Chapter 2 A Changing Landscape of Muslim NGO s in Ghana

1.1 Muslim Business Entrepreneurs

Muslim business entrepreneurs dominate among the founders of foundations and NGO s. One of them is Abdul Mannan Ibrahim in Kumasi. His engagement in philanthropic activities stems from his experiences as poor youngster who had lost his mother at an early stage. Receiving neither Western nor Islamic education, he tried to make his living as a street-hawker and shoemaker in Kumasi. In 2008, he met a stranger who decided to help him and paid his education to become a producer of aluminium doors. In 2010, he started his business as aluminium fabricator and decided to engage in small-scale charity activities. A few years later, he consolidated his efforts and founded Al-Mannan Charity Foundation.¹⁵

Al-Mannan Charity Foundation has until today remained a locally based charity although its activities have expanded manifold with activities in both Kumasi and Accra, ranging from campaigns to raise funds for persons irrespectively their religious background who are in need of a surgery or who cannot pay their hospital and medical bills. Based in an office in Kumasi that also serves as the studio for Al-Mannan TV, he and his 9 salaried staff-members plus 10 volunteer activists raise money for individual projects through house-to-house and street collections as well as fundraising campaigns on social media (Figure 10). Each individual project starts by presenting the case in a video and ends by posting a video depicting the effects of the intervention. Usually, Abdul Mannan Ibrahim declared, his team is able to collect the needed funds within one month. When I interviewed him in October 2022, he had paid invoices totalling 7 million cedis.¹⁶

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Figure 10

Al-Mannan Charity Foundation. Fundraising in Kumasi by Abdul Mannan Ibrahim and a member of Al-Mannan Charity

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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Apart from individual projects, Al-Mannan Charity also arranges local Iftar, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Ahda parties for about 250 orphans and less privileged children,¹⁷ effectively disseminating the call to support its Ramadan food programme via Al-Mannan TV.¹⁸ His online TV-station also distributes his daʿwa sessions. Lately, Abdul Mannan Ibrahim expanded the activities of his charity when he bought three sewing machines and one needling machine as part of his orphans empowerment drive. The idea is to establish a workshop where the orphans learn the skills to use the machines in a four-year training programme. After they have finished their education, they would receive their own sewing machines.¹⁹ However, his dream to build an orphanage to accommodate 200 children has not yet fulfilled.²⁰

The trajectory of Abdul Mannan Ibrahim resembles that of many founders of business entrepreneurs turning into philanthropists.²¹ The Society for the Assistance for Orphans and Disabled (SAFOAD), for example, is an Accra-based charity founded by Haji Abubakar Yakubu Batalima in the late 1990s. Since then, it has made headlines for its annual provisions for orphans during Muslim festivals (see further Chapter 3.2), donations to persons with disabilities,²² and its investments in entrepreneurial skills training for youths.²³ In 2013, Haji Batalima received the ‘Outstanding Achievement Award’ by the National Imam of the Ahlus-Sunna Wal-Jamaʿa Sheikh Umar Ibrahim Imam for recognition of his longstanding philanthropic activities.²⁴ The Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim Foundation, in turn, is a charity founded by Muslim multi-sectoral business tycoon Alhaji Yusif Ibrahim, executive director of the Dara Salam Group of Enterprises.²⁵ Established in 2000, his foundation operated for years in Kumasi and offered scholarships to needy students,²⁶ and sponsored annual free health checks.²⁷ In 2022, it branched out and sponsored health screenings organised by the Muslim Health Workers Association in various Zongos in Accra.²⁸

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Figure 11

Karima Educational Complex library, Kumasi

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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The Karima Charity Foundation, established by the CEO of Karima Shipping Enterprises Mohammed Aminu Osman, a.k.a. Awudu Sofa Salaga, in 2010, has evolved into a major donor organisation. Its main project has been the construction of the Karima Educational Complex in Kumasi, consisting of a kindergarten, primary and junior high school, a public library, an ICT centre and a science lab (Figure 11).²⁹ In addition, the Foundation engages in HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives and awareness alongside health education programmes and renders support to Islamic and secular orphanages and schools.³⁰ The Foundation also pays for Iftar, Suhur and Qurban and supplies food to ten mosques near its educational complex as well as provides for donations to prisons and orphanages during the Eid festivals.³¹

Karima Charity Foundation is a typical translocal/transnational group with members both in Ghana and in the USA. Its headquarters is located in Kumasi although its founder and CEO Mohammed Aminu Osman and his family resides part of the year in the USA. The activities of the educational complex, including the salaries of the six staff members, is to a large extent funded by Mohammed Aminu Osman apart from irregular contributions of the members of the Foundation. However, the lack of additional donors and supporters has hampered the expansion of the complex,³² not least the building of a planned technical and vocational block for poor students.³³

The Yaasalam Opportunity Center, in turn, serves as the Corporate Responsibility Arm of the Afro Arab Group of Companies. The 2007-established multi-business enterprise of Alhaji Salamu Adamu includes, among others, Afro Arab Microfinance (see further Chapter 6.2), and is part of his philanthropic outreach to deprived Zongo communities. The Yaasalam Opportunity Center is located in Accra and is registered as an NGO. It started in 2017 as a collaborative venture between Alhaji Salamu Adamu and the lead researcher at Past, Present and Future Research and Peace Institute, Mr. Abdusalam Mohammed Daaru. Its objective is to provide humanitarian relief, promote education, youth empowerment, capacity building, entrepreneurship development, spearheading job creation programmes as well as capacity building of Zongo inhabitants and petty traders in literacy and business.³⁴ Its initiatives to empower the Zongo youth include several programmes, labelled Zongo 360, Zongo Business Incubator, Zongo Business Network and Yaasalaam Publishers.³⁵

Nevertheless, most Muslim entrepreneurs do not necessarily establish an NGO to direct their donations. Alhaji Seidu Agongo, a Muslim business entrepreneur and owner of the Class Media Group, illuminates the traditional practice of informal and non-institutional giving. He built a 30-bed capacity block at the cost of GHS 857,000 (ca. 140,000 USD) for the Child Emergency Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. He also actively enhanced the empowerment of poor people by providing them with startup capital and equipment to conduct small-scale businesses. The latter is a reflection of his Muslim philanthropic mindset:

What matters in life is the impact you make in peoples’ lives; different people are making impact in different ways but everybody and his choice; my choice is the widows, the single mothers, the underprivileged children and also to create employment. […] It is the women and children that suffer. The men don’t suffer.³⁶

Most importantly, however, he considers the investment in children of widows and single women as the best way to break the cycle of poverty:

Once you invest in kids: into their education, the same kids will become doctors, lawyers, businessmen and there is a multiplier effect … because once the kid becomes a businessman like me, he’ll assist people, assist the family and the family will cut poverty at a particular level.³⁷

1.2 Muslim Politicians

The increased engagement of Muslims in party politics and statal business enterprises, their nomination into high-ranking ministerial and governmental positions, has created a new form of Muslim religious entrepreneur in Ghana, namely that of a politician turning into philanthropist. Alhaji Hanan Abdul-Wahab Aludiba, Bawku-resident philanthropist, Executive Officer of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) and leading member of the NPP, serves as an example. He is the founder and chair of the Aludiba Foundation, “a humanitarian organization dedicated to the plight of the poor, the underprivileged, children and the aged.”³⁸ Having self-funded his Foundation without external support, he is capable of supporting education, business development, agriculture, and health projects in the Upper East Region. The Foundation made headlines in April 2019 when it arranged a three-days free medical screening and surgery for residents in Bawku Municipality.³⁹ During the event, Hanan Abdul-Wahab donated GHS 5,000 (ca. 800 USD) to the Poor and Sick Fund of the Presbyterian Health Services and assorted medical supplies to the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital.⁴⁰ At Eid al-Adha in the same year, the Foundation donated 300 bags of rice to Ansarul Muslims and the NPP Constituency in Bawku,⁴¹ clearly indicating the intricate link between its founder and his political engagement. In May 2021, Alhaji Hanan Abdul-Wahab, through his Foundation, donated six multi-purpose ambulances to four districts in the Upper East Region.⁴²

Hajia Humu Awudu, (former) member of the NPP Youth Wing and NPP Parliamentary Candidate of the Wa Central Constituency, and her Hajia Humu Foundation (HHF, est. 2018), addresses both Muslim and non-Muslim/Christian communities in the Upper West Region, among others by making donations at Ramadan and Christmas.⁴³ Hailed as “a developer, youth transformer, women empowering actor, visionary leader, [and] hope for the vulnerable,”⁴⁴ her foundation has provided scholarships for students, among others to study medicine in Cuba, and donated material for the improvement/rehabilitation of sanitation, water and education infrastructure in Wa and surroundings.⁴⁵ In 2019, she established the Tunshuuni Fund with seed capital of GHS 50,000 as part of the HHF’s start-up and SME support program for aspiring women entrepreneurs.⁴⁶ In the same year, she and her foundation were honoured with the Change Maker of the Year respectively as the Female Personality of the Year of the Upper West Muslim Excellence Award.⁴⁷

The Aliu Mahama Foundation (AMF) was established by the late Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama in 2011 after his term of office to help the needy and less privileged in society. AMF set up an e-library in the Northern Region in 2017,⁴⁸ launched a medical outreach programme for Ghana’s prisons in 2018,⁴⁹ and invested in the same year GHS 12,000 (ca. 1,900 USD) as start-up capital to some 111 women in the shea industry in Yendi Municipality, Northern Region.⁵⁰ Although established by a Muslim, the Foundation can hardly be defined as a Muslim NGO; rather, it is a special-purpose platform for its main stakeholders. On the other hand, one of its main target areas is deprived urban communities across the country, for whom it launched the Zongo Laafia outreach programme in 2019 in collaboration with the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development and the Office of the National Chief Imam.⁵¹ According to AMF CEO Alhaji Umar Farouk Aliu Mahama, the Foundation addressed SDG#3, targeting to screen about 10,000 Zongo inhabitants for hypertension, malaria, skin infections and eye problems.⁵²

Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama himself founded the Partnership for Poverty Reduction (PPR) to support agricultural, educational and women empowerment projects in the Northern Region.⁵³ For example, the Tamale-based organisation has organised Iftar programmes in Yendi, alongside donating 400 knapsack-spraying machines to selected farmers in the Yendi area in 2018 and organising a course on financial literacy for women in Yendi in 2020.⁵⁴ The PPR is similar to Ms Hakeem Reyana’s NGO HealthWay Foundation. Founded by her and a group of health workers in 2019, the objectives of the Wa-based NGO are typical for a secular Muslim NGO as it focuses on the provision of healthcare and social services to deprived and vulnerable communities and individuals in the Upper West Region.⁵⁵

The Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects (SEHP) is a not-for-profit organisation founded and managed by Haija Samira Bawumia, Second Lady of Ghana. SEHP can be defined as a secular Muslim NGO as it seeks to empower the underprivileged in Ghana irrespectively their denominational background through social intervention projects. Its objective is to support Ghana in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1 (no poverty), SDG 3 (good health and well-being), SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), and SDG 17 (partnership for the goals). Since its start in 2017, SEHP’s focal areas has been education, health, and women empowerment.⁵⁶ Its ‘School library in a box’ initiative has (so far) targeted seventeen schools across three regions;⁵⁷ in 2021, it provided 200 public kindergartens with interactive textbooks, workbooks and teachers’ guide to make learning math fun and to develop exiting math lessons for children.⁵⁸ Its ‘Safe Delivery’ initiative includes the distribution of ‘Birth Kits’ to underprivileged expectant mothers, alongside supplying medical equipment and pharmaceuticals to selected health facilities as well as supporting the training and retooling of health workers across Ghana.⁵⁹ As regards to women empowerment, 1,200 women benefitted from its Shea Empowerment Initiative in 2019, training them in quality shea picking, shea kernel production and preservation.⁶⁰

1.3 Muslim Celebrities and Influencers

With the expansion of tech entrepreneurship in Ghana during the 2010s, a new group of Muslim religious entrepreneurs entered the arena and transformed the Muslim NGO landscape. This group comprises of youth leaders, TV celebrities and social media influencers. What combines them is their primary use of social media as their main tool for advocating, connecting, inspiring, networking, and rallying their followers—sometimes defined as members—near and afar, transgressing local, regional and national territories and boundaries, and giving rise to social movements with an impressive number of followers and volunteers. One of the first of these was the Princess Umul Hatiyya Foundation, instigated by “African Women who Rock” Umul Hatiyya Ibrahim Mahama already in 2008 but active only for a few years.⁶¹ Others followed with the breakthrough of social media in Ghana: ‘Zongo Star’ Kansar Abdulai’s HajiaPosh Foundation, Hajia Wassila Mohammad’s a.k.a. Queen Lady’s Haske Bisa Kan Haske—Nuur fauka nuur (Light upon Light), Hajia Ibrahim Sadiq’s Kuburah Diamonds Foundation and its Zango Women Livelihood and Empowerment Programme, Issah Agyeman’s Essa Ajeman Charity Foundation, Issah Ibrahim Yunus a.k.a. Teacher IB and his Teacher IB Jihad Foundation, Humu Gaage’s All Rise Initiative and her Zongo Girls Rise project and Zongo Girls Exams Clinic, Haija Aisha Abdallah Ibrahim a.k.a. Aisha Freedom and her Sisters’ Hangout Ghana, and Ibrahim Baba Maltiti’s Problems Shared Problems Solved (PSPS).

Fashion designer Ibrahim Baba Maltiti founded his organisation in 2017. Similar for other social movements of the internet age, the Kumasi-based Problems Shared Problems Solved operates only on social media and solicits funds from its members through calls on Facebook and WhatsApp; its multimedia/TV channel (PSPS Media Channel) counts almost 26,000 followers on Facebook (as of December 2022). The main objective of PSPS is to identify problems in Zongo communities, for example the payment of a needy person’s hospital and/or medical bill or the provision of support to orphans and widows, and to solicit financial assistance for the cause from his network. For other projects, such as the drilling of boreholes in Yendi, Ibrahim Baba Maltiti received funding from the French Muslim charity Nouvelle Optique, the initial contact between him and the French organisation being established through a PSPS member in the USA.⁶²

PSPS social network consists of Facebook followers in Ghana, of which about 7,000 in Accra and 6,000 in Kumasi, alongside several hundred in Nigeria, USA, Saudi Arabia and Italy. Most of its activities are confined to Kumasi, among others the distribution of annual Ramadan Iftar packages (about 100 packages daily in 2021) as well as its donations at Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, mainly as these are paid by local donors. Another local initiative is the PSPS empowerment programme for widows: the organisation supported seven widows by buying fridges stuffed with soft drinks to them as a way of making their living. In September 2022, Ibrahim Baba Maltiti launched a new, ambitious income-generating project for his organisation. Abandoning an earlier one of making and selling of soap due when the ingredients became too expensive, the new project consists of a catfish farm and a snail farm and is hoped to generate funds within the next 6 months.⁶³

The Meryam Zakariya Yahya Foundation (MZYF), a.k.a. Mariam Foundation, stands out among the recently founded NGO s. Established by Meryam Zakariya Yahya, author of the book Notes from My Soul: The Realities of Living with Mental Illness (2021),⁶⁴ as a platform to address problems of mental illness among young women in the Zongo communities in combination with (ad hoc) humanitarian relief initiatives, the Foundation is unique in its vision and mission.⁶⁵

Outmatching all Ghanaian Muslim influencers in terms of followers on Facebook is Khalifa Faith’s Peace Dawah Media (PDW) with more than one million followers as of August 2022 and his Amir Amir Foundation for the Blind.⁶⁶ What combines these new initiatives is their capacity to engage a large number of followers by running their fundraising campaigns via social media. PDW is a very successful media channel, announcing itself and the Ali Amir Foundation (on a banderol outside its office in Kumasi) to be a Dawah Centre, a Quran Lesson Centre, a Photography Centre, a Prophetic Medicine Centre, a Depression Centre, and an Orphanage Centre, and an education fund. It states to support the less privileged, blind Muslims, and (Muslim) prisons inmates as well as mosques and madrasas. In addition, it provides marriage counselling, food pantry to orphans, and invests in borehole and water projects.⁶⁷

Khalifa Faith’s emergence as an influential Muslim blogger is both symptomatic and serves as an example of how to make use of social media to launch and run social welfare projects and advocacy campaigns. “When Facebook introduced videos and Facebook live a phenomenon called Zongo bloggers surfaced,” notes his friend and Muslim blogger Sabit Ali in a eulogy posted in January 2022: “[Khalifa Faith] was among the Zongo bloggers […] and he chose to take his blogging to the next level by helping the poor and vulnerable in the Zongo communities.”⁶⁸ Sheikh Firdaus Ladan, CEO of Lean On Me Foundation (LOMEF), hailed his actions and praised him when he handed over the LOMEF Citation Award in July 2021:

For your dedication, resilience, indiscrimination and unwavering commitment to the welfare and betterment of humanity, Lean On Me Foundation on behalf of the lives you save across Africa and the world as a whole would like to thank you for such a tireless and jannatic [sic] work you do each and every day. The people you safe and the world at large is so appreciative of the philanthropic work you do, keep it up and stay forever blessed.⁶⁹

2.1 Mobilisation from Below for the Empowerment of Muslim Women

Most women’s organisations in Ghana, be they faith-based or secular, are informal and not officially registered. Only a few of them operate with written constitutions or codes of conduct, many enlist their members from local rural or urban communities and quarters. In their assessment of informal women’s organisations, Dzodzi Tsikata, Maame Gyekye-Jandoh and Martin Hushie distinguish between economic orientated and non-economic-orientated ones. Among the former they list market women’s organisations, trade or artisanal organisations, and [micro-] credit unions, among the latter community development organisations, religious organisations, political organisations, and educational organisations. Their investigation underscores the positive effect of informal women’s organisations due to their capacity to empower women to challenge male domination in churches and communities, educate girls and women within their communities, and to provide financial assistance and loans for women.⁷²

Traditionally, the associations and societies of Muslim women in Ghana were informal ones before the formation of the Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Ghana (FOMWAG), informed me Fatimatu N-Eyare Sulemanu. “Our grand-mothers and mothers used to gather to solve problems and help each other,” she remembered.⁷³ However, with the establishment of women’s wings of Muslim organisations, such as the Ghana Muslim Mission Women’s Fellowship (GMMWF), formal Muslim women’s organisation including women NGO s and foundations stated to appear on Ghanaian NGO landscape. The GMMWF, established in 1967, ranks perhaps as the oldest one and is a forerunner in fostering a holistic, i.e., material, social, economic, moral and spiritual, development of its members as well as local communities.⁷⁴ Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2017, the organisation launched an ambitious project to construct a Teacher Training College at Mim, Ahafo Region.⁷⁵

FOMWAG, formed in 1992, ranks among the oldest still operative bodies, counting various local groups, regional chapters and international branches,⁷⁶ among others FOMWAG-UK,⁷⁷ see Table 3.

Hailed for its previous engagement and achievements, FOMWAG, together with the Ghana Muslim Academy, ICODEHS and Paragon Foundation, was nominated for the first ever Ghana Muslim Achievers Award ‘Muslim NGO of the Year’ in 2015.⁷⁸ In August 2020, FOMWAG started to publicise its activities on Facebook, including the rural community project of FOMWAG Ashanti, FOMWAG Sekondi-Takoradi’s donation to Daboase orphanage, the Muslim Nurses group donation to Shakinah Clinic, the FOMWAG sensitisation seminar for imams to promote the wellbeing of women and girls, as well as its numerous interventions to alleviate COVID-19 stigmatisation and helping needy persons during the COVID-19 lockdown.⁷⁹

FOMWAG seldom makes national headlines.⁸⁰ Nevertheless, the various postings on Facebook demonstrate the wide range of activities the Association and its member groups have undertaken since then. Apart from occasional donations to assist disadvantaged groups,⁸¹ FOMWAG organised a sensitisation seminar for imams on the theme ‘Linking principles of human rights with Qurʾan and the Sunnah to promote the well-being of women and girls’ in August 2020.⁸² It also posted a video by its president Hajia Ajara Ishaku Telly, warning about COVID-19 stigmatisation.⁸³ In addition, it advertised the sod-cutting ceremony of the FOMWAG Girls SHS in Accra in August 2020,⁸⁴ a project it had initiated in 2012.⁸⁵ Its Ashanti regional branch launched the Rural Community Project Boamang, Ashanti Region, in September 2020 to extend the hitherto urban bias of FOMWAG’s activities to promote positive parenting, adolescent girls’ empowerment, and women empowerment among marginalized and neglected rural communities.⁸⁶ Interestingly, FOMWAG-Ashanti’s partners in the project are Paragon Foundation, the National Mosque Ghana, and two Turkish NGO s, HUDAI and Deniz Fereri.⁸⁷ The Sekondi-Takoradi branch, in turn, organised the First Leadership Seminar for Muslim women in November 2020.⁸⁸

FOMWAG comprises several local formal and informal groups and associations. One of the formal ones is the Accra-based non-political, non-sectarian, non-profit organisation Annisaa Foundation, founded in 2004. It aims to tap into the existing expertise of professional Muslim women in Ghana to improve the status of underprivileged Muslim women and children, as well as to sensitise its members on Islam and socio-economic issues.⁸⁹ The association’s focus is on empowering and encouraging young women to attain higher education, mainly by providing scholarships and donations and guiding, counselling, and mentoring young female students in five high schools in the Greater Accra Region. In addition, the association runs several annual outreach programmes, including providing support to Muslim inmates in Nsawam prison and Weija Leprosarium, as well as to orphans at the Mercy Islam School at Ashaley-Botwe.⁹⁰

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Figure 12

Achievers Ghana. Cover of notebook; Achievers Ghana organised the junior tech bootcamp in 2022.

