceptional quality of the fruit, Hortgro noted.

Unique weather patterns in South Africa also allow the fruit to cool during dormancy. This enhances natural sugars and intensifies the sweetness of the fruit, they said.

Van der Westhuizen expressed excitement about educating consumers on South African plums, while ensuring retailers have access to their premium products.

“We want shoppers to enjoy this sweet and delicious fruit during the winter months,” she added.

Besides raising awareness, Hortgro’s efforts included targeted advertising to drive traffic to local Costco stores in the US, where South African stonefruit was available.

In other fruit news, production of The Alizza Fruit – a pomelo-mandarin hybrid – has been extended to South Africa.

The citrus fruit recently received a prestigious Three-Star Superior Taste Award from the International Taste Institute.

“The Alizza Fruit is characterised by its large size, attractive bright yellow-orangey colour, smooth, thin skin, and a melting seedless pulp with a truly unique flavour,” said the director of Genesis Fresh, David Alba.

The Alizza Fruit has mainly been available between December and March in citrus-growing regions of the northern hemisphere. The variety is now available to consumers year round thanks to production extending to South Africa.

Census change will lead to more data on health of Middle Eastern, North African people in US

Before the successful, healthy birth of her son, recalls Germine Awad — an Egyptian American who is a psychologist at the University of Michigan — clinicians told her that her hormone levels were too high and that her pregnancy was in danger. “They don’t know us,” her mother reassured her.

Iyman Hamad, a Palestinian American public health graduate student at Wayne State University in Detroit, had to search online to figure out which race or ethnicity box she should check at the doctor’s office and on school forms.

And Itedal Shalabi, who runs an Arab American family services center in the Chicago area and is also Palestinian, said misinformation and hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccines were rampant in her community. Because Arab Americans were considered to be white in the absence of a category for them, county funding for outreach in minority communities was delayed, probably causing avoidable deaths, she said.

“In that time, we had so many Arab Americans die, especially elderly,” she said. “By the time we got the funding, we had so much work to do to catch up, while other [minority] communities were taking advantage of the shot.”

For decades, U.S. residents with heritage from the Middle East and North Africa, which is known internationally as the MENA region, have been classified by the government as white. The grouping masked differences in income, health, housing and other important markers. And when public health officials lack data on COVID-19 deaths or vaccine uptake in the MENA community, for example, it’s difficult to distribute dollars and other public resources effectively.

“The lack of a dedicated identifier makes it hard to isolate data,” said epidemiologist Nadia Abuelezam, an associate professor at the Boston College Connell School of Nursing and the daughter of Palestinian refugees. “Systemically, structurally, we were ignored, or our needs were ignored.”

Last month, the federal Office of Management and Budget approved revisions to race and ethnicity data collection across federal agencies, including the addition of a new MENA category to the census. They are the first race and ethnic category changes since 1997. Along with a combined race/ethnicity category, the changes include a combined Hispanic or Latino checkbox and removal of phrases that can be considered pejorative, including “Negro” and “Far East.” Federal officials have said these revisions will yield more accurate counts and use language “respectful of how people refer to themselves.”

The new federal classification of MENA people is geographical and includes people from Arabic-speaking groups, such as Lebanese, Algerians, Egyptians, Palestinians and Syrians, as well as people from non-Arabic-speaking groups, such as Iranians and Israelis. It also includes ethnic groups who live in multiple countries, such as Assyrian, Kurdish and Chaldean people.

The updates will appear on the next census in 2030, but by next year, federal agencies must submit detailed plans on how they will incorporate the new requirements.

Apart from independent studies by academic and nonprofit researchers, little is known about the health of Middle Eastern and North African people in the U.S. Experts and advocates hope the census change will spur local and state health agencies to update their own data collection methods to shed light on health inequities and needs.

“There’s so many of us here, yet we know so little,” said Hamad, who interns at the Oakland County, Michigan, health department’s data division. “There needs to be change.”

