So You Want a Job in Accra? Here are Some Tips!

There's nothing as humbling as getting a call from someone younger than you, who happens to be in their final year of Legon, and is also a good friend-acquaintance.

So you can imagine how humbled I was when two days ago, I got a call just from a young lady whom I've known since 2005 (and which sister is a good friend of the organisation) to ask me these some questions on entering the job market.

Let me be clear: anyone who has a job in these uncertain times is this side short of lucky. No matter how drab or dull it is, count yourself lucky you're not with the bunch in the West that were laid off in the factories and whatnot. It's great to be alive and with a job!

While we are patting ourselves on the back that we've been able to hold down a job, we forget so easily how difficult it was when we were looking for employment, don't we? Speaking to my friend gave me an insight into some of the challenges out there in the Ghanaian job market, but I think I can impart a few tips.

1. Learn French
2. Build your IT/communication skills
3. Be passionate about your career
4. Think Big!
5. Get a Masters

Learn French

So you want a job in an English-speaking country that's surrounded by francophone countries? Come on now, learn that French language. We have Alliance Francaise among many other organisations that can offer the language. If you think you cannot cope with how much they charge, find a private tutor. It also pays as failing to get a job in Ghana doesn't mean you cannot get it anywhere else! With French, you're most likely to get a position in the sub-region of ECOWAS, the AU, or who knows, the UN?

Build your IT/communication skills

So you know how to type, but can you touch-type? Working through Microsoft Office is average, but can you do desktop publishing in Word? How about Excel? and Microsoft Access? Try and master a package that will pit you above the others. You might want to do a Marketing/public relations course at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, or the African University College of Communications. It pays to communicate/articulate well wherever you go!

Be passionate about your career

Whether it's the public or private sector--in this country or outside--it's important to be passionate about what your career. No-one can miss passion. Live, breathe, speak human resource management; communication; administration; marketing; banking; law.

Make sure you reek it, so that it's without doubt that YOU are the one to come to on the latest trends.

Let me just say that though I have my bosses who have been working on regional integration, for a longer period than I have, my focus has been more than looking at African integration initiatives; I look at world-wide trends, plus keep up to date on the latest literature. Whenever anyone mentions regional integration, people know they'll get a word or two from me--despite my apparent/relative lack of years spent imbibing it (as compared to my other colleagues).

Think Big!

Why should you only settle for the Ghanaian market? If you've come this far, why not consider working for an international public organisation like the United Nations/African Union/ECOWAS? Sure, it's competitive, but on the African market, the possibilities of going higher than the national are greater. Think big!

Get a Masters

If you haven't gotten one already, it pays to get one. There are people with first degrees and plenty experience -- with sound working experiences, but possessing a Masters means you've taken a step to improve yourself, and therefore are capable of any challenge that comes your way. I will always remember my Dad who pushed me to do one. Now, the deepening of my knowledge on regional integration is more than I could ever imagined, because I'm more than confident of pushing the envelope on my abilities.

This list is far from exhaustive, but I'd like to end that yesterday I coincidentally heard a programme on Joy FM about job-hunting which suggested these short tips:

1. be friendly to the receptionist of any prospective workplace
2. never tell any employee to whom you are passing your CV that you're looking for a job; insist that it's "an important document" that needs to go to the director, or HRO!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being...ECOWAS-ian & Fighting Crime in ECOWAS/AU Member States

I heard Head of Research, Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD) at KAIPTC Dr.Kwesi Ening on Metro TV yesterday talking about drugs, standing behind a podium at British Council against the backdrop of the logo of UNODC.

It was profoundly coincidental he should have been giving that talk, as only last week Thursday, I spent the better half of my lunchtime just perusing, googling, and reading material around crime prevention in AU countries. Specifically, I had been reading one of UNODC’s report on drugs (Eighteenth Meeting of Heads of National Law Enforcement Agencies, which was held in Yamoussoukro from 8-12 September ).

I also read a presentation by one Juliet Ibekaku—a legal expert—who touched on, inter alia, “Trends in illicit drug trafficking in West Africa; “regional trends in the combating of corruption money-laundering and terrorist financing”; “current regional strategies”; “challenges of fighting organized crime in West Africa”.

I was both enlightened and amazed by the material I had at my disposal. Enlightened, because as a great proponent of ECOWAS, and its free movement, I always knew at the back of my mind that open borders were always going to come with challenges of crime, in the sense that policy-makers wanted to ensure that West Africans could move up and down the sub-region freely, but this would necessarily be compromised by those who would exploit it. This would not—and should not—mean that they would stop the integration process, surely?

If they were not, then it meant that drugs would be freely moving within the sub-region—as explained in the report—and therefore ECOWAS would find itself wanting with needing to deal with the challenges of effectively policing ECOWAS without hindering free movement of peoples. That corruption was an element in the astronomical rise of drug trafficking was not really new, but what was was the fact that after all these years since the protocol was established in the late seventies, the Community had not yet considered the establishment of an ECOWAS FBI!
Back in 2001/2002, there had been some talk of a Criminal Intelligence Bureau that would be akin to an ECOWAS police force.

As you might expect, that has failed to materialize. Some web trawling revealed that the West African Police Chiefs Committee Organisation (WAPCCO) comes close to this; I would say it presumes to! Note that WAPCCO is more aligned to the international

police organization INTERPOL, and so it would never be the same thing as it being an ECOWAS organ. It is equally fantastic to read that there is an ECOWAS organ—the Intergovernmental Action Group Against Money-Laundering (GIABA.org)—that deals with white-collar crime. Their website is updated regularly, and they’re based in Senegal.

The irony of all this pussy-footing, in my view, is that ECOWAS’s conflict resolution imperative (in Liberia/Sierra Leone in the nineties, with ECOMOG) is very sound. The Kofi Annan IT Peacekeeping Training Centre here in Accra is a testament to ensuring that ECOWAS’s attempts at conflict prevention and resolution is “regionalized”, by having Nigeria and Mali host similar peace-training institutions. This begs the question: if we can do it for peacekeeping, what are we waiting for on an effective law enforcement mechanism for ECOWAS?

The Europeans established EUROPOL the very moment the Treaty of Maastricht was established. Why did AU member states not equally view law enforcement as an important element in the facilitation of regional integration?

I was very happy to read at the beginning of this week that the UN and the AU have launched a joint initiative to support an AU plan to fight drug trafficking and related crimes over the next five years.. I am also deeply encouraged that the AU has a “Plan of Action on Drug Control and Crime Prevention (2007-2012)”.

In the long run, these protocols are great, and it’s nice to know that ECOWAS is strong on peacekeeping and peace enforcement, but I would rather hope to see not just ECOWAS disposing of a Criminal Intelligence Bureau , but ALL regional economic communities—starting with the more formidable AU!