Author’s collection

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Among the first-generation Muslim-led women NGO s ranks Achievers Ghana. The Accra-based non-profit, non-political and non-religious NGO, established in 2001 as Achievers Book Club and renamed in 2015, focuses on providing reading and mentor programmes, scholarships, ICT and career skills for girls in disadvantaged areas of Ghana (Figure 12). In 2020, the NGO received the Ghana Philanthropy Award for “outstanding philanthropic intervention”⁹¹ and was among the six NGO s contesting the Ghana Muslim Achievers Awards ‘Muslim NGO of the Year’ in the same year.⁹² In previous years, it had received donations from various companies, organisations and individuals for its scholarship programme through the Circumspecte 2014 Ramadan Fundraiser.⁹³ In 2015, 2016 and 2017, it expanded its activities and launched its own Ramadan fundraising campaigns to collect funds for scholarships (2016: target GHS10,000; 2017: target GHS 50,000 [ca. 8,000 USD]; “if 500 people donate GHS 100 then our target will be reached”).⁹⁴ On its homepage, the organisation announces that a large part of its funding comes from the local community in Nima Zongo. Some of its supporters donate GHS 5 (currently less than 1 USD) each month, although the main source of income are fundraising events at mosques, forums and public speeches, as well as ad hoc private and corporate donations.⁹⁵ In addition, the group has occasionally received donations from companies and international charities, such as the Global Fund for Children (2015) and KTL (2021).⁹⁶

Staffed with twenty members, of which thirteen at its office, Achievers runs most of its programmes in Accra, although some occasional activities have also been organised in Eastern and Central Region. While the group arranges its core activities for girls daily (except Sundays) at its office in Nima, its outreach programmes—reading skills and IT-classes—at schools in Nima, Mamobi and Accra Newtown address both girls and boys. COVID-19 interrupted the groups’ activities at schools in 2020. As a replacement, Achievers started to organise virtual reading classes. In 2022, the group resumed its reading and writing classes at its office.⁹⁷

Achievers serves as an inspiring example of the impact of a local NGO. Initially, Muslim parents tried to block the group for engaging with their girl children but soon changed their mind when they realised that girls were doing better at school, Aisha Mohammed explained. As a result of Achievers’ engagement in empowering girls, they have learnt to express themselves and some have even risen to leadership positions. Aisha Mohammed serves as a role model: she joined Achievers as a young child in 2015; seven years later the 21-year old young woman was Achievers’ public relations officer.⁹⁸

A new generation of women-led Muslim NGO s evolved during the 2010s. Some of them are transnational organisations and operate inside and outside Ghana. One of them is the Global Muslimah Dilemma (GMD), with members and sympathisers in Germany organising fundraising events to support GMD’s Ramadan Iftar and Qurban distributions in Accra since 2017.⁹⁹ The Accra-based Islamic Centre For Future Women (ICFW) runs similar programmes, including annual Ramadan donation campaigns.¹⁰⁰ The Salafi organisation made headlines in 2016 and 2017 for organising the Eid Fun Fair at Madina Central Mosque,¹⁰¹ and for running campaigns on social media propagating the use of the hijab and niqab.¹⁰² Its main activities for women empowerment are tuition and training programmes in sewing, soap making, disinfectant making and sanitizing.¹⁰³ Similar skills development workshops were organised by One Dawah Project (ODP) in Accra and Kumasi 2016 and 2017.¹⁰⁴ The mission of the 2017-founded Muslimah Mentorship Network (MMN) is to provide guidance to young Muslim girls and to assist them in their quest for higher education;¹⁰⁵ its ambition is to establish career-counselling centres in every school and every town across Ghana and subsequently across Africa by the year 2050.¹⁰⁶ So far, the Accra-based MMN has branched out to Kumasi, Takoradi and Tamale.¹⁰⁷ In conjunction with International Women’s Day 2020, MMN published on Facebook, an outcry against sexual harassment of girls by teachers, elders, classmates and family members, urging Muslim women to fight against this cancer of society:

Ensure that women and young girls in this country feel safe in their environment. The time for action is now. The time to speak up is now. No more gagging of victims, no more victim-blaming.¹⁰⁸

Another CSO established and operated by Muslim women is the Accra-based Young Women Leaders Network (YWLN), also referred to as ‘Young Women Leaders Achievers Network’. Although its profile and public appearance are non-denominational, its health education and personal development projects target Muslim girls and young females in underprivileged urban and rural communities. In 2017, YWLN started its Menstrual Hygiene Management project to erase the stigmatisation surrounding menstruation among girls and boys and train girls on making menstrual pads using reusable cloth. Two years later, it launched a broad campaign, the ‘Give a Sanitary Pad to the Girl Child’, and declared its ambition to distribute 10,000 free sanitary pads to girls aged 10 to 15 in suburban and rural schools in the Greater Accra Region.¹⁰⁹ In 2021, it extended its menstrual hygiene management education by touring schools in the Ashanti, Northern and North East Regions.¹¹⁰

Al-Hayat Foundation, established in 2011 and led by Haija Ramatu Abubakar Bimi, stands out as it ran cancer awareness programmes in the Greater Accra Region and the Northern Region until 2017. It seems, however, that the Foundation has been inactive since then. Eemaan Empowerment Project, in turn, arranges marriage counselling sessions as well as supports and pushes for various projects such as the bio digester toilet, FOMWAG’s and Muslim Health Workers’ breast cancer screening. In August 2021, it collaborated with Kuburah Diamonds Foundation in the second edition of the Zango Women Livelihood and Empowerment Programme (ZANWOLEAP).¹¹¹ The programme seeks to empower young girls and women from Zongo communities irrespective their religious background, among others by organising skills training events.¹¹² Halimatu Sadia Mohammed’s Voice of Zongo Communities is an example of a local association with a similar focus on empowering underprivileged girls and women by providing for them skills training in Dodowa Rahma Town, Greater Accra Region.¹¹³

Career and mentorship programmes for Muslim women have been arranged by the Awdad Foundation in 2022.¹¹⁴ Amina Deen Ibrahim’s Accra-based Muslim Women In Teaching (MWT), in turn, uses education as a tool for the prevention of early marriages of Muslim girls. Among others, it offers training in information technology alongside educational programmes in mathematics and sciences for girls.¹¹⁵ Humanitarian Headway, on the other hand, focuses on health education and advocacy on violence against women and girls, among others by annually celebrating and addressing the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (27 June), the International Day of the Girl Child (11 October) and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November). For example, in December 2020, the organisation arranged an event in Nima on “human rights against all forms of violence, e.g., rape, bully, physical assault, neglect, cultural abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse etc,” as well as “the right against all forms of discrimination, e.g., race, color, sex, age, religion, disability/disease condition, nationality, culture/tribe, sexual orientation etc.”¹¹⁶

Sisters’ Hangout is another group running advocacy and awareness programmes for women. Its key objective is to address health issues, including sickle cell, breast cancer and cervical cancer, tree planting, the cleaning of compounds, and domestic violence. The 200-member group started as a discussion group in July 2017 under the leadership of Muslim influence Hajia Aisha Abdallah Ibrahim, also known as Aisha Freedom. Hitherto, the group has not yet applied for registration although it plans to do so in the near future (and will then change its name). The group has a nationwide membership and operates mainly on social media and via Zoom. It engages in interfaith dialogue as well as provides Ramadan relief packages. The latter programme started in partnership with the Al-Qalam Institute and the Muslim NGO Sadaqa Train in 2019; in 2022, Sisters’ Hangout managed to support 150 families in and outside Accra. The group also plans to support orphans and widows. In 2022, it received a donation from Saudi Arabia to organise a breast cancer screening in Accra. Its main activity, however, are the recurrent monthly meetings. These have been in part been organised as physical events, the costs for organizing the events being covered by Aisha Freedom (as the group has no funds for paying rents etc). Responses from the women participating has been overwhelmingly positive, and Aisha Freedom envisions her organisation to establish a Muslim women centre to tackle domestic violence.¹¹⁷

Ideal Muslimah Network (IMN) is an example of a community of young Muslim women with branches in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. Having started an outreach programme to rural villages in the Ashanti Region in 2020, the network was renamed Village Connect Africa Foundation (VCA) in 2021. Its mission is to improve the lives of orphans and widows in deprived rural communities and provide them with quality healthcare, clean water, education, masjids, food and clothing. Its annual activities include visits to orphanages and prisons.¹¹⁸ The Foundation solicits part of its funding as well as all its donations from its members.¹¹⁹ IMN/VCA operated a rural Makaranta in Abuom village in the Ashanti Region and constructed a masjid in the village.¹²⁰ In addition, it arranged ad hoc collections on social media to assist needy persons, such as the successful appeal to raise GHS 3,500 (ca. 370 USD) to cover a woman’s myomectomy procedure. The German NGO Ansaar International E.V. together with the Ghanaian Muslim NGO s Peace Dawah Media and Paragon Foundation have sponsored its subsequent projects, such as the drilling of boreholes in rural villages in the Ashanti Region.¹²¹

Awakening Muslimah is a Tamale-based youth organisation established in 2016 and operating since 2017. Its mission is to empower women, children and vulnerable adults in society using ICT, education, and aid. Since its inception, the organisation has enlisted 60 volunteers in its network. Apart from running Ramadan and zakat al-fitr campaigns, its members visit orphanages as well as organise Islamic youth programmes, seminars at second cycle institutions, rural community programmes and outreach programmes for Muslim inmates in prisons. Moreover, its MAT Community ICT project has reached over 100 women and equipped them with skills in web development, graphic design, Microsoft Office Suite, and digital marketing.¹²²

Other women-led NGO s operating in the Northern Region are the Tamale-based Tiyumba Hope Foundation (THF), led by Fadila Fuseini;¹²³ the Pagba Saha Foundation, led by Hajia Sawarutu Alhassan and Hajia Naaimatu Fuseini; and the Sung Foundation (SUFOD), established in 2010 by a group of women led by Hajia Fati Seidu Tambro. THF has since 2018 been running a program to prevent child and forced marriages,¹²⁴ and made headlines when it organised its annual regional teens summit in Tamale in 2021 and 2022.¹²⁵ Pagba Saha Foundation, in turn, focuses on reproductive health and maternal mortality including teenage pregnancies and unsafe abortion.¹²⁶ Furthermore, it has addressed girl child education, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation, cervical cancer on its weekly programme on GTV from 2011 until 2019.¹²⁷ Similar to the Muslim Family Counselling Services, it directs its efforts to zero all forms of sexual and gender-based violence.¹²⁸ SUFOD, on the other hand, operates in eight districts in the Northern Region, where it assists women, girls, orphans, children with disabilities and generally marginalized people.¹²⁹

Several CSO for empowering Muslim women are based in Kumasi. One of them is the Yamboni Foundation for Zongo Women. Established in 2017, the Yamboni Foundation operates in Kumasi Zongo where it provides free health screenings, financial literacy lectures, vocational skills training, health talks, and entrepreneurial and career guidance for women. In addition, the organisation provides ad hoc funding to widows and orphans in need.¹³⁰ As part of its entrepreneurial projects, the Foundation has promoted the production and sale of local drinks, such as bottled Yamboni Tiger Nut Drink and food.¹³¹ In 2020, the Foundation launched its Eid TA Maraaya campaign under the slogan “Feed a Widow and an Orphan this Eidul Adha,” strongly calling for self-empowerment: “Do not wait for an Arab or donor to feed the widow and orphan in your community.”¹³² Together with the Karima Foundation, it run a campaign among its supports in Ghana and the USA for funding the distribution of schoolbags and shoes to orphans in June 2022.¹³³

Another Kumasi-based women-led NGO is Hajia Saminatu Bashira’s Dansaba Foundation. Established in 2020, its target groups are orphans and women. The NGO engaged in several projects during its first year of inception, such as arranging community health screening in November 2020 and cooperating with Al-Jihad Muslimah the Operation Feed the Needy (the “10 Gh 4 the Needy” campaign) in November/December 2020.¹³⁴ The Kumasi-based Advanced Ladies in Faith Foundation, in turn, declared to be a non-profit organisation for women only.¹³⁵ Al-Mutahabbat Fi-llah, in turn, was a local daʿwa group of Muslim female intellectuals that made headlines in 2012 when it in collaboration with the Iqra Foundation for Education and Development arranged a career guidance seminar to Muslim female students at KNUST.¹³⁶ However, it seems as if the organisation has become dormant since then.

The Ideal Muslimah (TIM) is a recent addition to local Muslim NGO s established by a Muslim women activist concentrating on Muslim girls and women. Initiated by Hajia Fatimatu Sahabi, TIM started as a social network among young Muslim women activists in the Cape Coast area. News about a new Muslim NGO spread on social media after its formation in March 2021.¹³⁷ TIM’s ambition is to operate on a national level and to initiate programmes for the spiritual, financial, career, physical, mental and social development of Muslim girls, including Islamic education, economic empowerment and skills acquisition, and mobilisation of funds for start-ups, health, and food and nutrition education. Moreover, humanitarian (ad hoc) support projects embrace visits to hospitals, schools and deprived communities.¹³⁸

The Empowered Sisters in Deen (ESID) is a Sunyani-based organisation. Launched at a national seminar in April 2019 in Tamale, the organisation has branches and activities throughout the country. Among others, it has held nationwide Ramadan Iftar in 2019 and 2021 with prison inmates in Greater Accra Region (James Camp Prisons), Central Region (Winneba Prisons), Eastern Region (Akuse Prisons), Ashanti Region (Amanfrom Prisons), Bono Region (Sunyani Prisons), Volta Region (Kpando Prisons), Northern Region (Tamale Prisons), Upper East region (Bawku Prisons) and Upper West Region (Wa Prisons).¹³⁹ Prior to its inception, its main emphasis had been on supporting orphanages, starting with a visit to Boadi Islamic Orphanage Home in Kumasi in January 2019. This project has since then turned into an annual event (2020: Taqwa Orphanage and School; 2021: Tamale Children’s Home; 2022: Father’s Orphanage Home in Anto, Western Region). In addition, ESID together with The Ghanaian Muslimah (TGM) organised a career, crafts and skills workshop in Kanda, Accra, in March 2019, followed by its Students Mentorship and Empowerment Program in November 2019.¹⁴⁰ The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns in Ghana cancelled all mentorship programs in 2020. Instead, ESID joined other Muslim organisations in providing liquid soap and hand sanitisers as part of the national effort to counteract the spread of the virus.¹⁴¹ Furthermore, it participated together with Star Creative Life Foundation, World Islamic Health Union, Loving Hut Vegan Diner, Amen Scientific Hospital, Islamic Ummah Relief and A Print.com Multimedia in the celebration of the World First Aid Day in September 2020.¹⁴²

The NafThess Foundation, lastly, has its headquarters in Bolgatanga and operates in the northern regions. Established by Nafisah Alhassan, the organisation started its activities by donating to rural schools in the Upper East and Upper West Regions in 2016 and 2017. In 2018, it launched the Girl Child Education and Women Empowerment Renewal Programme as well as assisting in the registration of health insurance cards in rural villages in the Upper East region. One year later, it initiated a menstrual hygiene awareness campaign in the Bawku region. In addition, it has organized an annual Ramadan ‘Feed the Poor Day’.¹⁴³

2.2 Salafi, Tijani and Non-sectarian Associations for daʿwah

Most Muslim NGO s, registered as well as unregistered, are daʿwatist. Their number seems to have mushroomed during the last decade, indicating the ongoing NGO-isation of the Muslim sphere in Ghana (Figure 13). Most of them use social media in their Iftar, Ramadan and Qurban/Udhiya fundraising campaigns, such as the Takoradi-based Sunna Hausa Relief Organisation,¹⁴⁴ the Accra-based Imaa-Allah Foundation,¹⁴⁵ the Accra-based Hope Road,¹⁴⁶ or the Tamale-based Islamic Foundation Centre,¹⁴⁷ to mention a few of them.

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Figure 13

Signpost of daʿwa organisation in Kumasi. Sautul Haqq is a Salafi organisation.

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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The Kumasi-based Paragon Foundation is an NGO spearheading the integration of modern secular and Islamic education. Established originally as a daʿwa movement among students in 2005, it has since branched out to provide education and training in communication, entrepreneurship, leadership and managerial skills, and interpersonal and intrapersonal relation skills. In addition, it provides consultancy and counselling services alongside mentorship programmes. Its key educational institution is the Fatima Farida Academy, with branches in Accra, Ashiresu, Ejisu, Kumasi, Nyianahiu, Tamale and Wa. Paragon Foundation closely collaborates with Turkish NGO s, among others HUDAI, which provides funds its educational facilities and daʿwa programmes.¹⁴⁸ According to its founder Sheikh Abdul Nasir-Deen, his rationale for launching the Foundation was to bring an alternative to Arab interventions and to mobilize funds from within the Ghanaian Muslim community. Although the latter ambition has been difficult to realize, his Foundation through its high quality modern high schools has made education the core are of socio-economic empowerment. His ultimate visions is a transformation from informal to formal employment and entrepreneurship of Muslims: from street cooking to restaurants, from street butchers to industrial level meat processing, from street sawing and tailoring to confection and textile producers.¹⁴⁹

The Organization for Muslim Unity Ghana (OMUG) is a Tamale-based daʿwa organisation founded in 2000 and is an example of an initiative in the northern parts of the country. It formed the Zaitun Center for Education and Charitable Services in 2007 as part of its outreach activities to rural communities in the Northern Region. The Zaitun Centre has a printing machine specialising in translating and printing Islamic books. The main achievement of its founder and director, Sheikh Muhammad Baba Gbetobu, is the translation of the Qurʾan into Dagbani. In addition, the Zaitun Center has established kindergarten and primary schools and plans to attach an orphanage to the complex and expand the school into an Islamic college, the Darus-Sahabah College. In line with many other Muslim NGO s in Ghana, Sheikh Muhammad Baba Gbetobu’s NGO relies on foreign donors; his previous projects, including the translation and printing of the Qurʾan in Dagbani, were covered by donations from Saudi Arabia. The homepage of the Zaitun Centre is also displayed in English and Arabic to attract funding for his masjid project.¹⁵⁰

The Fakhrul Islam Foundation (FIF), in turn, is a local Muslim FBO based in Sunyani. Its main emphasis is on daʿwa and organising tertiary Muslim students at primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions in the (former) Brong Ahafo Region.¹⁵¹ In 2019, FIF launched the Empowered Muslim Girl (EMG) club at all Islamic Basic Schools in the Sunyani metropolis and the region.¹⁵² The Tamale-based Sufi daʿwa platform Islamic Radio Foundation (IRF) has a similar objective, namely the empowerment of Muslim girls through education.¹⁵³

Many of these local daʿwa organisations are attempts by local imams and activists to solicit external donations and funding for mosques, madrasa, primary/JHS buildings, borehole projects and humanitarian relief on social media, for example, those by Islamic Aid Ghana,¹⁵⁴ a local daʿwa organisation in Atebubu, alongside the Obuasi-based Urbanhive Charity Foundation,¹⁵⁵ or the Al-Muslim Foundation Ghana.¹⁵⁶ Some have successfully attracted funds from external/foreign donors (usually Saudi philanthropists) for their projects. Among these are the Al-Imam Charity Foundation in Kumasi, the Nsawam-based Darus Salaam Humanitarian Foundation, and the Sunyani-based Al-Islah Humanitarian Foundation for their boreholes and well projects.¹⁵⁷ The Tamale-based Lights of Guidance and Humanity Foundation, in turn, is an example of a second-generation dawatist organisation as it both draws on foreign donors as well as (since 2021) generates its own funding for organising its Ramadan Daʿwah Caravan to rural villages in the Northern Region.¹⁵⁸ Sheikh Habib Mohammad Babagoona’s Qawiyun AMIN Foundation, in turn, posted requests in Arabic, English and Turkish for funding scholarships, mosque and water projects on Facebook and has managed to receive donations from Turkish NGO s for drilling boreholes in various urban and rural communities in Ejura/Sekyuedumase District.¹⁵⁹

The educational complex project of Nurul Bayaan, consisting of a senior high school, orphanage, clinic and mosque, illustrates the transnational connections enabled by using social media.¹⁶⁰ Starting as a WhatsApp platform to link local and diaspora members in Germany in March 2016, the organisation was registered in Ghana and Germany, with headquarters in Duisburg and offices in Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region. Initially a daʿwa organisation, it soon incorporated its core objective to press for educational, social and health interventions. As an outcome, it presented an ambitious plan for a multi-purpose building complex and managed to acquire plots of land between Kwabenya and Afienya in the Greater Accra Region. Appeals for donations (sadaqa jariya) were posted on its Facebook account, notifying donors to pay into the organisation’s bank account in Germany. Construction started in May 2020, and the organisation has been eager to demonstrate the progress of the project by posting video clips on its Facebook account and homepage.¹⁶¹

Many Muslim youth associations are daʿwa organisations, such as the Ghana Islamic Youth Foundation and the Abofu Faila Youth Association in Accra,¹⁶² the Federation of Responsible Muslim Youth Ghana in Kumasi,¹⁶³ the Federation of Muslim Youth Groups—Ghana in Cape Coast, the Banu Abdalla Faida Youth, the youth wing of the Tijaniyya in Sekondi Zongo,¹⁶⁴ the Baye Do Everything,¹⁶⁵ a Tijani youth movement in Accra, or the Yendi Moslem Youth Research Foundation,¹⁶⁶ to mention a few of them. Dawahstorm or TDG-GH, for instance, has been in operation since 2014. The group mainly address non-Muslims and distributes information about Islam in English, Ewe, Ga, Hausa, and Twi. Its Facebook account features regularly announcements and YouTube videos from its primus motor Imoru Abdulai Sadat.¹⁶⁷ In addition, both Dawahstorm’s and Imoru Sadat’s Facebook accounts carry updates from the Ghana chapter of the UK-daʿwa organisation IERA (Islamic Eduaction and Research Academy).¹⁶⁸ The Shafa Zongo Youth Foundation, a Salafi youth group in Kwame Danso, in the Bono East Region, established in 2020, calls its members to make sadaqa jariya donations to support its planned humanitarian outreach, such as supporting orphans and widows, constructing boreholes, schools and hospitals.¹⁶⁹ So far, the group has been able to start the construction of a new Islamic (Makaranta) school at Shafa Zongo. Others, such as the Network for Zongo Transformation, are initiatives to gather and inspire students from Zongo communities at Ghanaian universities,¹⁷⁰ while the Accra-based Ahlussunnah Youth Association cooperates with the Umma Academy, a Salafi institute located in Kumasi, in its online daʿwa.¹⁷¹ The Center For Muslim Youth, in turn, launched a Zero Waste Community Rally in April 2017 and organised, together with the Community Redemption Foundation, the Zongo Youth Re-Awakening Summit in Kumasi in January 2019.¹⁷²

The Wa-based Muslim Youth Association (MYA) defines itself as non-sectarian: “At MYA, there are no Sunni, Wahabi, Tijani. We believe we are all Muslims and together we can achieve more”, it says on its page. Its mission is to promote the study of Islam and “encouraging Muslims, especially the Youth, to live a more responsible civic life.”¹⁷³ Like other Zongo youth movements, its tenor on Facebook contains a critical approach to contemporary societal and political challenges in Zongo communities, addressing a generational conflict but also championing a positive image of the capacity of the youth to initiate changes:

In a world where power is being dominated by the few elite, in a community where resources are entrusted in the hands of the dominants, conspicuously, the politicians, everyone seems to be on the loose. When one appoints himself or herself for a position of governance, he/she deserves to be held accountable when things are not moving right. It will not be entirely wrong for people to criticize this stance. However, we need to change this to let it not be the order of the day. For sure, how long can this continue when there [is] a host of confronting issues at hand. We fail to acknowledge and appreciate [our] capabilities in us in the fight against the state of underdevelopment of our communities; our educational institutions, health facilities, the unavailability of emergency car services, among others. At best, we sit in the comfort of our camps and push [the] blame to our leaders; the president and his appointees, opinion leaders, the clergy and many others in leadership positions. However, we always fail to blame ourselves. You that is sitting at a camp complaining, you that is sitting with your phone reading this piece, ask yourself ‘what have I done to impact the lives of my fellow Muslims? What commitment have I made financially toward the development of my community?’¹⁷⁴

While the building of mosque complexes ranked high on the agenda of already institutionalized groups and communities, the aspiration to erect educational complexes including a hostel and a clinic is a rather recent phenomenon. Many daʿwa organisations started as preacher-centred platforms for the propagation of Islam among its members and within the local Muslim community but have in recent years embarked on educational projects. The Ashaiman-based Salafi (ASWAJ) Fikrul Islam Association serves as an example. Registered as the Fikrul Islam Daʿawah Association in 2015,¹⁷⁵ it acquired an acre of land in September 2019.¹⁷⁶ Two months later, it was relaunched as the Fikrul Islam Association¹⁷⁷ and issued a call to its members for the building of a school, clinic and masjid.¹⁷⁸

The Association of Muslim Youth for Dawah (AMYDA) is an example of a local Salafi daʿwa group making use of social media to run Ramadan campaigns. AMYDA operates in the Old Town Zongo of Akim Oda, Eastern Region. After establishing its Facebook account in April 2020, the group published, one month later, an announcement for its Ramadan 2020 Campaign:

Public Notice: As part of the religious, social and corporate responsibilities of the above association, we are therefore appealing to all individuals and corporate bodies or organizations in and outside Ghana, to support our initiative of helping the poor, the needy and orphans, and the vulnerable in our Zongo communities, especially in this noble month of Ramadan.¹⁷⁹

What followed was typical for an NGO in the age of social media. Starting on the 10th of May, AMYDA’s functionaries continuously posted notifications and updates:

May 10th: “First batch of the donations of food items done in Akim Oda Zongo and Asene camp. Second batch expected to be done soon Insha Allah. Big thank you to our donors and sponsors […] More needs to be done.”

May 16th: “Second batch of the food donations done […] Our doors are still opened for your support for the third batch of donations and distribution.”¹⁸⁰

They also posted several short videos showing the donation of food items to needy members in the Zongo. However, for reasons not known, either AMYDA ceased its activities after Ramadan 2020 or ceased to use Facebook as a tool for communication as its Facebook account has not been updated since November 2020.

