One ISU professor dedicated his summer vacation to helping African governments become more efficient.

Francis Owusu, assistant professor of community and regional planning, spent seven weeks working on research in Ghana this summer.

Owusu is no stranger to the country. Born in Ghana, Owusu obtained his undergraduate and first master’s degree there. After receiving a doctorate in geography from the University of Minnesota, Owusu worked as a planner for the Minnesota state government before coming to Iowa State in 2001.

Owusu said the goal of his research was to make Ghana’s government more efficient.

“We tend to assume that the government is inefficient, but if you ask each one of us, we would be able to say that one [government} is better than another,” Owusu said. “Some parts of the government are more efficient than others, and the question is why? Addressing this question was my task.”

Owusu said it is very important to have an efficient government in Ghana, more so than in the United States.

“It is more important that the government is efficient in Ghana because of the levels of poverty,” Owusu said. “These people need the government — they rely on it.”

“People in developing countries don’t have the luxury of disregarding or writing off the government. In Ghana, you cannot run your life without the government.”

This presents a problem because if the government is inefficient and people cannot function without it, the people are essentially helpless, he said.

Owusu said he wanted to find out what was relatively good in Ghana, and what was bad, then help the poor systems to learn from the good.

“I call it organizational culture,” Owusu said. “The culture of the group is what makes it good or bad. It determines what you have to do to survive in the group.”

Owusu will return to Ghana in November to organize a workshop for civil servants, community leaders and the media to share his findings.

Robert Mazur, associate professor of sociology, visited Owusu in Ghana. Mazur was in the country working on his own research, a project with the National Institute of Health Funded Research Projects.

“The project is about how to make the transition from breast feeding to alternative foods,” Mazur said. “Because HIV and AIDS is such a concern in parts of Africa, we are trying to help mothers be able to breast feed safely, and then make the transition to solid food.”

Mazur met with counterparts on the research while in Ghana, and also held a workshop. He said Owusu was a valuable resource to him.

“I was happy to see [Owusu] take on such an ambitious project, and he implemented the changes rather quickly,” Mazur said. “[Owusu] helped me set up contacts, and I was able to follow through with those contacts.”

Owusu has also noticed differences between American and Ghanaian universities. For instance, students are very active politically in Ghana, more so than in the United States, he said.

“The students in Ghana always want to have a say and take a stand,” Owusu said. “Their opinions may not always be welcome, but students always make sure they have a say in the government.”

Owusu said he hopes the work he has done in Ghana will help to make the government more efficient.

“I hope that the work I have done has identified the good and changed the bad,” he said. “I hope that the poor governments have learned from the good.”