Development in Person

Abstract

The 2003 annual board meeting of the Centre for Human Development (CHD), one of the largest Ghanaian NGOs, is held in a newly built hotel in Kumasi, where over an elaborate buffet I sit with a number of the board members. Most have known one another for a number of decades, their friendships originating in university, and the social activism of their youth. Charles (Box 4.1) comments on the excessively lavish hotel and jokes that the air conditioning is making him cold. The group starts to reflect on the changes that have taken place in the country since the early 1980s when the organization was set up: ‘We’ve really been through a lot in this country’, one remarks, a reference to the political upheavals of the past two decades. Others in the group warm to the theme, reminiscing about the days when they started out: ‘We used to travel on the back of shea nut trucks just to get around,’ recalls one. ‘We’d be queuing up just to catch a ride on an articulator – there weren’t even trotros back then!’1 Another recollects how he used to take his typewriter around with him: ‘It wasn’t like this,’ he pronounces, casting his eyes around the grand hotel dining room. ‘We’ve come a long way.’