Similar to AMYDA, many Muslim youth associations and organisations unleashed a wide range of activities during the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the country in 2020 and 2021. As previously noted, the lockdown during spring 2020 resulted in unofficial groups and networks alongside already established associations to make use of social media and especially Facebook as their main vehicle for communication and interaction, not least in their Ramadan Iftar and Eid campaigns (see further Chapter 3.1). Several of them initiated campaigns to fund the provision of free sanitisers to fight the Corona virus or used Facebook to disseminate information on the virus and about how to protect oneself against it. One among them was the Cape Coast-based Salafi youth group Ghana Islamic Jihad Foundation (GISJF; since August 2021 known as Ghana Islamic Sadaqqa Foundation, GISF) who posted such a call on Facebook in early March 2021.¹⁸¹ Nevertheless, after running some ad hoc campaigns, the group returned to daʿwa activities, linked up with Islamic Sunnah Channel (ASWAJ) in autumn 2021, and has since then promoted its online TV programs and videos.¹⁸²

Most of the above and earlier mentioned calls for donations and projects are linked to Salafi or non-Sufi groups and communities in Ghana. Sufi communities, such as the Tijaniyyah Muslims Movement of Ghana (TMG), have been latecomers in mobilising funds through open calls for donations on social media. However, the situation changed during the leadership of Zaeem (President) Sheikh Abdul Wadud Harun, who established the Tijjaniya Senior High School at Asokore near Ejisu, Ashanti Region, in 2009.¹⁸³ Moreover, the TMG established a homepage and opened a Facebook account, launching an online campaign in August 2018 (re-activated in September 2021), for donations for the infrastructural expansion of the Tijjaniya Senior High School, the construction and establishment of the Tijjaniya Educational Complex at Agyin Kotoku, Greater Accra, and the construction of the projected Tijjaniya University College of Ghana.¹⁸⁴

The other Tijani community, the Jallo Tijaniyya or Tijaniyya Muslim Council of Ghana, also started to mobilise funds in public under the leadership of Sheikh Khalifa Ahmad Abul-Faid Maikano and the establishment of the Sheikh Abdullah Maikano Charity Foundation, in 2015. Similar to the TMG, the call for donations by the Jallo Tijaniyya mainly concerns the construction of educational facilities and complexes, such as a Vocational Training Institute in Prang.¹⁸⁵ Named the Sheikh Abdullahi Ahmed Maikano Education Complex, the Tijaniyya Muslim Council announced the project during the annual Mawlid in 2019. Concrete steps towards finalising the project started in February 2022 when a sod-cutting event was organised at the building site that culminated with calls for donations to its members.¹⁸⁶

In November 2019, Sheikh Khairu Abdullahi Maikano, Founder and President of Jallo Youth Khidma Organisation (JYKO), urged the Jallo Tijani youth worldwide to join and support JYKO in its health education and health promotion activities.¹⁸⁷ In a previous Mawlid at Prang, JYKO had organised health screenings and provided 20 mobile toilets at the cost of GHS 10,600; this was repeated at Mawlid and Tilawa in 2020.¹⁸⁸ However, the ultimate goal was to translate the health screening exercise into a standard, permanent health facility, the Baaba Geewa Memorial Hospital projected to be built in Prang, to be materialised by donations from the Jallo youth.¹⁸⁹

Some local Tijani humanitarian initiatives have evolved in recent years. Sheikh Maswud Abdul Rahman Cisse founded the Rawdatul Rijaal Foundation in (ca.) 2010. His NGO concentrates mainly on daʿwa alongside drug prevention campaigns and humanitarian relief activities in Kwesimintsim Zongo and Takoradi. In October 2020, the Foundation declared its support to Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals, ending hunger.¹⁹⁰ In turn, the Mallam Tijani Koforidua Foundation was founded in 2021 to oversee and finish a community library project started by the late Sheikh Ahmad Tijani Abdul Rahman (Mallam Tijani) in Koforidua Zongo.¹⁹¹ The Tamale-based Islam for All Organisation is closely connected to the Salwatiyya Islamic Propagation Center of Sheikh Rashid Hussein Salwat in Accra.¹⁹²

2.3 Non-sectarian, Non-tribal and Non-political: The GMM and the IMS

The Ghana Muslim Mission (GMM) is among the oldest Muslim organisations in Ghana. Originally founded in 1957 as an association to articulate the interests of Ga Muslims, its initial outline was ethnic rather than sectarian, and its activities were limited to the Greater Accra Region. This picture was slowly to change over the next decades as the GMM tried downscaling its ethnic allegiance. As an outcome, the GMM has successfully expanded its activities outside Accra and established itself as an outspoken multi-ethnic, non-denominational, non-sectarian and non-partisan Sunni Muslim organisation.¹⁹³

The GMM has a structured organisational framework consisting of local, district and regional branches. The basic unit is a local branch with members making monthly contributions, infaq, to support the agenda of the GMM. All three levels have executive committees. The top of the organisational pyramid, the national executive committee, is responsible for decision-making and administration at the national level. Conferences and other activities to raise funds are organised at the district, regional and national levels¹⁹⁴ since 2007 also by the women’s wing of the organisation.¹⁹⁵ The organisation and its branches are active on the internet and social media (see Table 4), although the homepage has not been updated since 2016.

As a result of its expansion, the GMM started to devote itself to the empowerment of Muslims in Ghana. This had been part of the original aims and objectives of the organisation but had during the first decade focussed on self-help and assistance to its members and on educating its members on Islam, civic, social, health and other developmental issues. However, with the spread of its activities to other parts of the country, the focus of the GMM has shifted to a large-scale mobilization of resources for the establishment of educational institutions at all levels and the provision of scholarship packages for brilliant needy students. Moreover, the GMM has invested in the building of mosques, healthcare centres and clinics (see Chapter 4.4), the provision of medical and social services to support the poor, aged, disabled and sick, as well as the drilling of boreholes.¹⁹⁶ These objectives are mainly realised through annual donations (infaq) and the regional zakat funds, see Chapter 5.3.2, or through the incomes from its commercial and trading enterprises established as awqaf, see Chapter 6.3. Sometimes, the organisation collaborates with other Muslim NGO s and charities in joint outreach programmes. For example, in December 2022, GMM in collaboration with The Light Foundation and the US Muslim charity Ar-Rahman Foundation organised free medical screening in Greater Accra.¹⁹⁷ In addition, the Mission supports its social intervention programmes through its endowment fund, widows and orphans’ funds, education and health fund, and entrepreneurship fund.

A special focus area is the various educational projects run by the GMM, which have been a major emphasis of GMM National Chairman Sheikh Dr Amin Bonsu. Sheikh Bonsu notified at the 55th National Conference in 2013 that “… the bane of the Ghanaian Muslim community was ignorance and lack of holistic education to propel its development”,¹⁹⁸ and further underlined in an interview in 2017:

Let us strive to build more schools to take care of the spiritual and academic development of Muslim kids. Muslim students in some schools are not allowed to practice their faith, and this affects the kids psychologically.¹⁹⁹

Consequently, the organisation operates 165 educational units, including more than 150 basic school complexes, including Kindergarten, primary and junior high schools, as well as two government-assisted senior high schools, the Islamic Senior High School in Kumasi (established 1969, illustration 14),²⁰⁰ and the Ghana Muslim Mission Senior High School, established in 2008 at Sekyere-Beposo in the Ashanti Region.²⁰¹ In addition, it runs Islamic teacher colleges in Buipe (Savannah Region) and Beposo to train teachers for schools under the Islamic Education Unit.²⁰² During the 2010s, the Mission launched an ambitious programme for expanding its higher education institutions and acquired land for establishing high schools at Asankragua and Sefwi Boako (Western Region), Mankasim (Central Region), Koforidua and Donkorkrom (Eastern Region), and Domeabra (Greater Accra Region).²⁰³ In addition, the programme includes the construction of a Nurses and Midwifery Training College at Mim near Atebubu in the Bono East Region,²⁰⁴ and Colleges of Education in Kukuom (Ahafo Region) and Koforidua (Eastern Region).²⁰⁵

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Figure 14

GMM Senior High School, Kumasi. Signpost outside the SHS, announcing the building of a new administrative block. The project was finished in 2022.

Photo: Holger Weiss/2017

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The funding for the various GMM educational projects follows a pattern illuminated by the campaign for the project in Koforidua. Initiated in 2017, the GMM educational projects appealed at the second annual conference of the Regional Branch of the GMM for an amount of GHS 100,000.00 for structural drawings for the College and to prepare the grounds a seven-acre plot of land. The appeal was repeated at the national conference of the GMM held in Koforidua in March 2017.²⁰⁶ In addition, the Eastern Regional Branch issued an appeal to the government to support the initiative.²⁰⁷ In early 2018, the project made headlines when Vice-President Alhaji Dr Mahamadu Bawumia donated GHC 10,000.²⁰⁸ Nevertheless, the project has been slow in progressing as it is mainly sponsored through private donations, although the (then) Minister of Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Dr Abdul-Hamid Mustapha, declared in 2020 that the project would get government funding from GETFUND.²⁰⁹

However, the most ambitious educational project of Sheikh Dr Amin Bonsu is the establishment of a university. Launched in 2009, the GMM has acquired 9.5 acres of land at Esereso near Kumasi,²¹⁰ started in 2012 to prepare the ground for its GHC 18.6 million (ca. 301,000 USD) Ghana Muslim Mission University College,²¹¹ and raised GHS 200,000 (ca. 32,300 USD) in support of the construction of infrastructure in 2014.²¹² In 2015, GMM Ashanti Region called members in Ghana and abroad after its regional conference to support the project: “To those who for various reasons could not attend, you can still support the Islamic University project […].”²¹³ Speaking at the 58th National Conference in 2016, the Deputy National Vice-Chairman Dr Mohammed Duah appealed to the government and stakeholders to collaborate with the GMM to ensure the success of the project while the conference urged members to continue to donate funds for the project.²¹⁴ The vision is to establish a full-fledged university with programmes in Islamic theology and education, linguistics with education and international relations, business programmes including logistics and procurement, business management and human resource management, as well as science programmes in nursing, medicine and engineering.²¹⁵

Originally part of the GMM, the Islamic Mission Secretariat (IMS) evolved in 1963 as a breakaway group in Kumasi under the leadership of Sheikh Adam Mohammed Appiedu.²¹⁶ In the late 1980s, the IMS established itself as an independent group.²¹⁷ Since then, the IMS has spread across the country. It is active in promoting both Islamic and secular education in Ghana, and operates a number of schools across the country. In 2005, the IMS announced the plan construct am Islamic Teachers Training College at Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Tano North Municipal District, Ahafo Region, and mobilised GHC 55 million (USD 4,700) for the project.²¹⁸ Ten years later, at its 50th National Convention, (then) IMS National Secretary Sheikh Osman Mustapha Opoku announced the plan to construct an Islamic University College of Education, and informed the audience that the traditional authorities had released about 120 acres of land for the project. In addition, the IMS envisaged to construct hospitals at Techiman and New Dormaa in Sunyani, see further Chapter 4.4.²¹⁹ Since 2022, the IMS operates its own online TV channel.²²⁰

The IMS managed eventually to finalize its college project through a national fund raising project although along the road changed its structure into an Islamic Senior High/Technical School. In January 2022, the IMS published an announcement for open vacancies at the new school (headmaster, imam, teachers, administrator, accountant, accounts staff, secretary, matron, security, labourers, and storekeeper). Four months later, it posted a call for admissions for the new school.²²¹

2.4 Quiet but Visible and with an Impact: GISER and Humanity First Ghana

Lebanese and Ahmadi NGO s have been active for several decades. Compared with other local or international Muslim NGO s, their activities seldom make the headlines. However, in terms of their engagement in education and health care projects and human development, their impact has profoundly affected local communities.

The origins of the Lebanese community in Ghana go back to the 1890s, when the first Lebanese merchants and entrepreneurs started their businesses on the Gold Coast. Since then, the community, which includes both Christian and Muslim families, has grown in numbers. Most of them have Ghanaian citizenship, and some have intermarried with Ghanaian families. Lebanese entrepreneurs list among Ghana’s most wealthy persons, and a leading Lebanese family venture ranks among the country’s most successful business enterprises. Social associations and clubs to cater to the Lebanese community have existed since the 1920s, including the Syrian-Lebanese Benevolent Society.²²²

For decades, the Lebanese community made few efforts to engage in communal development at large. This situation changed in 1985 when a group of Lebanese and Ghanaian entrepreneurs founded the Ghana Islamic Society for Education and Reformation (GISER). Being one of the oldest Muslim NGO s in Ghana, the Accra-based NGO concentrates on three core mission areas: education, community development and religious awareness. GISER established and managed several different educational institutions in the Accra metropolis, including the Madina Islamic School (MIS),²²³ the Ghana-Lebanon Islamic School (GLIS),²²⁴ Al-Rayan International School,²²⁵ and the College of Holy Quran and Islamic Studies (CQIS),²²⁶ as well as the Muslim Teacher Training Institute (MTTI) in Kumasi.²²⁷

Ahmadi missionaries, in turn, settled in the Gold Coast in 1921 and subsequently established Ahmadi communities in Saltpond and Wa. Frictions over imamship, among others, resulted in severe clashes with Sunni Muslim groups, especially in the northern parts of the country during the 1930s. Ahmadi-Sunni tensions were notable for the following decades but have abated at the end of the twentieth century.²²⁸ Although Sunni, most notably Salafi, Muslim clerics distance themselves from the Ahmadis, defining them as heretics, their body in Ghana, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission (AMM), has a representation at the Office of the National Chief Imam as well as at the Zakat and Sadaqa Trust Fund.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission embarked early on evangelisation through welfare activities, including the introduction of modern education and health care. Starting with the Talim ul Islam Ahmadiyya School in 1924, Ahmadi schools had a standard British curriculum and offered Arabic and Islamic religious instruction. Ahmadi English language schools soon followed, financially supported by the British colony and by subsequent Ghanaian governments.²²⁹ By the early twenty-first century, Ahmadi educational complexes included day-care centres and kindergartens, primary, junior and senior high schools, as well as a Teacher Training College.²³⁰

Since the 1970s, the Ahmadi Muslim Mission also started to build hospitals to provide health care in rural communities.²³¹ As an outcome of these activities, the Ministry of Health recognises AMM as an official health agency.²³² Through the Nusrat Jahan Scheme or Service to Humanity Scheme, Ahmadi medical doctors serve the Ahmadi hospitals. Fifty years later, the Mission operates twelve medical facilities throughout Ghana (see further Chapter 4.4).²³³ The hospitals were built through the Nusrat Jahan launched by the third Ahmadi Khalifa Mirza Nasir Ahmad in 1970. He also initiated the Medical Association of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, which allowed Ahmadi doctors to dedicate some weeks, months or years to work in Ahmadiyya hospitals. Since then, this association has generated offshoots in many countries known as the Ahmadiyya Muslim Medical Association, AMMA, among others in the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada.²³⁴ In 2021, the AMM launched a new rural initiative, namely the planting of trees. Starting in Kumbungu Districit, Northern Region, in June 2021, its plan is to engage all AMM Zonal Groups and replicate the project all over the country.²³⁵

The INGO Humanity First International joined the Ahmadi social welfare institutions in 1995. Previous associations such as the AMMA and the International Association of Ahmadi Architects and Engineers had a distinct religious affiliation. Humanity First International, however, did not present itself as an Ahmadi organisation. Rather, as Katrin Langewiesche underscores, the organisation targets the whole population of a country and does not place its religious affiliation in the foreground. She further notes a changing trend of the organisation in displaying itself as an Ahmadi NGO, in contrast to an earlier situation when its proximity to the Ahmadiyya was put in the background. However, she further highlights that Humanity First International is not a daʿwa organisation, and missionary activism does not feature in their core activities.²³⁶

Humanity First International operates in 60 countries worldwide.²³⁷ Ahmadi and non-Ahmadi doctors serve at Ahmadi hospitals through the Nusrat Jahan or via Humanity First;²³⁸ for example, physicians from Humanity First USA visited Ghana to assist local physicians in providing free surgical care in 2008,²³⁹ whereas a team from Humanity First UK visited Ghana in 2019.²⁴⁰ Further, Humanity First International engages in educational projects and assists Ahmadiyya schools. For example, it launched the Classrooms Transformation Project in 2018, and Humanity First UK and Humanity First Norway have since then assisted schools in Ghana.²⁴¹

In contrast to AMMA, Humanity First has a branch in Ghana, registered in 1996 with headquarters in Accra.²⁴² Humanity First Ghana runs several humanitarian schemes, including the Annual Surgical Mission Project, the Humanity First Clinical Laboratory in Daboase, and the Water For Life Project.²⁴³ Moreover, it provided disaster relief to flood victims in the northern regions in May 2019, apart from funding borehole and water projects.²⁴⁴

Humanity First Ghana has, over the past decades, evolved into a national charity with an impressive engagement, traceable through its Facebook account (established in 2018; 1,829 followers in July 2021). Continued calls are made for money and blood donations, especially at the Jalsa Ghana, the annual gatherings of the Ahmadiyya:

1 DAY TO #JALSAGHANA: YOUR DONATION CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF MANY IN DEPRIVED COMMUNITIES. WATCH THIS AND MEET US @GHANAJALSA.²⁴⁵

And,

Day of #JalsaGhana2019: #Blood donation drive ongoing. Think #HumanityFirst, donate blood and save a life now!²⁴⁶

During the COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020, it organised food donations at several locations in the Great Accra Region, Kumasi Metropolis, and Kasoa,²⁴⁷ and issued a general appeal to its members to donate to its COVID-19 humanitarian support programme.²⁴⁸ Apart from the support of its members, the organisation received a donation of 500 family food packages worth GHS 75,000 from the Ghana Association of Bankers, which it distributed in Accra.²⁴⁹ Another package from Access Bank Ghana was distributed in Kumasi.²⁵⁰ Although not noted on its Facebook page, it is likely that Humanity First Ghana also supported families in the Northern Region as it noted in August 2020 that “Humanity First Ghana resumes distribution of #FamilyFoodPacks in the northern part of #Ghana.”²⁵¹

Although certainly existing, Iftar, Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha (Qurban) donations organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission or Humanity First Ghana have left few traces. It seems these events have been annual although rarely noted on social media; among the few is a note on the Facebook page of Humanity First Ghana about a donation in Bolgatanga in late July 2021, the distribution of bread for Iftar in 2022, and Qurban meat and clothes in 2023.²⁵² The humanitarian relief campaign during the COVID-19 lockdown was among the few times when the Ghana chapter of Humanity First made headlines in Ghanaian news media.²⁵³ During previous years, humanitarian assistance Ahmadi organisations rarely made the headlines, with a few exceptions, such as the donation by the Ahmadiyya Youth Association to the Cape Coast School for the Deaf and Blind in 2019.²⁵⁴

2.5 Ghanaian Shiʿa Charities and Initiatives

The first leader of the Ghanaian Shiʿite community, the late Sheikh Abdul Salam Abdul Hamid Bansi (1956–2012), launched the Imam Hussein Foundation in 1988 as part of his campaign to disseminate Shiʿite literature in Ghana.²⁵⁵ The Foundation, most likely with Iranian financial assistance, also runs an ambitious programme, building 17 Shiʿa mosques, 6 schools and 5 Hawzas (centres for the religious education of Shiʿa Muslim scholars) and drilling boreholes all over the country.²⁵⁶

The Majmaʿ Ahlil Bait (a.s) or Assembly of Ahlil Bait (a.s), Ghana, established in 2000 with headquarters in Accra, is the umbrella organisation of the Shia community in Ghana. Interestingly, it defines itself as an NGO and noted on the 2017 version of its homepage that it is largely self-funded. Apart from focusing on religious instruction and the dissemination of Shia Islam, its social welfare programme includes financial support to Shia youth for improving their economic status, educational scholarships, and financial support for needy students.²⁵⁷

The Imam Baqir Islamic Centre is a “non-profitable charitable organisation” of the Shia community in Accra. Apart from serving the religious, educational and charitable purposes of its community, its objective is to establish hawza tertiary institutions, hussainias (congregation halls) and mosques throughout Ghana. Next to its daʿwa programme, the Centre mobilises humanitarian relief for orphans, disabled and impoverished individuals and organises Ramadan Iftar programmes. In addition, part of its long-term agenda is the establishment of clinics, hospitals, and educational schools at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels and the commissioning of water projects.²⁵⁸ The Centre and its imam, Sheikh Suleiman Nadi Bamba, made headlines in March 2021 when it donated assorted items to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital. The donation was part of the Shia celebration of the birthday of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph, and included packs of water, rice, toilet rolls, hand sanitisers, soft drinks, washing powder, cooking oil, spaghetti and sanitation and hygiene supplies.

According to Sheikh Bamba, the annual celebration of Imam Ali was both an event for theological reflection and a day to extend a helping hand to the deprived and vulnerable members of society. He further announced that the Imam Baqir Islamic Centre was committed to engaging in the socio-economic development of Muslims and the entire Ghanaian society by creating opportunities and programmes that will alleviate hardship and promote self-sufficiency.²⁵⁹

Aal Yaseen Ghana or Aal Yaseem Foundation is a Ghanaian Shiʿa (Ahlul-Bayt) FBO, founded and headed by Sheikh Iddriss Toppoh in 2005, with headquarters in Nsawam. Its objective is to organise daʿwa and Islamic tabligh, undertake humanitarian, development and relief projects, and aspires to establish a hospital, clinics and “humanitarian centres.” Interestingly, it claims to exhort “the generous people inside & abroad to provide their donations, zakat and sadaqa as financial & in-kind assistance for the poor and needy,” indicating that it also generates funding from members as well as outside donors.²⁶⁰ In 2011, for example, the Foundation raised USD 300 from members and received USD 3,000 as a donation from people in Iran and Lebanon for its Ramadan programmes, including Iftar for impoverished families, widows and orphans as well as Muslim prisoners. Interestingly, as part of its intra-Muslim outreach, the Foundation also donated 10 bags of rice and 5 bags of sugar to selected Sunni Muslim organisations in Nsawam, Suhum and Accra. In addition, the Foundation collected USD 100 from its members and received USD 400 from the Cultural Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a Muslim journalist in Canada for its 2011 Ashura Programme.²⁶¹

One of the focal areas of Aal Yaseem Ghana is girl-child education, human rights of women and support for widowed women. In 2008, its founder led a campaign to voice women’s human rights, advocating that women be allowed to choose their own husbands. The campaign was launched to counteract the habit of girls being forced by their families to marry significantly older men as soon as they reach puberty in some Muslim communities. In the same year, the Foundation sponsored the education of 13 youth and instituted a microfinance scheme in collaboration with the Cooperative Union Association of Ghana (CUAG), and Kamsly-Nough Financial Services. The first group to be supported by the microfinance scheme were ten widows who each received a loan of GHS 300 (ca. 48 USD) to set up a business of their choice. In 2013, it organised the Imam Hussein free food distribution to poor and less privileged Muslim communities in the Western Region as well as the Sayida Fatima Zahra free mosquito nets distribution and malaria vaccination programme.²⁶²

Aal Yaseem Ghana has established branches and centres throughout Ghana. One of its centres is located in Yendi, where it constructed a school complex, including a 300-person mosque and clinic in 2021.²⁶³ The Kalimatullah Foundation, in turn, is a local Shiʿite NGO in Tamale, headed by Sheikh Abdul Mumin Dalhu, Shia Imam of Northern Ghana. Established in 2010, the Foundation informs on its Facebook account that it donates to schools and mosques.²⁶⁴ In 2023, it announced the launching of several new initiatives, including the Fadak Farm Project (a 20 hectares farm for cash crops), the Ramadan Food Basket, Iftar and Qurbani Projects in addition to a youth empowerment and scholarship program.²⁶⁵ Another Tamale-based Shiʿa charity organisation is the Ansur Imam Mahdi, making headlines when it donated foodstuffs and items to Nyohini Children’s Home in 2021.²⁶⁶ The Zahra Ladies Association of Ghana is a Shiʿa women’s organisation, although not much is known about its activities.²⁶⁷ The Imam Ali–a.s. Natural Farms in Ejisu, Ashanti Region, in turn, is an agricultural and farm co-operative launched in 2016 to produce ecologically cultivated cereals, vegetables and fruits and rearing animals.²⁶⁸

2.6 Emerging Secular Muslim NGO s

A recent phenomenon is the emergence of non-denominational CSO s founded and dominated by Muslims with an agenda of Zongo development. An example of such an organisation is the Tamale-based Advocates for Community Development (ACDEV), which started as a youth group in 2017 and, similar to other youth groups in their starting phase, concentrated on clean-up exercises and donations to schools. Its core members are Muslim university students, although the association is distinctively non-denominational, highlighting advocacy at the forefront of its activities. Identifying its mission of contributing to achieving SDG 1 (eradication of poverty) and SDG 4 (quality education), the group visited Shanjini outside Tamale to engage with the local inhabitants.²⁶⁹ The visit turned out to be a revelation for the group:

The most important aspect of our visit was the fact that we were informed by the community members, what we should implement to help in the situation. We were so much impressed by their suggestion of adapting measures to improve their farming systems and also providing basic skills training for the community members, especially women, to learn and implement for their individual benefits, the benefit of the family, the community and the country at large. […] Our first help to the people of Shanjini will help us identify what will be excellent in curbing the situation. If it appears positive and excellent, the same approach will be taken in different communities in the region.²⁷⁰