Filling in gaps

Abuelezam, who studies maternal and infant health outcomes among MENA people in Massachusetts, is among a handful of researchers in the U.S. who are trying to fill in gaps in MENA health data.

Her research on Massachusetts mothers has found, for example, that Black Arab mothers had higher odds of preterm birth and low birthweight than Arab mothers classified as white, while Arab mothers were more likely to suffer gestational diabetes than white mothers.

One study found that from the beginning of the pandemic through July 2021, about 17% of Arab Americans in Michigan tested positive for COVID-19 compared with 11% of Hispanic people, 9.8% of Black people and 7.5% of white people.

Similarly, researchers who study aging and Alzheimer’s and related dementias found that confusion and memory issues, which can be early symptoms of the diseases, were found among 17% of MENA immigrants, compared with 9.6% of U.S.-born white people.

The change in categories only applies to federal agencies, not state governments, said Rima Meroudeh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities. However, the official forms used by states, health agencies and school systems typically mirror the categories used by the census, and the change provides “something much more concrete as we advocate at the state level because they want interoperability between state and federal data,” she said.

Awad, the University of Michigan psychologist, studies mental health and the influence of discrimination in the MENA community. She said the change will help her illuminate social determinants of health, such as housing and environment, income, access to resources, health care and transportation, as well as trauma experiences. Awad and other researchers also are interested in exploring the prevalence of health conditions such as asthma and cardiovascular disease in MENA communities.

“A group of us have been working for years advocating for this box,” Awad said. It’s “been long overdue, and finally, we are going to be able to collect data to truly delve into some unanswered questions. We know there are disparities, but we don’t actually truly understand the extent because there hasn’t been systematic data collection.”

The health data that schools collect also is skewed, said Matt Jaber Stiffler, who co-founded the Center for Arab Narratives, part of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, or ACCESS. For example, Stiffler said, Arab children are the majority of K-12 students in Dearborn, Michigan, but state data identifies them as white.

Inclusion would “give a better picture of who these communities are and what their needs might be,” Stiffler said.

Population counts

So far, federal population counts of MENA communities have been estimates. For the first time, the 2020 census offered a write-in option so respondents could mark their race and ethnicity as “white” but write in their ancestry. About 3.5 million people wrote in MENA countries of origin, with Lebanese, Iranians and Egyptians making up nearly half of them.

California, Michigan and New York had the largest MENA populations, with more than 300,000 residents combined. Those states were trailed by Texas, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey. Prior to the 2020 write-ins, the American Community Survey, an ongoing survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, provided limited estimates.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that analyzes immigration policy, the 1920 census reported around 50,000 people from the MENA region. In the years since, a steady flow of Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Syrians and others have immigrated to the U.S., some after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and many more after the U.S. loosened its restrictive immigration policies in 1965. By 1980, the MENA population in the U.S. had risen to about 224,000.

Last August, Illinois became the first state to enact a law mandating all state agencies that collect race and ethnicity data include a MENA category. Lawmakers in California and Michigan are considering similar bills.

“We should incorporate this at all levels, whether in our health system data or educational systems, like on university levels,” said Sarah Abboud, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who studies health outcomes among Arab immigrants.

Some critics argue that the census should move away from categorizing people by race, instead of adding new racial categories. They point to the Human Genome Project, which found that humans share 99.9% of their DNA. Race, some argue, is a social construct, a relic of the 18th century.

But public health experts have demonstrated that racism affects people’s health, and Abboud said that Arab Americans experience worse health outcomes because of it. Additionally, immigrants displaced by war, such as Palestinian and Syrian refugees and their children, may have unique stressors around trauma.

Shalabi, of Arab American Family Services in Chicago, said inclusion of MENA in data is long overdue.

“We’re so excited because it’s about time that our community was identified, was visible, and in a way that really works toward their betterment of health and … being part of the American fabric,” she said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

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