The ‘bottom-up’ approach of the group addresses female empowerment. Like the Young Women Leaders Network, ACDEV focused on menstrual hygiene and embarked on its ‘Health Solution Tour’, visiting schools in the Northern Region in early 2019. The Health Solution Tour combines three areas of empowerment of young girls: sewing of reusable sanitary pads, entrepreneurship training, and the formation of ‘we are safe’ groups among young girls.²⁷¹

Another denominational CSO established and mainly run by Muslims is the Accra-based Women Relief Alliance Foundation (WRAF). Established in 2019, the organisation has since then launched COVID-19 sensitisation, breast cancer awareness and menstrual hygiene donation campaigns, arranged health screenings in Nima and Madina Zongos, and initiated a potable water project in the Boku rural community in the North East Region and support programme for rural women.²⁷²

The West Madina Development Foundation (WEMADEF), in turn, is an example of a denominational local community association run by Muslims. Established in August 2020, the association has about 200 members and strives to “foster a united front, productive and empowerment of the people of West Madina to be a major pillar in the economic and social development of the town.”²⁷³ WEMADEF launched the Vision 2040 West Madina Regeneration Plan and aims to accelerate education, economic empowerment, modern health care facilities and infrastructure development such as constructing a communal library, a youth and enterprise centre and a community recreational park in the Madina Zongo of Accra.²⁷⁴ Its first project, the rehabilitation of the Umar Bin Hatab Primary and JHS, was realised through a successful fundraising call in December 2020.²⁷⁵ A recent phenomenon is the launching of several secular Muslim NGO s in Ghana during the last decade. The AMAL Initiative, for example, with a mission to implement educational programmes for the improvement of the health, economic and social life “of all members in society,” pledges support to the Sustainable Development Goals.²⁷⁶ In turn, Renaissance Zongo Youth Aid (R-ZOYA) arranged as its first project a malaria prevention campaign in May 2021 and, later, a two-day Ladies’ Entredigital workshop in August 2021, providing intensive training on digitalised entrepreneurship, business motivation and ideas as well as digital skills.²⁷⁷ Another example is the Yendi Youth Connect, which organised a Youth Empowerment Seminar in October 2020. The idea is to initiate the development, branding, and marketing of the smock industry and make Yendi the smock hub of Ghana.²⁷⁸

The Kumasi-based Seed of Hope Foundation, established in 2016, is a secular Muslim NGO that since its inception addressed the plight of street children, especially kayaye (female porters) girls. Although the organization does not declare itself to be a Muslim NGO on its 2020-homepage,²⁷⁹ some early postings on Facebook indicates it to be founded by Muslim activists. For example, in May 2018, it organised “our annual Ramadan keep fit walk and exercise.”²⁸⁰ Furthermore, other postings indicate its connection to local Muslim NGO s. In November 2018, it organised the ‘A Day With Kayaye’ in collaboration with the Access Women Network in Kumasi, and in April 2020, it distributed food items donated by the Muslim Professional Association to poor people in Kumasi.²⁸¹

The 2007-established Faata Africa/Final Point Foundation (FPF), in turn, originally started as a Zongo youth organization. Its ambition has since then been “to inspire the African youth towards the development of a positive mind set and to identify their talents/gifts for the betterment of Africa and the world at large,”²⁸² and “to develop a new belief system towards life, learning, hard work, voluntary service and patriotism.”²⁸³ In recent years, Faata Africa has concentrated on running campaigns against drugs (“Ghanaian Dream Dreamer Say No Drugs To Drugs”) and for a tobacco-free environment,²⁸⁴ alongside organising together with local NGO s and youth groups the Zongo Motivational Diet at various locations in Accra, Ashaiman and Kumasi since 2017.²⁸⁵ Although the organization does not declare to be a Muslim NGO, the members of its board of advisor as well as its management team seem to be Muslim, thus indicating it to be a secular Muslim NGO. Moreover, some of the postings on Facebook hints the Sultan of Brunei and the UAE Red Crescent to be one of the benefactors of the organization.²⁸⁶ In 2020, it organized an ‘Eid ul-Adha Kindness project’ for 500 kayaye at Madina Market Car Park in Accra,²⁸⁷ alongside forwarding a link to the Save Aid Project 2020 Eid al-Adha meat gift and orphans party in the Upper West Region and urged its members to donate to the project.²⁸⁸ Also in 2020, and repeated in 2021, it organized Iftar with Muslim prison inmates.²⁸⁹ Nevertheless, following its non-denominational mission, it also makes donations at Christmas and Eastern.

The Star Creative Life Foundation Ghana, on the other hand, focuses on health care alongside health and first aid education and training. Most notably, it organizes the annual World First Aid Day alongside the World First Aid Month. Starting as a local group called Star Life of five likeminded mates in Kasoa in 2014; its original objective was to address the relationship between teenagers and parents. A few years later, the group started to campaign against drug abuse and organised advocacy programmes at local schools. They also planned to coach pupils for their exams but dropped this programme, as other NGO s were already active in this field. Following its registration as Star Creative Life Foundation in 2018, the group envisioned to embark on three programmes, namely the “Smiles-of-smiles” activities for youth at Eid, health advocacy, and ‘positive-fun-in-a-dramatized-way’, i.e., the usage of drama as a tool. However, a dramatic change occurred in 2019 when the half-brother of Mohammed Amin, the founder of the group, died. According to Mohammed Amin, his half-brother died as none was capable to give him First Aid. This propelled him to redefine the objectives of the Foundation and First Aid became its flagship programme. “First Aid is zakat and sadaqa,” he explained to me. Since then, the Foundation has organised training workshops, camps and sessions, targeting schools, mosques and churches.²⁹⁰ In June 2021, the NGO organised the First Annual Health Forum in Nima-Maamobi Community Learning Centre in downtown Accra.²⁹¹ By 2022, the group has 150 members in Accra and another 50 outside the Greater Accra Region. However, all of its activities have so far been concentrated to Accra although Mohammed Amin hopes to arrange the World First Aid Day in other regions in future.²⁹²

Furthermore, the Women and Children Welfare Foundation (WACWF) and its Muslim University Female Students Education Network (MUFSEN or MUFSENetwork) is a Accra-based initiative for protecting Muslim girl-child and women rights as well as enhancing Muslim gild-child education with branches in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Northern and North East Regions, both legally registered in 2019.²⁹³ WACWF and MUSFEN seems to be loosely linked to the Chereponi-based CSO Research On Community Challenges And Development in Ghana (ROCCAD Ghana), founded in 2014 by Alhassan Iddrisu and renamed in 2019 as the Cooperative Agency for Research and Development (CARD). Apart from various rural development programmes, the organisation runs a Community Health, Education and Skill Teaching Assistance (CHESTA) Programme. ROCCAD Ghana cooperated between 2014 and 2018 with the UK Muslim charity Caravan of Mercy in supplying food and water to deprived rural communities in northern Ghana.²⁹⁴

A similar initiative is the Zongo Girls for Education (Zonged), founded by Safia Abdallah Raabo and endorsed by the Office of the National Chief Imam. The organisation has partnered with Plan International and the Zongo Development Fund to run coronavirus campaigns in 2020 (including programmes in Hausa on ZongoLink TV). It is also engaged in HIV/AIDS programmes (among others, a condom activation campaign among commercial drivers to practice safe sex in 2022), anti-witches campaigns and promotes the World Menstrual Health Day.²⁹⁵ Likewise, the Zongo Mothers’ Hope Foundation (ZMUF) aims to decrease the prevalence of maternal mortality in the Zongo communities and improve the health and well-being of women. It also launched a COVID-19 campaign in Hausa. ZMUF has branches in the USA whose members collect and send donations to Ghana.²⁹⁶ The Accra-based Mother of all Nations Foundation (MOANF), in turn, focuses on enhancing the educational skills of Zongo children in addition to running breast cancer campaigns. It has organized annual read camps since 2015, and launched the Adesua Kruwa Project as its new flagship programme in 2023. The new project is designed to provide targeted instructions and support for developing literacy, oral performance and analytical skills of Basic 6 public school pupils in the La-Nkwantang Madina Municipality, Accra.²⁹⁷ In 2017, MOANF joined the Final Point Foundations and Tabrama Youth Organisation in organising the maiden edition of the Zongo Motivation Diet (see below Chapter 2.3.2).

Lastly, among the most daring third-generation secular Muslim initiatives is the One Love Sisters, Ghana Facebook account. While the Muslim religious and political leadership in corpora have rejected Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LBGT) rights in Ghana and vehemently condemned same-gender marriages,²⁹⁸ some organisations such as the Muslim Mobile Preachers Associations even defining “gayism” and “lesbianism” as “satanic actions”,²⁹⁹ social media has become a space of expression for the (anonymous) Muslim LBGT and Queer community.³⁰⁰

3.1 The Wide Spectrum of Zongo Youth Groups

The formation and expansion of Zongo and Muslim youth groups has become a nationwide phenomenon. Most youth groups and networks listed in the Appendix tend to have a rather short lifespan on Facebook, perhaps correlating with their activities in real life. For example, the Federation of Responsible Muslim Youth (FORMY) established its Facebook account in 2015 but ceased its activities one year later. Nevertheless, a few of them have transformed themselves into quasi-institutions, i.e., turning themselves into (mostly) non-registered NGO s and CSO s.

Most of the Zongo youth groups are either Muslim-led or are connectors for Muslim youths, although the religious factor per se is seldom a dominant or distinct marker for them. Some are daʿwa groups, such as the Concern Youth of Madina Association or the Concern Youth of Ejura. Others are denominational ones like the Zeal of Zongo Youth (ZOZY). Most of them carry logos either indicating their mission to develop and inspire or their vision of uniting and initiating positive change. A few of the logos carry political messages but perhaps not indicating a political affiliation or inspiration—the black star (Panafricanism/Nkrumahism/emancipation of Africa and unity against colonialism), found in logo of Renaissance Zongo Youth Aid and Network for Zongo Transformation; the fist (rebellion, militance, resistance, unity), used by Coalition of Zongo Youth (black fist), Lawra Zongo Youth Association (red fist), Nsoatre Zongo Youth Association (red fist), and Zango United (green fist).

The novelty of the Zongo youth groups in this Internet age is not their multiplication but some of them moving from ad hoc interventions to ambitious long-term investment projects. The common denominator of these groups is self-empowerment. This was the essence and core message of the Zongo Youth for Development Association, one of the first new Zongo youth groups that was active in 2013 and 2014:

[O]ur vision can only be achieved only if we team up with commitment, hard work, determination and unity. Remember, the development of our community lies in our hands but not Assemblymen/Women, MCE s, DCE s, MP s, Ministers or the President. It’s our time to do it for the benefit of our future generations.³¹⁹

The year 2014 evolves in retrospect as a turning point for the emergence of a new form of Zongo youth mobilisation. Two Zongo bloggers, Zakiyu Iddris Tandunayir and Musah Larry Prince (Ijahra) started to articulate the need for a change on their blogs. The core of their message was self-empowerment. The bloggers challenged the dominant perception in Ghana that the Zongos are criminal hotspots and slums hopelessly overcrowded with beggars and paupers. They called for a new, positive self-representation of the Zongo communities:

I always say that, if we the youth don’t rise to bring about the change now, then it will take the Zongo communities a very long time to develop. And I also keep on saying that we have one of the best brains in the country, but we seem not to be using it. Zongo is not poor; Zongo is not hopeless.³²⁰

Following this self-empowerment statement was a verbal attack on what Musah Larry Prince termed the ‘piety of filth’ or the preference of elders in the Zongo community to construct and renovate mosques instead of generating funds for rehabilitating the Zongos:

The elders of these Zongo communities ignore the more pressing issue of providing each house with a toilet facility through the same means (i.e. mobilising funds). Instead, they rely on politicians who constantly promise without delivering the development needed. But why must the politicians be bothered when the perceived pious leaders of these communities ignore the stench which emanates from the toilets and the diseases which the filth generated causes? Cleanliness is next to Godliness according to Islamic teachings; therefore, there is very little or no piety in constructing and renovating mosques when houses in the communities lack toilet facilities. Zongo communities must wake up to this truth and stop depending on successive governments to deliver a forever elusive development.³²¹

The verbal output of the two bloggers changed from demanding to identifying a positive change when they recognised the mobilisation of a new Zongo youth group in 2016, namely COZY or Change for Zongo Youth: “This alone represents a massive shift from the meaningless and insignificant names youth groups in the Zongo adopted in the past.”³²² COZY, in their opinion, represented a shift from archaic traditions as the group put heavy emphasis on integrating girls and women in community development:

COZY, like other Zongo youth groups, has laid the benchmark to attain an unprecedented developmental change in the Zongo and beyond, where religious and political leaders have failed in the past.³²³

COZY is a typical example of an association launched during the age of social media. Inaugurated on 1 April 2016, this organisation established a Facebook account barely a day after its inauguration. Counting its followers on Facebook (about 3,400), COZY is one of the larger networks; presumably, because COZY addresses not only Muslims: “You don’t have to be a Muslim to be part of this movement because it’s not only Muslims that lives in the Zongo communities.” Instead, COZY defined itself as a youth movement “that seeks to bring about positive change in our Zongo communities through education, talent development, awards, entrepreneurship training, leadership training and youth activism.”³²⁴

The formation of COZY raised high expectations among local Muslim bloggers and youth activists such as Inusah Mohammed. For him, COZY was a youth-engineered initiative to turn the negative depictions of the Zongo into positive ones. The inferiority complex and marginalisation of Zongo inhabitants, Inusah Mohammed noted, was to be challenged from within and by the youth. Ultimately, what was at stake was the self-empowerment of the Muslim minority in Ghana:

I’m not suggesting that Muslims should live like Christians. My point is Muslims in Ghana in particular, have not done a good job of integrating into Ghanaian society very well. We may have been living peacefully with non-Muslims. However, we shouldn’t see ourselves as the underdogs and the minority that needs to be helped out of our current situations. We’ve got to live as Ghanaians who have full and equal rights just like any other Ghanaian!³²⁵

The core activity of COZY is the Zongo Youth Month, arranged in collaboration with two other Accra-based Zongo youth groups named Zongo Focus and Zongo Inspirational Team since 2018, culminating with the Zongo Youth Day Out, where various Zongo business enterprises present their products to potential clients and investors.³²⁶ Speaking at the launching of the Third Zongo Youth Month in April 2018, COZY President Zakiyu Iddris Tindannayil stressed the importance of the event as a tool for empowering the Zongo youth counteracting the negative reportage and stereotypes of Zongo communities in the media.³²⁷

The calls for the self-empowerment of Zongo youth and their battle against discrimination and stigmatisation culminated with the killing of seven Zongo youth by the police in Kumasi in July 2018. What followed was a nationwide outcry of Zongo youth groups, some calling for a radicalisation of their fight against what they identified as police brutality and negative stereotypes.³²⁸

The Voice of Zongo Youth Foundation is an example of a recently founded youth group. It has been active on Facebook since early January 2020, indicating that it started in late 2019. It claims to be a democratic, non-partisan and non-religious movement that wants to speak out the concern of the Zongo youth to policymakers and to advocate and influence policy issues on education, job opportunities, sanitation, and youth development.³²⁹ The Islamic Research Association Ghana (IRAG), formed in spring 2019, is a youth group combining daʿwa and education and training for economic empowerment. Since its inception, the group has run Iftar projects in Darkuman during Ramadan,³³⁰ alongside a festival on World Children’s Day in 2019³³¹ and the Greater Accra Inter-Islamic Schools Quran Memorisation and Quiz Competition in 2020.³³²

The Kumasi-based Zongo Empowerment Initiative (ZEI) started in 2020; its ‘School Supply Drive’ campaign on Facebook resulted in a donation of stationery items, including mathematical sets and pens to pupils in Asokore Municipality in September 2020.³³³ The Zongo Nation, in turn, defines itself as “an initiative which seeks to harness the Zongo human resource towards the attainment of the UNSDG s in all Zongo across the country by 2030.”³³⁴ However, it seems as if the initiative only existed (on Facebook) in 2018. Another group based in Madina Zongo in Accra, the Zongo Insight, defines itself as a platform to bridge the hierarchies and promote cohesion, culture, development, employment, entrepreneurship and tolerance in Zongo communities. The group frankly declared on Facebook: “[The] truth hurts but it wakes people up. Youth with innovative ideas for Zongos need to drive the NEW ZONGO AGENDA forward, NOT the OLDER generation that have already let us down!,” claiming itself to stand for an “aggressive development agenda” by breaking “archaic hierarchy” in Zongo communities and bringing the energetic youth to the decision table.³³⁵

The criticism, if not an outright attack on the mismanagement, corruption and individualism of older Zongo generations, especially community leaders and politicians, has been fundamental. The tenor of the Kumasi-based Real Zango Connect says it this way:

Our society is degrading and the best solution for us is change. Let’s fight it together; if not the society won’t be conducive for us. When the wooden insect gathers sticks on its own head it carries them. Over to you comrades, are we going to sit there for our society to degrade to the bottom? Arise for change Zongo youth …³³⁶

“What are your plans for the development of the Zongo youths?” the Lawra Zongo Youth Association shouted.³³⁷ The Zongo Youth For Development, in turn, holds the elders and imams of Shukura and Zamarima line Zongos in Accra responsible for breeding religious intolerance and political illiteracy.³³⁸ The Accra-based Zongo Focus is more indirect in its attack when it declares:

[…] to courageously challenge the systems around the world of young people that hinder the full realisation of their potential and development. Our commitment is to build concrete structures and solutions to address the developmental challenges facing young people in our Zongo communities.³³⁹

The critical voices of Zongo youth are sometimes even articulated in newspaper articles. This was the case in May 2018 when Ahmed Abubakar Saddique identified the problems of the Zongo youth in Ejura to be lack of education, proper parental care, polygamous marriage coupled with uncontrolled birth, lack of jobs, lack of mentorship programmes, high level of indiscipline, and lack of good sanitary conditions and access to health care. The starting point for generating a structural change in the Zongos was in his mind to establish schools rather than build mosques. He further called the imams to discourage males from marrying more than one wife and from starting to talk about birth control. The task of the government was to create jobs and build skills training centres, he continued, and the Zongo Traditional Councils and chiefs were to start mentorship programmes.³⁴⁰ Perhaps as a reaction to his article, two youth groups were formed in Ejura, the Concerned Youth of Ejura and the Ejura Zongo Youth Forum.³⁴¹

One way of propagating ‘change’ is using social media, especially Facebook. For example, the Moshie Zongo Project, one of the many youth initiatives in Kumasi, wants to advise, motivate and encourage the youth positively, lobby for development in Kumasi Moshie Zongo and, most importantly, hold the leaders of Moshie Zongo accountable.³⁴² Postings on Facebook pages evolve easily into sarcastic criticism of the current state of affairs in the Zongo:

[The] Current state of Moshie Zongo water project. [Yo]u can go there for some bricks or sand. [Yo]u can as well go there if [yo]u want to get injured. This has been the situation for over a year now. The question still remains. WHO ARE THE PEOPLE THAT WERE TAKING OR SELLING THE WATER? WHERE IS THE MONEY THEY TOOK FROM THE PEOPLE THAT BOUGHT OR FETCHED WATER THERE?³⁴³

Community self-help is the solution: “We need at least 100 people who are willing and able to contribute GHS 20 cedis each every month to help cater fro the poor and needy in this our community.”³⁴⁴ The initiative itself is probably an outcrop of an association called Moshie Zongo for Peace, a local youth channel/platform for news, social media and daʿwa.

Similar bitter comments were posted by Voice of Zongo Youth Foundation (VZY-F) on their Facebook page in October 2020, lashing out at Muslim leaders for not using donations by politicians to improve the living standards in the Zongo communities. Christian churches and organisations demand scholarships for young people to get educated:

Some Imams who [have] never studied accounting nor know very well in the management of funds will want to manage the finance by [themselves] when there are capable men who can manage it well for the Mosque. We have to avoid selfishness and work for Allah and not for our stomachs. We went for the rice and we are still hungry. When will we be satisfied? […] We have to manage our finances well and sponsor our children to be educated so that they can fight for Islam. Tell any entity that you don’t need any rice and sugar in your mosque for you need Scholarships and developmental works.³⁴⁵

Prang TV, one of the online Muslim news and daʿwa channels, aired the frustrations of a member of Zongo First in July 2021. Bashing ‘Zongo and Islamic bloggers’ for only concentrating on the fights of ‘our Islamic tutors’, and Zongo political and religious leaders for only caring for themselves, neglecting the social and economic development of their communities: “Our Kings Imams And Ulamaʿa will request and ask for TOYOTA V8 whilst in our localities we are lacking Schools , Hospitals , and proper roads.” The only solution was self-empowerment by way of joining the Zongo First Campaign ‘Operation Fixing Yourself’.³⁴⁶

3.2 Youth Movements Advocating Zongo Development

The need for a change is also a key objective for the Initiative for Youth Development (IYD), one of the oldest and still active youth-oriented Zongo organisations on Facebook. In 2015 (and relaunched in 2017), it initiated the Forum of Young Zongo Leaders as an annual meeting to discuss topical issues affecting Zongo communities.³⁴⁷ In September 2018, it inaugurated the Zongo Youth Policy Dialogue, which aimed to outline and discuss a national policy document on the challenges and aspirations of Zongo youth. Regional forums were held in Accra, Wenchi, Techiman, Sunyani, Kumasi and Cape Coast.³⁴⁸ The document, titled the Zongo Youth Agenda 2030, was presented at a Zoom webinar on 13 June 2020,³⁴⁹ being the blueprint for youth-led sustainable development movement to achieve a positive transformation of Zongo communities. Inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Zongo Youth Agenda 2030 comprises of ten goals, namely 1) to end poverty and hunger, 2) to promote good health and well-being, alongside 3) quality education, and 4) gender equality. Furthermore, 5) to generate access to clean water and sanitation, 6) affordable and clean energy, as well as 7) decent work and employment. Finally, 8) to achieve sustainable Zongo communities, in addition to 9) peace and justice, and 10) to seek partnerships for the goals.³⁵⁰ As part of its activities to promote the implication of the Zongo Youth Agenda 2030, it started to organise training workshops for youth leaders, so-called Zongo goalkeepers,³⁵¹ and initiated an online platform, the Zongo Youth Empowerment Webinar Series, to discuss issues of development and empowerment.³⁵² In 2018, the IYD organised the first Young Zongo Women Empowerment Forum as well as established the ZongoVation Hub as an outcome of its Zongo Coders Initiative.³⁵³ Moreover, it operates the Zongo Skills Project with support from the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development.³⁵⁴

The Accra-based ZongoVationHub is an inspiring example of Muslim self-empowerment. Operated by its founder and CEO (and main funder) Mahmoud Jajah and a staff of nine members (plus a varying number of volunteers and interns), the NGO directs its activities to Zongo inhabitants irrespective their religious background.³⁵⁵ Since its inauguration in 2018, it has organized a series of IT skills and training activities (illustration 15). Most of the programmes run for several months, among others the Zongo Coders Program, the Zongo Technician Program, the Zongo Kids Coding Bootcamp and the Zongo Women in Tech. The last mentioned is a one-year practical program in mobile app development, internet of things and artificial intelligence for young women. Some programmes are organised in partnership with other NGO s and IT-labs, including the Economic Rights Advocacy Training (together with Reach for Change and Social Enterprise Ghana), as well as the Digital Media Training Program, the National Mobile App Training, and the Data Science and Analytics programme (together with Ghana Tech Lab).³⁵⁶

Cyber security and employment are two other pillars of the hub.³⁵⁷ The Zongo Cyber Security programme informs schoolchildren about Child Online Protection whereas the Zongo Cyber Security Project addresses Zongo inhabitants about cyber security issues. Several of its skills programmes focus on training young people in digital media skills and equipping them to start small business. Other activities are designed to boost Zongo entrepreneurs, such as the Digital Zongo Project and the Zongo Data project, or framed to identify and address key challenges to achieve sustainable development through digital skills and entrepreneurship.³⁵⁸ As part of its outreach campaigns, the Hub has organised a series of Zongo Startup Summits, the most recent one in partnership with Ghana Tech Lab in September 2022.³⁵⁹ Two new initiatives followed in 2023. In partnership with Star Ghana Foundation, ZongoVation Hub launched the Zongo Digital Skills and Empowerment Program (ZoDSEP) in April 2023 and has since then organized training sessions in Accra, Kumasi and Koforidua.³⁶⁰ Several of the session were supported and organised in collaboration with by local Muslim NGO s, including the Mother of all Nations Foundation in Madina, Accra,³⁶¹ and the Voice of Zongo Youth Foundation and Zango Youth Association in Kumasi.³⁶² In June 2023, ZongoVation Hub used a USD 100,000 grant from the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme to launch the Zongo Startup Program as support of startup ecosystems in Zongo communities.³⁶³

One of the ZongoVationHub’s local partners is the Zongo Inspiration Team (ZIT), founded by AR Zakari Mcim.³⁶⁴ ZIT started as an initiative of likeminded activists whose ambition was to change the mindset of Zongo schoolkids and spur them to aspire tertiary education. Most Zongo kids, Alhaji Rabiu Maude explained, end up in Grade B public schools with little likelihood that they ever make it to university or other tertiary educational institutions. Their idea was to focus on children in low-performing schools by providing one-to-one mentorship and entrepreneurship skills training, alongside arranging excursions to various institutions, educational centres, newspapers and government ministries.³⁶⁵

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Figure 15

ZongoVationHub. Leaflet announcing the Zongo Tech Revolution, aiming to train and develop 100,000 tech entrepreneurs and professionals from the Zongo communities in Ghana by 2030 in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

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ZIT’s first event was the Zongo Dream Mentorship Clinic, organised in Accra in 2014.³⁶⁶ It soon multiplied with subsequent events arranged in Accra and Kumasi already in 2015.³⁶⁷ Since then, the group has developed into a formal career guidance and mentoring organisation, although confining its activities to children in Nima, Mamobi and Accra Newtown. Several of its activities are conducted with local partners, among others organising the celebration of the World Orphans Day together with Rayuwa Foundation, providing young girl mentorship together with Achievers Ghana, supporting the skills training programmes of the ZongoVationHub, or linking up with Success Book Club in running monthly gatherings and building local libraries.³⁶⁸ ZIT also supported Faata Africa in 2021 to organise the Accra edition of the Zongo Motivational Diet, a programme for developing among Zongo children a positive mental attitude towards life.³⁶⁹

ZIT consists of 40 dues-paying members of which ten constitute its core group of activists. Most of its activities are internally funded apart from its scholarship programme for which it has received a GHS 15,000 donation from EPP Books Fund. The ambition of the group is to expand its scholarship programme by making use of social media for soliciting funds from international donors.³⁷⁰

COVID-19 interrupted ZIT’s activities in 2020 and 2021 (apart from the Skills for Entrepreneurs event organised on 29 May 2021 in Kanda Community Library, Accra).³⁷¹ However, ZIT made a new start in 2022 by arranging a career fair, a quiz event for schoolkids,³⁷² and a public discussion on gender equity and equality. It further plans to introduce inter-disciplinary and inter-skills collaboration by introducing medicine and engineering in its programme alongside to train pupils from 20 selected Zongo schools in the art of public speaking and debating.³⁷³

The need to develop the livelihood of local communities is on top of the agenda of many Zongo youth organisations. The Kumasi-based Zongo Youth for Unity and Sustainable Development of Ghana (ZYUSDG), for example, published a series of short lectures on Facebook in February and March 2017. The topics addressed the sustainable development goals and challenges facing Zongo communities, including environmental degradation and environmental pollution, land disturbance, pollution, overpopulation, landfills, and deforestation. As a solution to the problems, the organisation underscored the need for massive information campaigns, advocacy against urban sprawling, prohibition of activities that contaminate water bodies, and promotion of environmental conservation. Further, as a solution to poor sanitation, ill-health, and low productivity caused by diseases in the Zongo areas, the group advocated for and organised clean-up exercises, addressed issues on indiscriminate disposal of waste, inadequate waste bins at vantage points, and unsupervised isolated filth grounds.³⁷⁴ Among its last interventions, it made—in hindsight—a rather novel and radical call to the Ghanaian Telcom MTN to accumulate interest charged on Muslim subscribers for Zongo development.³⁷⁵

However, it seems that the ZYUSDG was active on Facebook only during the first half of 2017. In October 2017, two other Kumasi-based Zongo youth organisations, the Asante Zongo Youth Union (AZOYU) and the Zongo Hausa Youth Association of Ghana (ZOHYAG), opened Facebook accounts. Both organisations recently started to cooperate and, together with the Coalition of Muslim Institutions (COMI) and the ASALI Foundation, launched the ZANGO PROJECT to “engage and solicit the views of the youth for a collective development of our Zongo communities” in May 2021.³⁷⁶ Both organisations have earlier sought to empower the Zongo youth, the ZOHYAG, by celebrating World Hausa Day in August 2020, while the AZOYU organised the First Zongo Youth Congress in November 2020.³⁷⁷

A typical engagement by several Zongo youth organisations is to rally its members for community services and health promotion activities, usually before or during Ramadan. For example, members of the Voice of Zongo Youth Foundation were engaged in clean-up exercises in Aboabo No. 2, a suburb of Kumasi, while the Zongo Hausa Youth Association of Ghana focussed on Kumasi Central Mosque in April 2021. The Accra-based Concerned Zongo Youth Group, in turn, organised the Ramadan Health Walks in 2018 and 2019, while the Accra-based Center for Muslim Youth in Peace and Development and the Kumasi-based Voice of Zongo Youth Foundation both run campaigns against drug abuse. The Kasoa Muslim Jihad Youth, on the other hand, cleaned up the Tuba and Kojo-Ojo Muslim cemetery in Kasoa in December 2020 as well as in January, February, March, May, June, July and August 2021.³⁷⁸ The Wa-based Youth Alliance for Zongo Development Foundation Ghana, in turn, launched an awareness campaign on climate change and sanitation in April 2019. The Bekwai Zongo Youth Development Association arranged a clean-up exercise and a health-screening event as part of its launching week in July 2021.³⁷⁹ Similarly, the Nsoatre Zongo Youth Association carried out the Keep Nsuatre Clean exercise in August 2021, and the Members of D.Line Youth Association Bolga called its members to clean up the Muslim cemetery in Bolgatanga in October 2019 and October 2021.³⁸⁰

The Accra-based Zongo Focus, a youth group founded in 2016 with almost 8,000 followers on Facebook as at late 2021, has launched several initiatives and programmes for the social and spiritual uplift of younger Zongo inhabitants. Starting in 2016,³⁸¹ the group has organised annual Iftar collections and distributions, and clean-up exercises (the Let’s Clean Zongo Project launched in 2018³⁸²), alongside ad hoc donations to special target groups, among others the Madina Polyclinic in November 2017.³⁸³ It further initiated the Inter-Madaris Game, a sports event for senior high schools.³⁸⁴ Its two main projects are the Zongo Youth Day Out as well as the Skills Development Initiative; both initiated in 2018. The former is an event that forms part of the annual Zongo Youth Month celebrations in April, its purpose is to expose young Zongo businesses to potential clients and investors through an open market, where various Zongo businesses represent their brands and exhibit their products and services. The event also provides a platform for networking and honouring change makers among the Zongo youth.³⁸⁵ The Skills Development Initiative was launched in November 2018 and the first entrepreneurship workshop with skills training, including the preparation of pastries, natural juice, ice cream, liquid soap and cakes, was arranged in December 2018.³⁸⁶

Other Zongo youth groups carry out similar business and vocational training programmes. The Zongo Youth For Development (Zoyfod), in partnership with a subsidiary of the German Embassy in Accra, launched a training programme to improve the marketability of Muslims with a vocational background (masons, carpenters, dressmakers) in 2018.³⁸⁷ The East Legon Muslim Youth organised the ‘Read-and-Grow-Project’, being an English literacy project to aid Muslim students running from November 2019 to February 2020.³⁸⁸ In July 2021, the Muslims Next Door, a “community-focused youth empowerment and development initiative” founded in 2017, announced the forthcoming Zongo Business Exhibition Fair ’21.³⁸⁹ The Ashaiman-based Make Zongo Great Again, in turn, started as a daʿwa platform in 2018 but transformed itself a few years later and engaged in local humanitarian projects. Since 2020, the group has collected funds for its annual Iftar food distribution project (“Food 4 Life”); in 2022, it branched out and commissioned borehole projects (“Water 4 Life”) in three rural communities, launched a Qurban project and organised its first Free Kids Eid Adha Dinner, and collected funds for renovating mosques in rural communities, alongside established a Zakat Fund (see further Chapter 5.3.6).³⁹⁰

In contrast to the above-mentioned groups, Al-Huda Scout Group Moshe Zongo in Kumasi aims to promote peaceful co-existence between boys and girls through the scout movement as a way to enhance community development.³⁹¹ Not much is known about the activities of Muslim scout groups in Ghana and their umbrella organisation, the National Union of Ghana Muslim Scout (NUGMS).³⁹²

3.3 Contesting Politically Related Violence and Vigilantism

A recurrent theme in Ghanaian media is politically related violence and vigilantism during election years. Zongo youth gangs are usually targeted by the media, believed to be instigated by politicians contesting for influence and voters in the Zongo communities.³⁹³ Muslim politicians, elders, chiefs and religious leaders from the National Chief Imam to local ones, in turn, have repeatedly, since the 1990s, addressed the Zongo youth, pleading with them to refrain from being lured into vigilantism and reminding them that Islam stands for peace (illustration 16).³⁹⁴ The Vice President of Ghana, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, for example, strongly cautioned Zongo youth to resist calls by political leaders to lead and engage in political violence.³⁹⁵ Sheikh Arimiyao Shaibu, the National Chief Imam’s spokesperson, further demanded politicians to back off their negative projects before the 2020 elections, underscoring that “[…] Zongo youth were made for more important assignments.”³⁹⁶ However, the message of the political and religious leaders to the Muslim youth is a top-down one and contains both carrots and sticks. This is exemplified by the speech given by Alhaji Abdul Yusif Jihad, the Ahafo Regional Chief Imam at the celebration of the International Peace Day in September 2021: “[If]Zongo youth who engage in acts of violence and criminal activities were to be prosecuted by the police, they better use their strength to engage in productive activities to better their lots.”³⁹⁷

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Figure 16

Muslim NGO s promoting election peace. Leaflet issued by the Muslim Family Counselling Services and the Coalition of Muslim Institutions (COMI) to promote their AVECZOC (Addressing Vigilantism and other Election-Related Conflicts in Zongo Communities) in 2020. COMI was formed in 2016.

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Zongo youth groups, in turn, vehemently criticise Ghanaian media to have upheld and strengthened the negative stereotyping perception of a violent-prone Zongo youth. Many of the Zongo youth groups, therefore, rally behind the calls against political violence, although they use a ‘bottom-up’ language when addressing their followers. The AZOUY General Secretary Mohammed Habib Gali, for example, in an announcement prior to the 2020 elections, called on his fellow Zongo youth to help correct the misconception held about Zongo people as being violent and asked them to refuse to do the bidding of any political party.³⁹⁸ Some observers identify unemployment among the Zongo youth to fuel political extremism,³⁹⁹ parting with those Zongo youth groups that have urged vocational and business training programmes and initiated entrepreneurship projects among Zongo youth. Sometimes Zongo youth groups rally behind a joint platform to address police brutality and run anti-crimes campaigns themselves. This is the case of the Federation of Youth Clubs (FYC), formed in 2002 as an umbrella organisation for over 100 local youth clubs and groups (locally known as ‘bases’⁴⁰⁰) in Nima, Mamobi, Kanda and Accra Newtown.⁴⁰¹

Muslim advocacy groups, CSO s, think tanks and NGO s run anti-violence and peace campaigns during political elections, some spanning several decades. The Light Foundation (TLF) ranks among the high-profile Muslim NGO s active in curbing political violence during elections and reminding Zongo voters to reject politicians who recruit and use them as weapons of political violence.⁴⁰² Since its incorporation in 2005, the organisation has taken an active role in campaigning against radicalising Muslim youths during elections. In 2016, TLF launched the M-CUPE initiative, the Muslim and Zongo Communities Unite for Peaceful Election. Recognized for ambitious outreach, its RASE (Religious Leaders Action and Support for Peaceful Election) 2020 campaign rendered support from the STAR-Ghana Foundation with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and EU.⁴⁰³ To give an example of a recently established Muslim NGO, Peace Dawah Media launched an information campaign project ahead of the 2020 elections, targeting Zongo youth with messages against hooliganism and election-related violence.⁴⁰⁴

Curbing political violence is also on the agenda of the Coalition of Muslim Institutions (COMI). The Kumasi-based Muslim CSO was formed in 2019 as a platform for the Ashanti Regional Chief Imam, the Ashanti Regional Council of Imams and Ulama, the Council of Zongo Chiefs in Ashanti Region, the Office of the Kumasi Sarkin Zongo, the Muslim Executive Forum, and the Queenmothers (Magagias) in Kumasi. Supported by the STAR-Ghana Foundation and funded by UKAID and the European Union, the 2019-established Muslim CSO organised a series of sensitisation programmes to curb vigilantism and election conflicts in the Zongo communities.⁴⁰⁵ The Voice of the Zongo Communities (VoZ), a local NGO in Koforidua established in 2019, and its Chairman, Dr Abdul-Manan Waru made similar headlines before the elections in 2020. Speaking to the press ahead of an event organised in Koforidua Zongo in November 2020, Dr Abdul-Manan Waru challenged the Muslim youth to correct the popular misconception that Zongo people are troublemakers. He declared that the ultimate goal of the VoZ and all Zongo inhabitants was to move the Zongo communities from a marginal to a viable group of people “… where their social, economic, education, cultural and human rights issues are effectively sustained.”⁴⁰⁶

Several Zongo youth groups address politically related violence, especially during elections. Zongo Insight, for example, engaged actively in urging its members in Madina Zongo to register for the 2020 elections,⁴⁰⁷ and called for an “attitude shift” from “blindly following politicians” to “standing for positive collective youth driven development agendas” within Zongo communities to push for radical youth development within the Madina Zongo community and beyond.⁴⁰⁸ It vehemently condemned vigilantism, underscoring and reminding its members “[…] it is cancer that affects us all regardless of our social class within the Ghanaian society.”⁴⁰⁹ The Ghana Islamic Forum, a platform comprising mainly Muslim middle-class youth, champions the radicalisation of Muslim youth “by unscrupulous religious zealots or extremists whose opprobrious enterprises erroneously tend to affront the sanctity of Islam.”⁴¹⁰ Formed in 2015, the platform was active on Facebook in 2016 but seemed to have become dormant since then.

4.1 Arab/Gulf Charities

Arab and Gulf charities such as Direct Aid and Qatar Charities have for decades worked in Ghana, either directly via their branch offices or indirectly by using local Ghanaian NGO s, such as Aldiaa Society, Care and Social Development Organisation, Firdaus Foundation for Social Services and ICODEHS as commissioners and facilitators of their donations and investments. Most of the Arab and Gulf charities support a narrow range of projects, including the building of mosques and (Islamic/madrasa) schools, the drilling of boreholes (clear water projects), and humanitarian relief in the form of Ramadan/Iftar and Qurbani/Udhiya food packages and clothing.

The data provided by the Financial Tracing Services of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is indicative of the assistance rendered by some of the larger Arab/Gulf charities (see Table 6). Most of them assist water projects and/or food security projects; the latter post includes mainly Ramadan and Qurban donations. A third important area of support is food relief to drought victims and, in 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 response. Not listed are investments in mosque and madrasa/educational projects; neither does the OCHA data contain much information on investments from Turkish charities and Arab/Gulf charities not connected to a state ministry or department. Nevertheless, the data gives a broad picture of the infrastructure of financial flows from the Gulf area to Ghana, either via a Ghanaian facilitator or directly.

However, as will be discussed below, the data collected by OCHA is incoherent and incomplete. The data presented in Table 6 gives the impression that the Kuwaiti Rahma International Society (i.e., Rahma International Association) was an active donor before 2011 while Direct Aid and Qatar Charity have tremendously expanded their activities in Ghana since the latter half of the 2010s. In addition, one finds no reference to ICODEHS, although the organisation has cooperated with Arab/Gulf charities for decades. The Qatari charity Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF), for example, has for several years invested in the construction of mosques,⁴¹⁸ figures that are not included in OCHA data. Part of its funding are donation made by Qatari philanthropists that RAF channels to Ghanaian organisations.

Qatar Charity (QC, formerly known as Qatar Charitable Society), established in 1984 with headquarters in Doha and field offices in 30 countries, has been operating in Ghana for more than two decades. Until 2017, Qatar Charity channelled its funds via Ghanaian partner organisations, such as ICODEHS, Aldiaa Charity Association (well projects and orphan sponsorship; Illustration 17), and COMOG (Ramadan donations). However, it opened a regional office in Accra in March 2017 to enhance its visibility in Ghana as a funding organisation for health projects, social protection, education, water and sanitation.⁴¹⁹ The expansion of Qatar Charity resulted in the recruitment of new local staff members to run the Accra office. Portfolios engaged included an administrative support officer, an accountant, a programme officer, a civil engineer, a secretary, a social welfare and sponsorship officer in 2017,⁴²⁰ and another secretary late in 2018.⁴²¹ In spring 2020, Qatar Charity recruited a field officer to supervise QC-funded projects.⁴²² In fall 2020, it searched for a country director.⁴²³ In June 2021, it recruited a monitoring and evaluation officer, another civil engineer, a financial assistant, two additional social welfare officers, and a driver.⁴²⁴

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Figure 17

Funded by Qatar Charity, implemented by Aldiaa Society. One of the numerous educational projects: Signpost in front of school building in a suburb of Kumasi

Photo: Holger Weiss/2018

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Qatar Charity hit the headlines in 2018 when its regional office announced the completion of more than 50 new water projects in remote areas of Ghana, including 25 mechanised boreholes with overhead tanks in Agona West Municipality, Central Region. According to the country plan of the regional office, Qatar Charity planned to drill more than 200 surface and artesian wells.⁴²⁵ Since then, the organisation has increased its visibility in the country running projects and programmes by itself rather than being a mere donor agency. Apart from being a visible donor of food and meat packages during Ramadan and the Eid festivals, the organisation has several times hit the headlines for funding educational projects in remote areas and Zongo communities.⁴²⁶

Qatar Charity has supported the Ministry of Inner-City and Zongo Development and the governmental Zongo Development Fund for several years.⁴²⁷ In 2018, it announced to drill 36 boreholes in selected Zongo communities as well as supported the Ministry with sewing machines, vulcanizing equipment and small tools for bicycle repairs as part of the Ministry’s programme to enhance entrepreneurship among poor Zongo residents.⁴²⁸ In 2019, it started to build clinics and health centres; by 2023, it had already commissioned 30 of them.⁴²⁹ In 2023, it launched its new economic empowerment and food security programme, targeting beneficiaries in rural and poor urban communities in Greater Accra, Central, Eastern, Ashanti, Northern and Volta Regions. The new programme includes in twelve key projects and includes seed funding and the provision of equipment for grocery shops, bakeries, sewing machines and accessories, provision of passenger and load tricycles, poultry farming, food farming, cattle and sheep farming, greenhouses, as well as the provision of media gadgets for freelance operations.⁴³⁰

Cooperation with the Zongo Development Fund was boosted in 2020 when Qatar Charity provided items valued at GHS 194,640 (ca. 32,000 USD) to six hundred families at Kasoa Zongo, Central Region, as part of the fight against COVID-19. Beyond the distribution of sanitary items, the organisation announced the delivery of food packages to poor and vulnerable communities that had been hard-hit by the lockdown in April 2020.⁴³¹ A similar donation of sanitary items was made to 300 low-income families in Agona West Municipality, Central Region. In total, the organisation had distributed 600 pieces of hand sanitisers, 2,400 quantities of liquid soap, 2,400 pieces of Dettol antiseptic and 3,000 nose masks to low-income families in the Greater Accra and Central Regions as at mid-April 2020.⁴³²

Qatar Charity also has made headlines for its Iftar and Qurban campaigns. During Ramadan 2020, the organisation distributed food items worth about GHS 10 million (ca. 1.6 million USD) to 4,500 needy Muslim families via 15 distribution centres in Greater Accra, Kasoa and Tamale.⁴³³ In addition, it provided 8,750 packages of food and water to several schools and mosques in the Ashanti Region.⁴³⁴ In 2021, Qatar Charity operated 26 project centres in the Great Accra, Ashanti, Northern, and Volta Regions, targeting to feed about 50,000 people nationwide during Ramadan.⁴³⁵ Apart from Ramadan packages, Qatar Charity also provides support to needy families during the Eid al-Adha festival; for example, in 2018, it collaborated with the Ministry of Inner-City and Zongo Development when it provided meat to 200 families in three Zongo communities in the Greater Accra Region.⁴³⁶

Direct Aid Society, formerly known as Africa Muslims Agency, is a charity founded in Kuwait in 1981, and adopted its new name in 1999 when it expanded its scope of charitable projects. It currently (2020) operates in 30 countries, including Ghana, where it has been active since 1988. Direct Aid is one of the most visible international Muslim charities in Ghana and runs multiple programmes, including education, water, health services, orphans, and poverty alleviation, in addition to humanitarian relief and advocacy programmes.⁴³⁷ Since the last decade, Direct Aid has presented itself in public as a non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organisation. Its focus has been on education and agriculture for all, irrespective of race, ethnicity, political or religious affiliation, or gender.⁴³⁸ It is among the few organisations whose annual reports have been published in the Ghanaian press, providing some data about its operations and expenditures. According to its Annual Report for 2013, expenditure on construction, education, social sector, administration, health and seasonal grants amounted to GHS 3,462,197 (USD 560,000) and was budgeted for 2014 to GHS 5,341,518 (USD 850,000). The agency operated four social development centres across Ghana in Adenta (Greater Accra Region), Kumasi, Cape Coast, and Tamale.

In conjuncture with the centres were boarding schools, totalling 746 students. Its educational programme included, among others, the construction of schools, sponsorship, teachers training, and feeding programme at its two schools, the Mercy Senior High School in Adenta and the Abubakar Siddique Senior High School in Tamale. At Ayensudoh, Elmina (Central Region), it established a vocational training institute for dressmaking/fashion design and carpentry work. The core of its health initiative was the Kuwait Clinic established in Madina, Accra, as well as its ‘medical caravan’ outreach programme to four regions.⁴³⁹ In addition, between 2012 and 2015, Direct Aid had provided 38 boreholes and 163 water wells all over the country and operated four orphanages in Ayensudoh, Accra, Kumasi, and Tamale.⁴⁴⁰

Since then, the organisation has stepped up its activities in Ghana, among others, via its memoranda of understanding with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA). Through the latter memorandum, signed in 2018, Direct Aid became a partner organisation of the CWSA and committed funds to construct water systems to provide potable water for communities in need. The partnership cemented the position of Direct Aid as a key provider of water systems; already in 2018, it had provided 163 boreholes fitted with hand pumps at the cost of GHS 2.8 million (USD 453,000).⁴⁴¹ In 2019, it offered to fund a GHS 20,000 (USD 3,200) water and sanitation facility at any public health institution of choice of the CWSA, and planned to provide 180 boreholes to provide water for deprived communities across the country.⁴⁴² Later in the year, it handed over a GHS 12,600 (USD 2,000) water project to the James Camp Prison in Accra.⁴⁴³

Direct Aid’s cooperation with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection goes back (at least) to 2012,⁴⁴⁴ if not earlier. It has sponsored several governmental donations and programmes for aged and disabled people.⁴⁴⁵ In mid-2015, Direct Aid collaborated with the Ministry and provided humanitarian relief to 1,000 flood victims in Keta,⁴⁴⁶ Kumasi,⁴⁴⁷ and Accra.⁴⁴⁸ Four years later, Direct Aid collaborated with the Ministries of Health, Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ghana Health Service by organising a free eye screening exercise at the Great Accra Regional Hospital and paying for locals to access treatment at the facility.⁴⁴⁹ One year later, when the COVID-19 pandemic closed down public life in Ghana and severely affected the livelihood of the lower strata of society, Direct Aid supported the Ministry in its attempt to alleviate the suffering of aged people in Agona West Constituency and declared that it had targeted to support over 27,000 families in Ghana.⁴⁵⁰ In addition, it donated personal protective equipment worth GHS 80,000 (ca. 13,000 USD) to the Ministry of Health,⁴⁵¹ and assorted food items via the Henry Djaba Memorial Foundation for 50 Muslims with disabilities in May 2020.⁴⁵²

In addition, Direct Aid features (almost) annually in the national news during Ramadan and Muslim festivals. In 2013, it distributed food packages to 670 families,⁴⁵³ the year after to 720 families.⁴⁵⁴ Food donations valued at GHS 312,000 (ca. 500,000 USD) were distributed to 500 families in Accra, the rest to about 200 families in the Western and Central Regions.⁴⁵⁵ Since then, Ramadan donations by the Kuwaiti charity have increased manifold. In 2018, more than 1,000 needy Muslims in various Zongo communities in Kumasi Metropolis alone benefitted from the food aid.⁴⁵⁶ In 2021, Direct Aid informed the press that it supported over 25,000 Muslims throughout the country. Food packages were doled out at its headquarters at the Lakeside Estate in Adenta, Greater Accra, and at its regional offices in Cape Coast, Kumasi and Tamale as well as “in a number of Zongos, towns and villages,” including Accra Central, Ashaiman, Aflao, Kasoa and Swedru.⁴⁵⁷ The organisation reported similar increases for its meat distribution programme during Eid al-Adha. In 2013, Direct Aid distributed 100 bulls, the total cost being GHS 351,942 (ca. 57,000 USD).⁴⁵⁸ In 2019, it offered 170 bulls at the cost of GHS 101,000 (ca. 16,000 USD), distributed via its four regional centres as well as in Nsawam and Ho.⁴⁵⁹ In 2020, it slaughtered 250 bulls to provide meat for over 2,500 families across Ghana, the total expenditure amounting to EUR 150,000 (USD 180,000);⁴⁶⁰ in 2021, it slaughtered 300 cows and distributed the meat in Accra, Cape Coast, Kumasi, and Tamale.⁴⁶¹ Interestingly, Direct Aid also offers meat rations to non-Muslims.

The activities of the Kuwaiti charities Rahma International Society and Sheikh Abdullah Al-Nouri Charity Society neither have ceased nor remained ad hoc interventions. Rahma International Society, both directly and via Care and Social Development Organisation, has funded the Ar-Rahma Educational Complex, including an orphanage block with 200 inmates, a vocational centre and the Noorur-Rahmah Medical Centre, in Old Tafo, Kumasi, alongside free distribution of sewing machines and kiosks and containers.⁴⁶² Information provided in 2020 about the activities of Kuwaiti NGO s and their local representative, Care and Social Development Organisation (established in 2005), seems to indicate that donations/investments from several Kuwaiti organisations apart from the Kuwaiti government are included in the OCHA directory labelled as ‘Kuwait/Government’. Speaking on the celebrations of the Kuwait National Day 2020 in Tamale, the head of the Care and Social Development Organisation and leader of the Kuwaiti community in Ghana Dr Sayyid Alayaan noted that his organisation had offered scholarships to 400 orphans, built 400 houses for the poor and destitute in the northern part of the country, constructed six schools and sunk more than 40 boreholes in poor rural communities in the north.⁴⁶³ One year earlier, the Kuwaiti-based charity commissioned a voluminous educational complex at Gulkpegu Dungu in Sagnarigu District, Northern Region. The complex comprised a twelve-unit classroom block, mosque, clinic, tailoring workshop, 100 two-bedroom apartments for the destitute and sanitary facilities.⁴⁶⁴

In October 2020, Kuwaiti Red Crescent Society donated via the Ghana Red Cross Society food items to 150 Muslim families in Laka Zongo, Ashaiman Municipality, as part of mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.⁴⁶⁵ This was perhaps an ad hoc event although in line with Kuwaiti government commitment to step up its investments in Ghana.

The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC, formerly UAE Red Crescent Society) has been present in Ghana for decades and has generally worked through local partner organisations. In 2013, it donated Dh 4.4 Million (ca. 1.2 Million USD) to sponsor orphans, promote education, build medical services and dig water wells.⁴⁶⁶ One of its main Ghanaian partner organisations is ICODEHS. Among others, in 2016, it sponsored the donation of 20 sewing machines to girls in Sekondi in the Western Region. It also funded the construction of a new school block in Salaga, and mosques in Kandiga-Bolgatanga, Guntigli, Salaga, and Yendi in northern Ghana.⁴⁶⁷ In 2017, ERC sponsored the purchase of sewing machines and refrigerators for the ICODEHS Training Center at Alajo in the Greater Accra Region.⁴⁶⁸ It also donated funds to construct a health clinic in Sekondi Zongo and a mosque at Akwatia Line in Kumasi.⁴⁶⁹ In 2020, ERC donated a two-storey classroom block for the Rashidiyya Islamic School at Nima in Accra.⁴⁷⁰

ERC has, in recent years, also cooperated with other Ghanaian Muslim NGO s. Among others, it commissioned the Ansar al-Khairiya Organisation to carry out its 2020 Al-Adahi Project in Kumasi and, through the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI) and in collaboration with the Accra-based local NGO Good For All In Ghana, it distributed Ramadan food packages in Accra as part of its ‘100 Million Meals’ campaign in 2021.⁴⁷¹ In addition, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, through its Ghanaian branch Al-Maktoum Foundation has also channelled funds to mosque and school construction projects as well as sponsored Iftar programmes of the ICODEHS.⁴⁷²

Saudi Muslim INGO s and Muslim charities have been active in Ghana for decades, although it seems they have been channelling their funds and donations via local Ghanaian Muslim NGO s such as the ICODEHS and Aldiaa Society. However, in 2019, the Muslim World League (MWL) embarked on the implementation of large-scale humanitarian projects in Ghana, including a sponsorship programme targeting more than 1,000 orphans and establishing an orphans’ vocational and training centre.⁴⁷³ Together with the water projects it finished in 2019,⁴⁷⁴ the orphans’ scheme seems to indicate a policy change as it marked a direct presence of the MWL in the Ghanaian NGO landscape. King Salman Humanitarian Aid & Relief Centre (KSRelief, established in 2015), in turn, became active in Ghana in 2017 when it donated 50 tons of date fruit.⁴⁷⁵ One year later, it repeated the shipment of dates as well as sent 17 container-loads of medical supplies to Ghana.⁴⁷⁶ At this point, the organisation announced having invested more than 24 million USD in development and humanitarian projects in Ghana.⁴⁷⁷ During Ramadan 2022, KSRelief made headlines when its ETA’AM Basket Project donated 150 tonnes of food items and fed 15,000 families through its local partner organisation Markaz Aleawn Alyaqin Humanitarian Services.⁴⁷⁸ It repeated its donation through its Kumasi-based partner during Ramadan 2023, planning to assist about 2,300 households representing over 13,000 Muslims in the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions.⁴⁷⁹ Aside from humanitarian relief, KSRelief has also invested in the construction of 52 solar mechanized boreholes by its local partner organisation.⁴⁸⁰

Al-Qimmah Association, another Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, opened its Ghana Office in Kumasi in 2015. Its first outreach programme included the donation of three sewing machines, six bicycles and five sets of gas cylinders and cookers as part of its programme to help the unemployed set up their own businesses.⁴⁸¹ Its second project was the donation of bagged rice and fresh beef to needy female porters and underprivileged residents in Kumasi and Accra in October 2015. The Corporate Affairs Manager and International Relations Officer of the Ghana Office, Sheikh Mohammed Bun Bida hit the headlines when he urged female porters to be responsive to reproductive health issues, claiming that “it is in their own interest to make informed decisions bothering on such issues to reduce their susceptibility of contracting the deadly HIV and AIDS, or giving birth to unwanted children with their attendant consequences on the society.”⁴⁸² However, not much is known about its further activities in Ghana as the organisation, since fall 2015, has not made any headlines in the newspapers or on social media. There are no notes about its registration on the Social Welfare Service Directory, apart from it being listed in the Directory. I assume that the organisation either soon became defunct or changed its name to Al-Qimmah Foundation. The latter organisation, too, is listed as a Kumasi-based one; its objective is to promote girl-child education.⁴⁸³ It was registered in September 2016 for one year, although it is unknown if the organisation has become dormant or ceased activities.

4.2 Iranian Semi-governmental/Non-governmental Organisations

The presence of Iranian organisations in Ghana goes back to the 1980s and results from opening of diplomatic relations between Ghana and the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1982. Bilateral and cultural agreements were ratified between the two countries and aimed at deepening economic and political cooperation and cultural exchange. The cultural agreement also includes a scholarship programme for Ghanaian students to study at universities in Iran. Several Iranian state and semi-state organisations started to operate in Ghana, including the Cultural Consulate of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ahlul-Bait Foundation and the Agriculture and Rural Development organisation.⁴⁸⁴

The Ahlul-Bait Foundation is a semi-governmental organisation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It operates several cultural, educational and religious institutions in Iran and several countries worldwide. The Foundation has been in Ghana since the early 1980s, engaging in agriculture, education, and health projects. In 1986, it established the Islamic Training Institute, renamed the Ahlul Bait Islamic School in 1988. Twelve years later, the Foundation established the Islamic University College, Ghana (IUCG), operating since 2001 as the first Islamic university in Ghana.⁴⁸⁵ In addition, the Foundation established a high school named Lady Fatima Girls Senior High School, intending to promote secular education among Muslim and non-Muslim girls at the secondary level and a technical and vocational training centre in Accra and Tamale.⁴⁸⁶

The Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) was an organisation established by the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture in 1990 to provide technical assistance to rural communities in the northern parts of the country. According to Dumbe, ARD provided free extension services to farmers in the Northern Region and interest-free loans to farmers that were payable after harvest. Through its mechanical stations, other services were ploughing and harrowing, improved seedlings and farm equipment. ARD also engaged in the rehabilitation and reparation of agricultural machines and agroforestry projects. Apart from its agricultural inputs, ARD also invested in drilling boreholes, building schools, and constructing technical and vocational training centres.⁴⁸⁷ Dumbe further notes that some of these centres, such as the Fatima Zahra Dressmaking Centre in Accra, also provide basic Islamic education with a Shiʿite proclivity.⁴⁸⁸

In 2009, ARD started to focus on the cultivation of varieties of rice from Iran. However, the experiment had to be abandoned only one year later due to difficulty transferring money due to the international sanctions on Iran.⁴⁸⁹ Moreover, the international sanctions on Iran resulted in the down-scaling and final closure of all operations in Ghana. By 2018, the large technical area of ARD outside Tamale was deserted with no signs of any activities for many years to come.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) is the most notable Iranian international humanitarian relief organisation still operating in Ghana. The IRCS has been active in Ghana since the early 1990s, concentrating on rescue and relief in natural disasters, health care and rehabilitation, public training, including youth and volunteers, and the production of medicine and medical facilities.⁴⁹⁰ IRCS’ most visible investment is the Iranian polyclinic in Accra, inaugurated in 2014.⁴⁹¹ The Iranian Clinic includes a unit for general consultation, a recovery unit, a laboratory, a pharmacy, ambulance services, ultrasonography, a dental clinic, physiotherapy, eye clinic, and gynaecology.⁴⁹² Apart from running its own projects, the Iranian Red Crescent Society has been a financial supporter of the Ghanaian Red Crescent.⁴⁹³ Not surprisingly, the Iranian Red Crescent Society was listed among the partner organisations of the Ghanaian Red Cross Society COVID-19 preparedness profile in 2020.⁴⁹⁴

4.3 Western, South African and Asian Muslim Charities

The Chicago-based Muslim charity Zakat Foundation of America (ZF), founded in 2001, opened its West Africa Regional Office in Kumasi in 2003 (illustration 18).⁴⁹⁵ The priority areas of its activities in Ghana are education, health, livelihood empowerment and humanitarian assistance (Ramadan and Eid packages, Iftar meal, orphan support), mainly in the former Brong-Ahafo, Northern, and Upper East Regions.⁴⁹⁶ Moreover, as Habibu Abubakar, Programme Manager of the Foundation’s Ghana office (in 2015), in an interview announced, his main preoccupation, which is also the vision of ZF, was to fashion out sustainable livelihood programmes which will completely eradicate poverty in the impoverished Muslim communities in the country.⁴⁹⁷ Apart from the activities mentioned above, the Zakat Foundation runs an orphan sponsorship programme, a livestock programme and collects donations to establish mosques, schools and libraries in poor Muslim communities throughout Ghana.⁴⁹⁸

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Figure 18

Zakat Foundation of America. Signpost of headquarters in Kumasi

Photo: Holger Weiss/2018

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The orphan sponsorship programme started in 2003 and has since then raised almost USD 24,000 to sponsor 55 orphans.⁴⁹⁹ Among its noticeable intervention for non-Muslim stakeholders was the provision of school bags and materials for pupils of the Fetentaa Refugee Camp Primary School near Berekum, Bono Region,⁵⁰⁰ the construction of a three-unit junior high school classroom block for the Chibrinyoa community in Bole District,⁵⁰¹ or the donation of relief items to flood victims in northern Ghana.⁵⁰² Sometimes, ZF donations were earmarked to both Muslim and non-Muslim stakeholders, as was the case in 2004 when the Foundation donated cash and food items worth 2.2 million GHC (ca. 250 USD) to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. About half of it was for HIV patients to enable them buy their drugs and the other half for the Muslim staff as Ramadan support.⁵⁰³ Five years later, ZF donated medical equipment to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital worth USD 500,000.⁵⁰⁴

By 2005, ZF started its education programme, designed to reach out to less privileged schools and improve educational infrastructure. Apart from funding the building of classroom blocks, the programme included the distribution of backpacks filled with books and pencils to schoolchildren in less-endowed schools in the northern parts of the country.⁵⁰⁵ Examples of its livelihood empowerment programme are the two cassava processing plants in the Savannah Region, the Jugboi Women’s Cassava Cooperative and the Bole Women’s Cassava Coop. Others include two vocational training centres in Kumasi and Bole that teach sewing and help graduates set up and market their products. In addition, the Foundation has provided medical supplies to hospitals and water wells in Bole, Bawku and Binduri, Upper East Region.⁵⁰⁶ As part of its livelihood empowerment initiative, the Foundation assists a cooperative of ten women who engage in cassava farming and processing in Jamam, Bono Region,⁵⁰⁷ and a 30-member Women’s Cooperative for Yam cultivation in Sunyani through its micro-credit programme.⁵⁰⁸ It also launched its One Year, 100 Wells campaign in 2013.⁵⁰⁹ As part of its humanitarian relief programme, the Foundation donated clothing and shoes worth GHC 215 million (ca. 22,000 USD) to flood victims in three northern regions in 2007.⁵¹⁰

In 2016, the Foundation launched its three-year livestock husbandry programme to support the poor to earn a living. The principal idea was to support 110 poor households with goats and sheep to rear an income-generating activity and, as an outcome, to empower them economically. The programme was projected to be operational in five communities in the northern Ghana and was planned to be extended to Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire as well.⁵¹¹

In the same year, the ZF vocational training centre scheme was about to be ended. The scheme was part of the ZF gender empowerment programme and had started in 2006 with a ZF-sponsored Voluntary Training Centres (VTC) operating in Bole.⁵¹² The centre was running a two-year course of apprenticeship and had trained about 100 women who received sewing machines and accessories after their graduation to start their own micro-enterprises. At the graduation ceremony of the last batch of students, ZF Country Programme Manager Habibu Abubakar appealed to civil society organisations, community leaders, and politicians to support the VTC programme to improve the lives of young women and urged the government to set up more VTC s in deprived communities.⁵¹³ However, the decision to end the scheme was revoked. Instead, it was scaled down from two years to a one-year training programme.⁵¹⁴

For reasons not stated, ZF cut short its programmes in Ghana in 2017, apart from its Qurbani donation. One year later, it resumed its water projects and textile sewing vocational training programme as well as started a motor mechanics programme. In 2019, it resumed its orphans’ sponsorship programme.⁵¹⁵

Apart from Zakat Foundation, several other US Muslim charities have been active in Ghana, although their projects, programmes and interventions have not received the same media coverage as Zakat Foundation. This is perhaps due to them working with small-scale and ad hoc projects or working through local NGO s. Islamic Relief USA, for example, seems to have ended its engagement in Ghana. In 2016/2017, its homepage still informed about its projects in the Tamale area, including boreholes, Ramadan food distribution and support to the Ghana Muslims Teachers Training Institute.⁵¹⁶ The 2021-version of its homepage did not list any projects in Ghana.⁵¹⁷ In turn, Life for Relief and Development (LIFE) has been running orphans and water projects and education, Ramadan and Udhya programmes via its Ghana office.⁵¹⁸ The beneficiaries of its investments are Muslims and non-Muslims, as was the case with the water filtration plant it donated to Ho Teaching Hospital in 2019.⁵¹⁹

The 2009-established African Islamic Heritage Foundation started its operation in Tamale with an ambition to provide humanitarian aid and to “build schools, mosques, hospitals, and take care of orphans and widows.”⁵²⁰ However, for reasons unknown, the Ghana chapter of the Foundation became inactive after 2015. The New York-based Salaam Ul-Muslimiyun Foundation, in turn, opened its Ghana branch in 2013/14. Since then, it has been running orphans and widows’ support programmes as well as Ramadan and Eid programmes in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale.⁵²¹

The spectrum of US Muslim charities and NGO s active in Ghana has tremendously increased since the mid-2010s. The Islamic Ummah Relief (IUR) concentrates on humanitarian projects in Ghana, Nigeria and Niger. IUR opened its Ghana chapter in Accra in July 2019 and expanded its operations to the Northern, Central and Eastern Regions.⁵²² Initially, IUR focused on orphans, Iftar, Eid and Qurbani, as well as water projects. In 2019, it started to raise donations to establish a safe place for Muslim orphans, the Al Amaan orphanage in Potsin, Central Region. The foundations of the home, school and mosque were finished in 2021.⁵²³ The orphans’ programme also includes the Street Children’s Party in Accra as well as the celebration of World Orphans Day and World Food Day. In addition, it launched the ‘Monthly Food Drive’ programme to assist more than 600 families and 1,800 widows and orphans. It provided Iftar for more than 90 orphans, Qurbani food for 40 orphans, and clothes for 40 orphans at Eid al-Adha. In 2019, IUR also collaborated with the Ghanaian NGO Sadaqa Train (see Chapter 3.6) to deliver Ramadan food packages and clothing to Muslim inmates at Nsawam Prison. Further, it commissioned the construction of three boreholes in rural communities in the Kumbungu District, Northern Region.⁵²⁴ Since then, IUR has expanded its activities by launching a new flagship programme, the Widows Skills Developing Project.⁵²⁵ Furthermore, it started an educational support programme, including the ‘Back to School and Food Drive’ in Jasikan Zongo (February 2021) and supporting the Kashful (Khishful) Uloom Quran Memorization School in Tamale (March 2021).⁵²⁶ In June 2021, it celebrated the commissioning of its sixteenth borehole project,⁵²⁷ and celebrated by extending its Qurbani donations to five regions (Ashanti, Eastern, Northern, Upper East and Volta Regions).⁵²⁸

The US-Muslim youth movement and NGO Generation Wealthy, Unity & Faith also opened its Ghana chapter in Accra in 2019. Running a flashy Facebook account and promoting circular economics, religious sciences, sustainability and wealth distribution, the NGO belongs to a newer generation of movements that address the (urban) Muslim youth. In July 2019, it organised an Innovation Summit in Accra and Tamale with the theme, “Connect and learn from top leaders and innovators in the industry.”⁵²⁹ The Forgotten People Organisation, on the other hand, initiated a combined orphans and Ramadan donation project in 2019, and extended it to Iftar and Qurban distributions to Ensima District in 2020.⁵³⁰

Africa Relief & Community Development, a US Muslim charity incorporated in 2018, cooperates with Aldiaa Society and has commissioned water projects and educational centres, and has funded Udhiya/Qurbani programmes whilst sponsoring some 90 orphans in Ghana since 2020.⁵³¹

Another novel appearance in Ghana is the US Shia charity One Hand One Heart, operating via Aal Yaseen Ghana, a local Shia NGO, to transfer its Ramadan donations. In 2021, the organisation accelerated its activities by implementing its own water projects⁵³² and launched its first humanitarian relief project to support flood victims in September.⁵³³

Several UK Muslim charities have been running projects and programmes in Ghana. Among the oldest one ranks the Ghana Muslim Union UK (GMUUK, established 1972), which provides support to orphanages and schools in Ghana.⁵³⁴ The first note of Caravan of Mercy (established in 2003) is its Qurbani/Udhiya campaign in 2012. Since then, the organisation has been engaged in school construction and sponsorship, masjid construction, Ramadan and Qurbani/Udhiya food distribution, water projects and widow support.⁵³⁵ Other UK Muslim charities running their own Iftar and Qurban programmes in Ghana are Human Relief Foundation,⁵³⁶ and Global Welfare Relief.⁵³⁷

Muslim Global Relief (MGR, established in 2000), in turn, began its work in Ghana in 2015, operating as a mere donor organisation. The MGR funded projects of its local partner organisation in the Upper East Region, the El-Ehsan Charitable Relief Foundation. In 2015, the MGR started its Water4Life Ghana project. This project sought to construct a hand-pumped well at Tes-Natinga village in Pusiga District, Upper East Region, and was implemented by its local partner organisation.⁵³⁸ It launched a fundraising campaign in 2016 for a water and sanitation project at Kuose-Jingiri, Upper East Region, implemented by its local partner. Apart from a well, the project included a public toilet with separate buildings for men and women as well as shower and ablution facilities.⁵³⁹ MGR displays the project on its homepage as an example of its “kick-start” development projects.⁵⁴⁰ In 2017, it channelled donations to feed 130 children at Winamzua School in Bawku and donated Ramadan food aid to Muslim communities in three villages and to five schools in the Upper East Region.⁵⁴¹ In addition, MGR and El-Ehsan Charitable Relief Foundation launched a meat distribution (Qurbani) project in 2017.⁵⁴²

For reasons not (yet) known, the various initiatives were not continued in 2018. MGR ceased fundraising campaigns for Ghana during the next years and seemed to have stopped activities in the country. However, MGR relaunched its activities in Ghana in 2020, despite implementing its projects by its Ghanaian team without any local partner organisations. Similar to its previous engagement, MGR has constructed hand pump wells, washing and sanitation facilities, and community mosques in villages in the Upper East Region.⁵⁴³ In addition, MGR posted a video on YouTube showing its team organising a food kitchen and handing out food boxes from a kiosk at an unspecified location (probably Bawku) in February 2021 to alleviate the suffering caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.⁵⁴⁴

The UK Bradford-based Muslim charity InTouch Foundation, launched in 2012, made its appearance in Ghana when it, in partnership with Ustadh Alyas Karmani distributed Eid and Qurbani food packages in Kumasi as well as Eid meals to 500 Muslim and non-Muslim prisoners in Manhyia prison, Kumasi, in 2016. In 2017, it announced collecting zakat and distributing it in the UK, Pakistan, and Ghana. Its overseas project in Ghana targeted to collect GBP 15,000 to provide financial support to establish chicken and cow farms to help “the community of Kumasi.”⁵⁴⁵ Salam Charity, on the other hand, claims to have ceased its operations in Ghana,⁵⁴⁶ although it provided (presumably via local NGO s) Qurbani meat in 2021⁵⁴⁷ and had collected more than GBP 450,000 for its two water projects.⁵⁴⁸ IERA Ghana,⁵⁴⁹ in turn, is a branch of the Islamic Education and Research Academy, a global Islamic missionary organisation founded in 2009 and registered as a charity in the UK. Interestingly, IERA does not combine daʿwa with humanitarian relief.⁵⁵⁰

The engagement of US and UK Muslim NGO s and charities in Ghana is hardly surprising. A new trend is the influx of Muslim charities from other non-Arab/Gulf/Irani or Turkish NGO s, such as the South African Al-Imdaad Foundation,⁵⁵¹ the Pakistani Sunni daʿwa organisation Dawat-e Islami,⁵⁵² the Singaporean Global Ehsan Relief,⁵⁵³ the Indonesian Global Wakaf and ACT (Aksi Cepat Tanggap or Care for Humanity),⁵⁵⁴ the Australian Muslim Aid Australia International⁵⁵⁵ and International Human Care and Relief Organisation Australia (IHCRO Australia),⁵⁵⁶ Al-Huda Relief of Canada,⁵⁵⁷ Voice of Islam from New Zealand, the Muslim Council of Hong Kong,⁵⁵⁸ the French Nouvelle Optique,⁵⁵⁹ the Belgian Hearts 4 Mercy (H4M),⁵⁶⁰ the Danish VIOMIS Aid, the Swiss Barakah Charity,⁵⁶¹ as well as several Muslim charities based in Germany such as Help Dunya, Ahkwaat G Foundation and Hajia Akweley Legacy Foundation.

Established in 2018 with headquarters in Bremen, Help Dunya started to work in Ghana in 2019. Initially, the organisation focussed on drilling boreholes, erecting water tanks and running a free medical testing campaign.⁵⁶² In 2020, it started a new project, namely an orphanage for 20 orphans.⁵⁶³ However, its homepage and annual reports do not specify where it has been running its projects in Ghana, even though I assume that these projects are likely to be located in the northern parts of the country. In April 2021, a news report noted that Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama, the MP for Yendi Constituency, had kick-started the construction of 100 boreholes in the Constituency in partnership with ‘Help Dunya Ghana’.⁵⁶⁴

The Ahkwaat G Foundation, in turn, was founded by a group of Muslim women in Germany in 2018 and operated branch offices in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. Apart from running the Darus-Salam Orphanage in Accra, the NGO engages in water projects and aims to build an Islamic school in Tamale.⁵⁶⁵ The Bamba International Humanitarian Aid Organisation, on the other hand, is a German-based one-person NGO that transfers funds from local Turkish donors for the drilling of boreholes as well as the distribution of Ramadan gifts in Ghana in 2022.⁵⁶⁶ Lastly, the Haija Akweley Legacy Foundation started in 2023 with a Ramadan food donation project and the drilling of a borewell at Apam in Gomoa West.⁵⁶⁷

4.4 A (Not So) New Phenomenon: The Activities of Turkish Muslim NGO s

Turkey formulated the sub-African direction of its foreign policy and overseas development aid already in the late 1990s, but due to its financial crisis and political instability, it started its implementation only after Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s and the AKP’s (Justice and Development Party) rose to power in 2002.⁵⁶⁸ 2005 was a turning point when Turkey obtained observer status in the African Union; three years later, it joined the African Development Bank.⁵⁶⁹ In Ghana, it re-opened its embassy in 2010 (the first embassy, established in 1958, closed in 1981 due to political turmoil in Turkey) and initiated largescale and multifaceted commercial, development cooperation, and humanitarian exchange programmes including the provision of Ramadan aid.⁵⁷⁰ In 2017, the religious wing of Turkish diplomacy, Human Development Association International (HUDAI), started its Iftar programme by supporting Muslims in deprived communities in the Northern Region.⁵⁷¹

Intimately connected to this process was a wide spectrum of Turkish NGO s, most spectacularly being the relief packages and (meat) donations during Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha of various Turkish NGO s, notably Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation, TSK Mehmetcik Foundation, Foundation of Humanitarian Relief (IHH, also known as The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief in Africa, est. 1992), Cansuyu Charity and Solidarity Organisation (CANSUYU, est. 2005), Turkish Red Crescent, Kimse Yok Mu Association, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi (TDV) and Deniz Feneri Association.⁵⁷² Their most noticeable and prestigious project was the Accra Furqan Complex in Kanda, comprising the new national mosque for 15,000 worshippers designed in Ottoman style, a recreational centre, a library complex, office and residence for the Chief Imam, a research complex, a Senior High School complex, a clinic, an administration block, an auditorium, and a conference centre, inaugurated in 2021 (illustration 19).⁵⁷³ The project was carried out in cooperation with different Turkish state and NGO partners, including the Turkish government, the Presidency of Religious Affairs of Turkey, the Metropolitan Municipality of Samsun alongside Aziz Mahmud Hudai Foundation and HUDAI as well as local Ghanaian organisations headed by the Turkish NGO Ghana Friendship and Solidarity Association (GANADER).⁵⁷⁴

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Figure 19

Accra Furqan. The Ghana National Mosque Complex

Photo: Holger Weiss/2020

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The first ambassadors of Turkish development aid in sub-Saharan Africa, however, were institutions linked to the Hizmet Movement, an educational network of the Turkish Muslim intellectual and opinion leader Fethullah Güllen (in self-exile in the USA since 1999), and supported by the global Güllen-inspired charity, Kimse Yok Mu.⁵⁷⁵ Their Ghanaian offshoots are the Galaxy International School in Accra, established in 2001, and the Ghana-Turkey Cooperation and Development Association (TUDEC).⁵⁷⁶ The latter initiative was established in 2011 by some local Ghanaian business people to promote education and trade activities between Ghana and Turkey in addition to offering social and humanitarian services in Ghana.⁵⁷⁷ Until then, the Hizmet Movement had partnered with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party AKP but was outlawed by the Turkish government after the 2016 coup d’état attempt.

Branding the Güllen/Hizmet movement as a ‘terrorist organisation’, the Turkish government signed protocols with 32 African countries, including Ghana, to replace the Güllen/Hizmet schools and shifted its focus to the Maarif Foundation (Türkiye Maarif Vakfi), emerging since then as the main organisation for government-supported educational cooperation and development, including the provision of scholarships to African students for studying at universities in Turkey.⁵⁷⁸ The Maarif Foundation opened its first educational establishment, the International Maarif School Kindergarten, in Accra in 2019.⁵⁷⁹

The Turkish onslaught on the Güllen/Hizmet Movement was successful in some African countries but not in Ghana. In Mali, for example, all former Hizmet-linked educational institutions were handed over to the Maarif Foundation.⁵⁸⁰ In Ghana, Turkish demands on blacklisting the Galaxy International School and TUDEC resulted in an outcry in the Ghanaian press⁵⁸¹ and failed to have them branded as ‘terrorist organisations’. Both are still active in their respective fields of operation. Among others, TUDEC is making headlines annually for its donations during Ramadan and at Eid al-Adha to local Muslim communities in Accra, Cape Coast, Koforidua, Kumasi, Takoradi, Tamale, Tema and Wa during Ramadan (2016: 10,000 Iftar and food packages, feeding 700 people a day; 2017: 1,500 Iftar and food packages; 2019: 1,400 Iftar and food packages […] 2023: more than 1,750 Iftar and food packages),⁵⁸² and at Eid al-Adha (1,200 families in 2018; 4,200 in 2020; 6,000 in 2021; 10,800 in 2022; 10,000 in 2023).⁵⁸³ Reflecting its character as a secular Muslim NGO, its donations include as well non-Muslim/Christian and local municipal institutions.⁵⁸⁴ In addition to its humanitarian relief programmes, TUDEC also sponsors the drilling of boreholes.⁵⁸⁵

Other Turkish NGO s have invested heavily in annual humanitarian relief programmes. For example, at Eid al-Adha in 2023, the Universal Islamic and Cultural Trust Turkey slaughtered over 150 sheep and 29 cows in Kumasi for free distribution of meat;⁵⁸⁶ the Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi (TDV), in turn, through its local partner Teimako and Blessing Organisation shared meat to more than 50,000 people in Accra, Ashaiman, Dodowa, Koforidua, Tamale, Walewale and Yendi.⁵⁸⁷ Apart from their Ramadan and Eid relief programmes, Turkish NGO s such as CANSUYU, HUDAI, Hayrat Yardim (Hayrat Humanitarian Aid Association, est. 2013), Hayat Yolu (est. 2014), IH-Da Vakfi (International Foundation for Humanitarian Aid, est. 2013) and IHH are heavily engaged in local water projects throughout the country (illustration 20). All of them started their activities in Ghana during the 2010s. CANSUYU, for example, initially specialised in “sacrifice activities,” i.e., donations during Ramadan and the two Eid festivals, as well as in water projects, starting with drilling 23 boreholes in 2011.⁵⁸⁸ IHH, in turn, started its work in 2015 by providing education aid, i.e., a donation of Qurʾans.⁵⁸⁹ In the following years, it extended its activities to include the construction and maintenance of boreholes and wells as well as launched the Africa Cataract Project.⁵⁹⁰ IH-DA Vaqfi started its operations in 2013, and listed tens of mosque and well projects completed in 2014 but none after 2017, perhaps indicating it has stopped activities in Ghana.⁵⁹¹

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Figure 20

HUDAI borehole in Nima, Accra

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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4.5 Ghanaian Muslim NGO s as Intermediaries for Foreign Muslim Donors

A common feature throughout Muslim sub-Saharan Africa is the close relationship between international Muslim charities, INGO s, and local associations and organisations. Foreign donor organisations either invest in and run their own local programmes and projects or channel their funds to those of local organisations. Local organisations stand out as intermediaries for foreign donors. Muslim charities established earlier such as Direct Aid or Zakat Foundation of America, operate country offices in various African countries, while newly established ones partner with local organisations. They constitute the first generation of Muslim NGO s. The second generation is established by local activists, usually, Muslim scholars, who are independent NGO s collaborating with foreign Muslim charities. Most second-generation Muslim NGO s do not generate their own funds but rely heavily, if not totally, on foreign donors to run their projects and programmes.⁵⁹²

The emergence of the Ghanaian landscape of Muslim NGO s resembles similar developments in other sub-Saharan countries. The first generation of Muslim NGO s in Ghana was established by returnee students from Arab/Gulf countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of them came to have a distinct Saudi affiliation, including the Centre for the Distribution of Islamic Books, the al-Huda Islamic Society and the Al-Hudaibiyya Relief Service. Muhyideen Rufai Ahmad, through support from Al-Rajhi International and Commercial Bank in Riyadh, founded the Centre for the Distribution of Islamic Books in 1980. The Centre built Islamic schools, such as the Holy Quran school in Ada, the Khalid ibn Walid school in Kasoa, and the Umar ibn Khatab’s primary in Madina (Accra), as well as provided partial funding for Islamic educational complexes in Koforidua, Kumasi and Wa. The Centre became defunct in the late 1990s when Saudi funding ceased abruptly due to the liquidation of Al-Rajhi Bank.⁵⁹³

The Saudi-affiliated al-Huda Islamic Society, in turn, was founded by Armiyau Jibril and Dr Muhammad Bashir in 1992, and has since then focussed on three areas of activities: namely education, humanitarian assistance, and Islamic investment (illustration 21). One of its most renowned educational projects is the construction of the Abdullah bn Masʿud Centre for Quranic Memorization in Gbawe, Greater Accra Region. The Centre draws students from all over West Africa to its three-year diploma course in Islamic studies. In addition, al-Huda promotes the establishment of Quranic circles, mainly concentrated in the Greater Accra, Ashanti and Northern Regions.⁵⁹⁴ An offspring, the Al-Huda Educational and Dawa Centre, is registered as a local NGO in Kumasi.⁵⁹⁵

The most vibrant of the three Saudi-affiliated Ghanaian Muslim NGO s is the al-Hudaibiyya Relief Services, established in 2004. As Dumbe notes, the organisation has evolved as an interface between the Saudi official religious centres, organisations and philanthropists on the one hand and Ghanaian Muslims on the other. Its core activity is the building of educational complexes (markaz) consisting of a school, a mosque, potable water and (sometimes) a residence for the imam, predominantly in the Northern Region, although it has also constructed schools, clinics and health centres, mortuaries, mosques and boreholes in the other regions, predominantly in the Savannah and North Eastern Regions.⁵⁹⁶ In addition, the organisation operates an orphanage in Savelugu, Northern Region, alongside running a nationwide orphan’s support scheme.⁵⁹⁷ A recent example of its activities is the construction of an Islamic training centre in Tamale, financed by the Saudi-based entrepreneur Alsayida Luululwa Alzaward under the auspices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). The 12-unit classroom block, clinic, mosque and borehole complex worth USD 120,000 was handed over in January 2019 and is projected to be elevated to the status of an Islamic college of education.⁵⁹⁸

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Figure 21

Al-Huda well in Mamobi, Accra

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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The two organisations have often cooperated, the latter one being among the Saudi organisations that fund projects and workshops of Al-Hudaibiyya.⁵⁹⁹ Since the early 2010s, al-Hudaibiyya has also started national fundraising programmes, especially to fund its mosque and Eid outreach projects. Nevertheless, about two-thirds of its expenses are still covered through external donations, predominantly from the WAMY and Saudi philanthropists and charities.⁶⁰⁰

The Aldiaa Society, in turn, implements foreign donor-funded projects, including Qatar Charity, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Nouri Charity Society, the Muslim World League/International Holy Quran Memorization Organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, the International Islamic Charity Organization (IICO), the Turkish Red Crescent, IHH, TDV (Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi), and Islamic Relief.⁶⁰¹ According to its 2017-homepage, Aldiaa Society mainly concentrated on mosque, water and Ramadan/Iftar projects as well as orphan support funded by the above-mentioned donor agencies. Moreover, together with several Turkish NGO s, it launched the Madina University for Science and Technology in 2017 through funding provided by donors from Qatar (Figure 22).⁶⁰² Since 2020, Aldiaa Society has collaborated with the US Muslim charity Africa Relief and Community Development and commissioned the latter organisation’s water and educational centre projects as well as organised the distribution of Udhiya/Qurbani.

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Figure 22

Qatar Charity/Aldiaa educational project. Construction of dormitories at (then) Madina Institute of Science and Technology, now Lakeside University College

Photo: Holger Weiss/2017

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The Voice of Islam-Ghana (VOI) is an offshoot of the New Zealand-based Muslim charity Voice of Islam.⁶⁰³ Operating from its headquarters in Tema, Greater Accra Region, it is engaged in daʿwa activities, including the distribution of Islamic materials and Qurʾans to local communities and arranging activities for new Muslims. In addition, the organisation claims to provide food for some 2,000 people during Ramadan, as well as support school-age kids by offering extra classes in English, mathematics, reading and basic IT skills.⁶⁰⁴ In November 2021, the VOI team, in cooperation with the National Blood Bank and Tema General Hospital, arranged its eight annual blood donation drive in Tema.⁶⁰⁵

Parallel to this development was the launching of the first generation of local Muslim NGO s in the 1990s, all of whom relied on foreign funding to implement their projects. The oldest of such local intermediary NGO s is the Islamic Council for Development and Humanitarian Services (ICODEHS), founded by Sheikh Mustapha Ibrahim in 1991.⁶⁰⁶ ICODEHS was the first Ghanaian Muslim NGO to establish a webpage at http://www.Africaonline.com.gh/Islamic/activity.html, although the first webpage existed only for a limited period. In addition, it published a monthly journal—The Humanitarian—to promote its cause and to disseminate information about its development projects in the late 1990s/early 2000s. At this time, ICODEHS was the only Ghanaian Muslim NGO listed among the members of the Civil Society Coordinating Council (CivisoC) of SAPRIN-Ghana (Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network).⁶⁰⁷ The Accra-based organisation has since then gained recognition, respect and trust among foreign donors and local Muslim communities,⁶⁰⁸ raising Sheikh Mustapha Ibrahim among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world.⁶⁰⁹ ICODEHS generates most, if not all of its funding from external non-Ghanaian sources, such as Kuwait Zakat House, IICO, Qatar Charity, Dubai Charity Association, Sharjah International Charity, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Nouri Charitable Society, Emirates Red Crescent, MWL, Custodians of the Two Mosques, and the Turkish IHH.⁶¹⁰ In 2020, the Ghanaian Times commended ICODEHS saying,

When it comes to implementation of social protection strategies to alleviate poverty and transform lives of the socially excluded in Ghana and beyond, the work of the Islamic Council for Development and Humanitarian Services (ICODEHS) is exemplary …⁶¹¹

Apart from building over a thousand mosques and 400 schools/school blocks around the country, ICODEHS has an impressive portfolio of achievements, constituting over 3,000 constructed boreholes and wells, 7 clinics, 4 vocational centres, and 7 houses for the needy, 7 orphanages, and 3 senior high schools.⁶¹² ICODEHS has also organised a Medical Caravan (eye screening exercise and surgery) programme, community-led loan schemes for women groups, support interventions for over 3,700 orphans, food crops and livestock, and humanitarian relief programmes during Ramadan and the Eid festivals.⁶¹³ It further publishes literature on Islamic religious inheritance, marriage, divorce, funerals and other topical issues to deepen readers’ knowledge of Islamic religion and other related subject matter. Its plans include building a university at Tuba, a predominantly Muslim community in the Ga South Municipality, Greater Accra Region, and a nursing training school in the Central Region.⁶¹⁴

The Bureau of Social Services (BSS), established in 1991 and headquarters in Accra, is the brainchild of Sheikh Ayub S. Haroun. In 2007, the BSS, through Sheikh Ayub, signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Muslim charity ILM Foundation, signalling the intention of the latter organisation to provide humanitarian services focussing on health, education, emergency relief, structural support, and transportation.⁶¹⁵ However, further traces and developments of the partnership have not been found on social media or the internet. Instead, BSS became the local partner for the Hidaya Foundation, another US Muslim charity. As part of its 2011 Iftar Project, Hidaya Foundation sponsored food items that were distributed to Muslims in the Brong-Ahafo, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra and Northern Regions by the BSS. A representative of Hidaya Foundation revealed to the press that the Foundation planned to turn it into an annual affair.⁶¹⁶ At least in 2015, Hidaya Foundation made headlines again in Ghana when it sponsored the BSS Iftar Project. The donation included 100 bags of rice, 100 cartons of cooking oil and 40 bags of sugar and were distributed by the BSS in the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central, Greater Accra and Eastern Regions.⁶¹⁷

Firdaus Foundation for Social Services (FFSS) is an Accra-based registered NGO, established by Sheikh Salis Sualih Husein in 2006 and with headquarters in Nima. Operating in various locations in the country, the FFSS has the following as its aims and objectives: to establish a strong and progressive society, where the basic necessities of life and work are catered to; to alleviate poverty and illiteracy, and to establish educational facilities that provide the youth with ultimate opportunities to develop their potentials. The FFSS also hopes to end unemployment, to encourage entrepreneurship, to promote speedy sustainable development and the eradication of poverty in Ghana and beyond, to equip the society with modern skills and knowledge to make them effective and efficient entrepreneurs rather than just providing immediate relief.

The foundation has agreements for “strategic partnership” with several international Muslim charities, including Al Muntada, Muntada Aid, Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF Foundation), and Sheikh Eid Bin Muhammad Al Thani Charitable Foundation (Eid Charity). According to its mission statement, Firdaus Foundation is “inspired by the Islamic faith”, and many of its projects target Muslim communities by building mosques and schools and drilling boreholes, distributing books, and giving scholarships to Muslim students or supporting people with disabilities, and orphans. However, it underscores that neither race nor class matters when providing food aid to needy families, financial support for start-up entrepreneurial initiatives or ICT training programmes for empowering the youth.⁶¹⁸

An examination of the texts on signposts in front of various projects of Firdaus Foundation gives some further information on its international donors. For example, the Ghalia Bint Muhsin mosque’s well in Lala, Northern Region, was funded by Eid Charity.⁶¹⁹ The Bahraini Tarbeia Islamic Society, in turn, sponsored its ‘Distribution of School Bags Project’ in 2018.⁶²⁰ In 2015, Firdaus Foundation in collaboration with Crystal Eye Clinic, organised free eye tests for 2,000 residents in Madina and Nungua (Greater Accra Region), Nsawam (Eastern Region), and Kasoa (Central Region), financed by the Qatari-based Eid Charitable Association.⁶²¹ In 2019, Muntada Aid sponsored its Zakat al-Fitr progamme,⁶²² while Rahma Austria and the Austrian NGO Well Water For Life funded its water projects in 2023.⁶²³ Furthermore, the Sudanese NGO Tamiyat Humanitarian Foundation sponsored the construction of its student hostel in Madina, Accra.⁶²⁴

The Accra-based Abdul-Aziz Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation (TACAHF) belongs to those Ghanaian Muslim NGO s whose foreign donors have shifted over the last decades. In 2013, it posted a call for Qurban support for US donors on waqafproject.com.⁶²⁵ In 2015 (at least, perhaps also in subsequent years), its Qurban distribution programme was funded by the Singaporean Muslim charity Global Ehsan Relief (in 2021: Iftar meals);⁶²⁶ since 2018, TACAHF has cooperated with the French Muslim charity Nouvelle Optique and received funding for water projects, orphans’ care and Qurbani programmes (illustration 23).⁶²⁷

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Figure 23

Nouvelle Optique borehole in Mamobi, Accra. Supervised by Abdul-Aziz Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation

Photo: Holger Weiss/2022

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The Ghana Academy of Muslim Professionals, in turn, has been running its Annual Relief Service programme through donations by Muslim philanthropists and international Muslim charities since 2009,⁶²⁸ among others, the Turkish IHH and the German WEFA (from 2011 to 2016). The beneficiaries are identified by the imams of the Ghana Muslim Academy and the local Muslim Chiefs; the prime target group are the so-called “forgotten orphans”, or children who do not receive any regular care from orphanages and who have been registered with the Academy before the food distribution day.⁶²⁹ Likewise, the Accra-based Islamic Council for Development and Humanitarian Services carried out the Iftar programme of the Dubai-based Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Foundation in 2016.⁶³⁰ One year later, it carried out those of Qatar Charity.⁶³¹ Race4Aid, in turn, implements various projects funded by donations from the United Arab Emirate, including an orphans’ sponsorship programme as well as the constructions of mosques and, in 2023, a vocational training centre at Nanton Zuo in the Northern Region.⁶³²

A recent Accra-based Muslim NGO is the Naqshbandi Ghana Foundation.⁶³³ Not much is known about this organisation, although its name seems to indicate the advent of a new Sunni tariqa in Ghana, the Naqshbandiyya. This is perhaps not surprising at all, given the notable presence of Turkish NGO s in Ghana since 2012 and the return of Muslim students from Turkish universities. Naqshbandi Ghana Foundation registered in May 2020 and is listed in the Social Welfare Service Directory as a “local NGO”. Its domain of operation is captured as “support the needy within society” and “… provide educational support to brilliant but needy children”⁶³⁴ The organisation cooperates with the UK-based Muslim charity Love Mercy Hope (LMH), established in 2019 and has been engaged in water projects in Ghana. Together, the two organisations initiated a Naqshbandi Dargah or spiritual sanctuary in Accra in December 2019,⁶³⁵ and launched an international fundraising campaign on Justgiving.com. According to the plan, the Dargah complex is to include a masjid, an orphanage, a madrasa, and a boarding school. In addition, it will have a kitchen and dining area for feeding low-income families three times a week and a maqam (shrine) of Mawlana Shaykh Nazim.⁶³⁶

Several Kumasi-based Muslim NGO s serve as intermediaries for or are partners of foreign Muslim charities. Among the oldest of them is the Ansaruddeen Organisation, initiated by Sheikh Abdar-Rahman Muhammad in 1996 and quickly gained the recognition of government as well as foreign donors. The Ansaruddeen Organisation started its activities in 1997/1998 by successfully commissioning a foreign-funded mosque, a well project in Danso, and a 300-capacity mosque in Aboaso. Mosque and water projects, alongside supporting orphans and organising Ramadan/Iftar/Qurban donations, have remained a central pillar of the NGO, whose main funder is the UAE charity Dar al-Ber Society. Ansaruddeen’s second pillar has been educational and health care infrastructure projects, although it stopped the building of health centres in 2006 when bureaucratic challenges overmanned the organisation’s capacities. Instead, it started the construction of a Nursing Training Centre in Domanofu, Ashanti Region (illustration 24), completed in 2022 and awaiting approval and accreditation by the Ministry of Health. It also initiated a similar project in Worasu, Ashanti Region. A third pillar is local infrastructure projects such as the construction of bridges and gutters in local communities.⁶³⁷

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Figure 24

Ansaruddeen Nursing College. Architectural plan of nursing training college at Domunafu, Ashanti Region, funded by Dar al-Ber Society and UAE Aid and implemented by Ansaruddeen. The construction started in 2018 and had finished by 2020.

Photo: Holger Weiss/2019

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Since 2019, the organisation has added two new pillars to its activities. A fourth pillar constitutes of providing medical services for local communities. The organisation raised concern about the effects of lead poisoning caused by illegal small-scale gold mining (galamsey) and started to pay for kidney dialysis processes at hospitals, the cost for one session being GHS 400–500 and one patients needs three to four sessions per week. In addition, the organisation started the provision of baby food to 500 babies, alongside started to pay for ear operations. The latter program is a novel one as it required the organisation to import the necessary competence from abroad as it didn’t exist in Ghana, so far, about 500 operations have been paid for.⁶³⁸

Food donations on a daily basis for about 800 families has constituted the fifth pillar of Ansaruddeen. This programme is not part of the annual Iftar and Ramadan food distributions but was effective between February and July 2022 as part of a post-COVID-19 relief measure. In July, the outline of the project was changes so far as the families received food coupons instead of food donations; the coupons were given to the elders of the community who identified those in need.⁶³⁹

The operations of Sheikh Abdar-Rahman’s NGO are indicative of most local Muslim NGO s serving as intermediaries for foreign donor organisations. Ansarudeen lists seven salaried staff members for monitoring the various projects and fifteen salaried contractors and workers in the field, whose salaries are catered to with a 7.5 per cent overhead quota slapped on each externally funded project.⁶⁴⁰

The Kumasi-based Iqra Foundation for Education and Development was registered in 2005 and started its activities in 2006.⁶⁴¹ Its forerunner, the Saudi NGO Iqra Foundation for Education and Development, established the Al-Faruq College as an English/Arabic basic school outside Wenchi in 1991. The school was closed down in 2006 and reconverted into a private college of education in 2011.⁶⁴² It was absorbed by the government as a public college of education in 2015, turning it into the only government-funded Islamic college of education. The Al-Faruq College of Education trains early grade, primary and junior high school teachers and runs diploma programmes in general basic education, early childhood education and Islamic/Arabic education.⁶⁴³

The Iqra Foundation for Education and Development or Iqra Foundation is closely connected to the Salafi community, as indicated by the recommendations (in Arabic) from the Supreme Council of Islamic Call and Research, the ASWAJ Ashanti Region and the Ansaru Sunna Society displayed on its homepage.⁶⁴⁴ Its objective is “to provide education opportunity and social services to the needy” by supporting teachers, schools, orphans and widows alongside the digging of wells, the construction of mosques and the organisation of advocacy convoys or daʿwa tours.⁶⁴⁵ Its Arabic-language homepage further informs the Foundation to work in Ghana as well as in other West African countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mauritania, Nigeria and Togo.⁶⁴⁶ The Foundation has links to Saudi philanthropists who are funding its various projects,⁶⁴⁷ as its annual report for 2020 displayed in Arabic clearly indicates. For example, apart from mosque building and water projects in 2020, the Foundation provided Iftar, Ramadan and Eid food packages to 72,000 persons; supported 8,271 orphans and widows with food and meat baskets throughout the year; distributed cash alms (zakat) of its donors to 1,260 sick and needy persons as well as Muslim prison inmates; sponsored 392 orphans of which 150 are in the Al-Noor orphanage as well as secured school bags and Eid clothing for 2,184 sponsored and unsponsored orphans, in addition to providing financial assistance to 90 imams and Muslim teachers.⁶⁴⁸

The Iqra Foundation for Education and Development co-operates with Qayyim Foundation for Social Services,⁶⁴⁹ another local Kumasi-based MFBO heavily relying on Arab donors to run its advocacy, education and construction (mosques, schools, water) programmes. The Kumasi-based United Ansaru al-Islam al-Muttadidah, established in 1995, also known as Ansar for Charity and Development Foundation (ACDF), likewise relies on donors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirate (among others, the Dar al-Ber Society in Dubai);⁶⁵⁰ the Association of the Servant of the Most Gracious, Ghana, has connections with Jordanian donors,⁶⁵¹ while the Bahraini charity ‮حياة بلا احزان‬‎ (‘Life Without Sorrow’) sponsors the orphans’ programme of the Kafilul Yateem Foundation for Social Services (‮مؤسسة كافل اليتيم للخدمات الاجتماعية دولة غانا‬‎).⁶⁵² Markaz Aleawn Alyaqin Humanitarian Services, in turn, relies on donations (at least) from Egyptian and Turkish organisations for its humanitarian services, well drilling, orphanages, Iftar and mosque projects. Since 2020, the organisation has received funds from the MWL (water projects), alongside the Indonesian Global Wakaf (water projects) and ACT (Care for humanity; water projects as well as Ramadan and Iftar packages and Qurʾan donations).⁶⁵³ Also, it acted as the local partner of KSRelief Ramadan food donation programme during Ramadan 2022 and 2023 as well as of KSRelief’s water projects.⁶⁵⁴

Furthermore, other several other Kumasi-based Muslim NGO s such as the Al-Fadl Organisation for Humanitarian Services received funding from Saudi Arabia for its borewell and mosque projects in the Ashanti Region in 2020 and 2021, whereas Egyptian philanthropists funded its Qurban distribution in a rural village.⁶⁵⁵ The Ansar Al-Khairiya Organization received a donation from the Emirates Red Crescent Society’s Al-Adahi Project to buy 80 sheep for distribution to low-income households to facilitate their celebration of the Eid al-Adha festival in 2020 and 2021.⁶⁵⁶

The Kumasi-based Tarbiyya Foundation cooperates with the Turkish Hayrat Yardim since 2020, among others, to fund its Ramadan Iftar donations, water projects, and orphan support programme.⁶⁵⁷ In 2022, the Foundation also started to collaborate with German-Turkish charity Emin Humanitärer Hilfsverein e.V. (Emin Humanitarian Aid), implementing the latter organisation’s water and Ramadan Iftar projects.⁶⁵⁸ Teimako and Blessing Organisation (TBO), similarly, receives support from several Turkish NGO s to fund its support to orphans and poor families as well as the drilling and construction of solar energy boreholes (mechanized boreholes run with solar energy).⁶⁵⁹ FOMWAG Ashanti, in turn, received donations from Qatar Charity for its school project in Amasaman alongside 100 Eid al-Fitr packages through Paragon Foundation funded by Turkish charity Deniz Feneri in 2022.⁶⁶⁰ The Muslim Access Movement, in turn, has coordinated similar donations by the US-charity Salaam Ul Muslimiyn Foundation Ghana;⁶⁶¹ the Ummah Foundation, active in Old Tafo Zongo (Kumasi), has delivered Ramadan packages from the Hamburg-based German Charity and Orphan Foundation since 2020, alongside from the Belgian NGO Hearts 4 Mercy during Ramadan 2022;⁶⁶² the Kumasi-based Al-Aziz Humanitarian Projects has coordinated donations of the UK charity Illuminations Welfare Foundation during Ramadan 2020 and Eid al-Adha 2022;⁶⁶³ while the Hohoe Zongo Development Associations made headlines in September 2021 when it received a USD 3,500 donation from the US charity Taimako Africa Foundation to run its scholarship programme.⁶⁶⁴ The Ramadan food packages and mechanized borehole projects implemented by the Kasoa-based Salafi organisation Youth of Answarul Islam Ghana, in turn, have been sponsored by the US charity Umbrella Ghana Togo Muslim Association of Minnesota,⁶⁶⁵ while the UK charity Haji Bashir Ahmed Foundation supported the Justice Yateem Foundation in its 2023 Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha donations to 600 orphans in Ejura.⁶⁶⁶ The Coalition of Muslim Organisations in Ghana (COMOG), on the other hand, is the local partner of the UK charity International Islamic Youth League/African Youth Development (IIYLAD); the UK charity donated 240 cattle for Qurban in 2022.⁶⁶⁷

The Eyes of Light Foundation Ghana as well as the Lean On Me Foundation, are two second-generation Kumasi-based Muslim NGO s with branches outside Ghana. Similarly, The Life Empowerment Foundation (TLEF) operates in Ghana, its head office being located in Accra, and the UK; most of its 12 team-members are alumnae from Lakeside University College (former Madina Institute of Science and Technology).⁶⁶⁸ All three foundations are examples of translocal/transnational social media networks.

Lean On Me Foundation (LOMEF) was founded in 2002 by Sheikh Firdaws Ladan. The organisation is also registered in Maryland, USA, with its branch office located in Laurel, Maryland. Its main objective is to bring value-based education and health care to the less privileged sections of society. According to its homepage, LOMEF has acquired three plots of land earmarked to construct an orphanage home, although it is not known if the orphanage has yet materialized.⁶⁶⁹

LOMEF engages in several education projects. It ran the so-called ‘Back to school supply day’ in 2017, providing some 200 school-going children with school uniforms, school bags and shoes, among others, in the Kumasi Metropolitan District. Although not stated in its objectives or mission, most of the target group were Muslim schools, including Pakyi No. 2 Islamic Basic, Nasrudeen Islamic Basic, Abdul Sammad Memorial Islamic Basic, Ghana Muslim Mission Basic, Wataniyya Islamic Basic, Al-Huda Islamic Basic, Mountain of Light Basic, and King Faisal Islamic Basic. In addition, LOMEF donated learning and teaching materials as well as stationeries to the Ibadur Rahman Senior High School, donated foodstuffs during Ramadan to Prempeh College, and renovated the school building of the kindergarten classroom of the Abdul Samad Memorial Islamic School. As part of promoting girl-child education, the Foundation organised annual Eid celebration dinners for senior high school girls in 2017 and in 2018. Moreover, LOMEF assisted seven students to purchase admission forms for high education into various tertiary education and paid the school fees of two students in the 2017/2018 academic year.⁶⁷⁰

LOMEF’s second focal area is health care. It aims to assist and provide medical support to persons with chronic ailments, and it assisted 2017 one cancer patient. Similarly, it organised the medical screening for breast cancer for 600 women and girls of Asokore Mampong Municipality in collaboration with the Oncology Department of Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital in July 2018. Furthermore, it registered and renewed the national health insurance cards of 200 pupils of the Afia Kobi Basic School, Nurul Islam School, Ansar El Islamic School, and the Krobo Extension Basic School.⁶⁷¹

Apart from its educational and health care projects, LOMEF engages in water and humanitarian projects. In August 2022, the Foundation completed the drilling of its thirteenth borehole.⁶⁷² In April 2022, it organised its annual ‘Feed A Hundred’ Ramadan Iftar.⁶⁷³

The dual structure of LOMEF, with branches in Ghana and the USA, serves practical needs. While the Ghanaian headquarters is in charge of running local projects, the US branch orchestrates fundraising campaigns. Sheikh Firdaws Ladan is Resident Imam at Masjid Ibn Taymiyyah in Maryland, USA, and, arguably, most supporters of LOMEF reside in the USA. LOMEF Secretary Issah Zakariya Firdaws, on the other hand, is in charge of headquarters and operations in Kumasi.⁶⁷⁴ This dual structure is similar to that of the Eyes of Light Foundation, another Muslim NGO operation in Kumasi. However, in contrast to LOMEF, the support base of Eyes of Light is in Germany.

The Eyes of Light Foundation started as a private initiative by a group of individuals in Kumasi in 2010. During its first years, the movement focused on assisting single parents and low earning families. In 2017, the movement was registered as a non-profit organisation named Eyes of Light Foundation Ghana (ELF GH). The Foundation has two bureaus, one in Old Tafo, Kumasi, and the other in Bitburg, Germany. At least the homepage of the Foundation seems to indicate that its headquarters are located in Germany, and its German branch, the Eyes of Light e.V. [eingetragener Verein = registered association], is mainly concentrating on fundraising.⁶⁷⁵ Among others, the German homepage urges its readers to pay their zakat as well as their zakat al-fitr to the organisation.⁶⁷⁶ Although the organisation does not identify itself as a Muslim FBO, there are no direct references to poor Muslims or Islam in the objectives and mission statement of the organisation. Like LOMEF, Eyes of Light Foundation underscores the humanitarian aspects of its activities, “change the lives of poor, oppressed, and forgotten […] to transform the lives of those most vulnerable.”⁶⁷⁷ Nevertheless, both in fundraising campaigns and in implementing local projects, the focus groups involved are Muslims in Germany and Ghana. In 2021, for example, the foundation ran a campaign in Germany to gather funds for Qurban 2021 in Ghana.⁶⁷⁸ In addition, the German homepage is linked to the homepage of Karawane der Liebe E.V. Verein für die Vervollkommung des menschlichen Characters. This is a Sufi organisation, also known as the Sufi Path of Love.⁶⁷⁹

Apart from Eid donations in Kumasi, Eyes of Light Foundation lists five projects on its homepage. These include the building of an orphanage as well as an orphanage sponsorship programme, a water well project, a women’s tailoring project and a kindergarten project. However, apart from the orphanage, it seems as if the other ones are still at the planning stage; there is little information about them on the homepage. The boarding home project, the Foundation declares, is currently “our biggest project yet.” The boarding home caters for over 30 boys, most of them orphans. The Foundation also aims to provide for their education.⁶⁸⁰

Local Muslim NGO s with headquarters in the northern parts of Ghana are rare, and only a few of them have been able to link up with international Muslim charities and NGO s. One of the first to serve as regional intermediaries for international donor agencies in the Upper West Region was the Noor Islam Institute for Development (NIID, illustration 25), established in 2009. It began operations as an NGO to promote the development of Muslim communities in Wa and the Upper West. The activities initially were rather limited as it only had one donor from Egypt who, at the same time, acted as the director of the NGO.⁶⁸¹ However, it managed to link up with Aldiaa Society in Accra and secured financial support from Qatar Charity to launch an orphanage programme in 2014. In 2017, the Director of Noor Islam Alhassan Idrisu informed the press that the organisation had donated assorted food items and cash worth about GHS 140,000 to orphans in the Upper West Region. In addition, it has provided about 150 boreholes and 80 mosques since its inception.⁶⁸² Two years later, Noor Islam donated assorted food items to about 600 families in the Upper West Region during Ramadan 2019, financed by its partner, the Kuwaiti Charity Direct Aid.⁶⁸³ However, information gathered from further fieldwork indicates that the NIID soon became defunct or dormant in Wa in December 2019.

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Figure 25

Noor Islam Institute for Development. Dilapidated street sign in Wa announcing the halal income generating activities of the institute

Photo: Holger Weiss/2019

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El-Ehsan Charitable Relief Foundation (ECRF), founded in 2010,⁶⁸⁴ has its headquarters in Bawku and operates in the Upper East Region. The Foundation presents itself as “a Ghanaian NGO working to help those affected by natural disasters, conflict and poverty.”⁶⁸⁵ According to its homepage, the Foundation asks for zakat, charity, gift and endowment donations, although it is not specified if it directs its call to local sponsors or international donors.⁶⁸⁶

In 2012, ECRF launched its Orphan Sponsor Programme, focusing on orphan education. As part of the programme, ECRF acquired a 2.5-acre farm in Kose, Pusiga District, where it started to cultivate 120 moringa fruit trees and published an appeal for international investment in the project on GlobalGiving.org.⁶⁸⁷ The detailed project plan outlined was a highly ambitious one. In addition to the trees, maize, pepper, and vegetables were cultivated to provide food for the orphans. The surplus of the produce and the leaves and fruits of the trees were to be sold to generate funds for the ‘Orphans And Impoverished Children Sponsorship Programme’. In total, 280 HIV/AIDS orphaned children, children from families whose parents were weak and sick with HIV/AIDS, vulnerable children from very poor households and child-headed households were catered for. Having already planted the trees, ECRF needed funds to construct an appropriate irrigation system, obtain fertilisers, fence the farm, and build a dry room. In addition, it needed to obtain funds to cover the management of the project as well as the marketing of the goods to be produced. With the funds raised from the sale of the farm products, it planned to cover all costs of the orphans’ education, including transportation to and from school, school meals, medical check-ups, clothing, books, stationery and school uniforms, as well as financial stipends. Having already invested its own funds of USD 1,221, ECRF called for foreign contributions of some USD 37,000 to run the five-year project.⁶⁸⁸ However, the outcome of the project is not known, and at least the attempt to attract foreign donors through GlobalGiving.org turned out to be meagre (one donor, EUR 6 raised).⁶⁸⁹

Another ECRF project on GlobalGiving.org, the Bring Clean Water to 1000 Ghanaians, was more successful as is managed to attract three donors and raise EUR 203 in 2015. The project had an ambitious outline, including the instalments of hand pumps and a complete solar panel water pump, building 7 latrine pits, and sponsoring 7 orphans and 31 girl-child in school in the village Nyorugu. Apart from providing safe drinking water for the 1,000 inhabitants of the village, the instalment was designed to empower 200 women to increase productivity through irrigation.⁶⁹⁰ At least part of the project was realised, namely the support to orphans and girl-children, but the major investments could not be covered.⁶⁹¹

The ECRF Orphan Sponsorship Programme likely attracted some funding as it appeared on top of the 2017-homepage of the Foundation. At this stage, the ECRF became a partner organisation of Muslim Global Relief (MGR), and the UK-Muslim charity adopted the programme and started sponsoring it. Among others, ECRF, through a donation from its donor, provided school uniforms and shoes to 100 orphans at Winamzua Municipal Assembly B and Winamzua Junior High School ‘B’ and sanitary items to girls at Ansarul Islam Junior High and Winamzua Junior High School ‘A’ in 2018.⁶⁹²

Apart from its orphan programme, the Foundation engages in water and sanitation as well as food aid projects. At least from 2015 to 2017, these projects were funded by the Muslim Global Relief, including the instalment of five water pumps in remote villages in the Upper East Region,⁶⁹³ alongside a covered sewage and waste management system plus separate latrines, showers and ablution taps for men and women in a village in Pusiga District.⁶⁹⁴ In addition, through donations from Muslim Global Relief, ECRF initiated the ‘Giving Fruit Trees’ project in remote villages, seemingly an extension of the Moringa Tree project. In some cases, farmers in need are given seeds, hoes and fertilizers.⁶⁹⁵ Finally, through funding from its partner, ECRF built a community mosque at Kouse-Jingiri⁶⁹⁶ and implemented the MGR Food Aid Programme during Ramadan 2016, when it fed over 1,500 children in five schools in Bawku Municipality and Pusiga District.⁶⁹⁷ In 2017, the MGR Food Aid Programme targeted Kouse-Jingiri village,⁶⁹⁸ Winamzua Municipal ‘A’ and ‘B’.⁶⁹⁹

However, it seems as if the cooperation between ECRF and Muslim Global Relief abated after 2018. Instead, ECRF had become a partner organisation for Muslim Aid Australia International (MAA), as indicated by Sheikh Usman Tanko Ibrahim, CEO of ECRF, being the manager of MAA. The Australian Muslim charity engages in water projects and has funded the construction of 90 boreholes in 2020 in the Upper East Region.⁷⁰⁰ Twenty of them had been constructed by ECRF.⁷⁰¹

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Figure 26

Ghana Charity Association for Development. Signpost outside the organisations’ head office in Tamale

Photo: Holger Weiss/2019

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The third example of an intermediate Muslim NGO operating in northern Ghana is the Tamale-based Ghana Charity Association for Development (GCAD, illustration 26). Its mission is to carry out humanitarian activities through the provision of boreholes to provide portable drinking water, the construction of classrooms, schools and mosques, as well as the distribution of food and clothing for needy persons during the Eid festivals.⁷⁰² GCAD is the brainchild of Sheikh Kailan, who founded the organisation in 2015. His motivation for establishing the organisation, was his realisation that one had to do more for social mobilisation and development in the northern parts of Ghana as there had been a tremendous increase of the Muslim population in the area. Having a previous ten years’ experience of working with Muslim organisations such as Muntada Islam and African Muslim Agency, he wanted to put a special emphasis on educational projects by establishing his own NGO. However, his vision initially clashed with that of the benefactors (i.e., international Muslim NGO s) he contacted for help. Their focus had been an “Islamic” interpretation of social development, namely the provision of Islamic centres mosques and boreholes. Nevertheless, Sheikh Kailan eventually reached a compromise with two Arab charities, UAE Aid and Sharjah Charity International, and GCAD started operations in 2016.⁷⁰³

The funding provided by UAE Aid enabled Sheikh Kailan to initiate a large-scale programme for infrastructure construction, and GCAD completed 174 mosques and 237 water projects in Northern, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions in 2018 and 2019. In addition, UAE Aid funding enabled GCAD to run Ramadan food aid and Iftar as well as Eid al-Adha meat donation programmes since 2018.⁷⁰⁴ Sharjah Charity International, on the other hand, provided start-up capital for small-scale businesses and stores.⁷⁰⁵

Sheikh Kailan’s vision is to expand the infrastructural projects to include health and educational projects. This was in response to various appeals made by the Tamale Chief who had requested for a clinic or hospital in the community when the representative of UAE Aid visited the town. Subsequently, a chief in Upper West who had converted to Islam asked for a clinic after a mosque had been constructed in his village. So far, however, Sheikh Kailan has not been able to convince his benefactors to provide funding for health projects.⁷⁰⁶ On the other hand, his ambition for the GCAD to enlist funding for educational projects, including the building of classrooms or schools, has been successful, and five finished (makaranta) school projects as well as the Zayed Alkair Center for Quran Memorization, the latter one equipped with a boarding school and computer class, are listed on its 2021 homepage.⁷⁰⁷

The Ghana Charity Association for Development is a typical intermediary organisation, serving as a link between local communities and international benefactors. Typically for a Muslim NGO, GCAD has a limited number of staff members: 11 persons, including the organisation’s representatives in the regions mentioned above. Administrative costs are covered by foreign funding.⁷⁰⁸ Sheikh Kailan and the GCAD regional representatives collect requests for infrastructural projects of local communities and after an initial internal evaluation, present them to their international donors. With the establishment of its homepage in 2021, GCAD has also started to post calls for donations for specific projects, including three class-rooms projects, four water projects, six mosque projects, one ‘house’ project, and one ‘store’ project.⁷⁰⁹

4.6 Ghanaian Muslim NGO s Going International

A few Ghanaian Muslim NGO s have extended their scope of activities and have launched international projects in recent years. This is a new phenomenon as it challenges earlier notions of Ghanaian Muslim communities being recipients of outside interventions, and local Muslim mobilisation for empowerment being restricted within the national boundaries of Ghana. On the other hand, the trans- and international ambitions of Ghanaian Muslim NGO s are not surprising, considering the multifaceted regional and continental networks of many Ghanaian Muslim activists and scholars, be they Salafi, Sufi, Shia or Ahmadi. Muslim trans-border networking goes back to the precolonial period, never stopped during the colonial period and using modern transport and communication, technology has intensified and multiplied during the contemporary postcolonial era.

Among the earliest Ghanaian Muslim NGO s articulating international ambitions rank Tijani Sheikh Salis Shaban’s Islamic Humanitarian Foundation (IHF International). Founded in 2011 as a global humanitarian charity and relief organisation, Sheikh Salis Shaban committed his organisation to realising the UN Millennium Development Goals and the UN Sustainable Development Goals by adding a Sufi spiritual dimension to meet global challenges. Nevertheless, IHF International’s mission is predominantly solidarity-based and secular, namely to promote universal education, improve healthcare, enhance poverty alleviation and environmental protection, empower women and children and promote global peace.⁷¹⁰ Typical of a Muslim charity, Sheikh Salis Shaban envisions the core focus of his organisation to be education (establishment of schools and supporting needy students with scholarships), provision of potable drinking water, health education and screening programmes, orphan and widows support. Although not unique, the resolute standpoint against violations and discrimination based on gender or age, including rape, domestic violence, child trafficking and child labour, distinguishes his organisation from many others.⁷¹¹ However, while Sheikh Salis Saban ranks as a trans-African Muslim leader, his organisation has hitherto mainly operated in Ghana.

Another Ghanaian organisation with a similar vision and mission is the Takoradi-based Salafi Deen Al-Haqq Foundation (DAIF), announcing on Facebook to “aspire to excel in humanitarian relief in Africa.”⁷¹² Whether they have already extended their activities outside Ghana is not known, neither if they have managed to receive any external funding to support their ambitions.

A few organisations, such as the Islamic Council of Development and Humanitarian Services (ICODEHS), Iqra Foundation, and Ghana Islamic Youth Sadaqqa Association (GIYSA), have managed to attract foreign donors or solicit internal sources for their activities outside Ghana. ICODEHS is active in West, Central and East Africa, most probably within its core areas of operation, i.e., the construction of mosques and drilling of boreholes. However, its international activities are not displayed on its homepage or on Facebook and need further investigation.⁷¹³ Iqra Foundation, in contrast, arranges Iftar tables for fasting people paid by donations from Saudi philanthropists at Salafi mosques in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. According to information provided on the organisation’s homepage, the number of meals served reached 280,000 in 2014. During Ramadan 2019, Iqra Foundation provided meals to about 2,000 poor and needy families at “more than a hundred” locations in Ghana, Togo and Benin as well as distributed Eid clothing for 675 orphans.⁷¹⁴ GISYA, in turn, raises funds among its members for water well projects in rural communities in southern Nigeria.⁷¹⁵

4.7 Relying on Foreign Donors—Challenges and Restrictions

The dependence on outside investments puts a Ghanaian Muslim NGO in a problematic situation as the foreign donor decides what to finance. Thus, for the empowerment of the local poor, other approaches need to be identified, not least initiatives that the recipients design, targeted at a structural change in the local community and financed by funds that the implementing organisation is fully capable of controlling. Such an approach will need the mobilisation of the Ghanaian Muslim population to take collective responsibility not only for improving their livelihood but also to engage in a fruitful debate about ‘Muslim’ solutions for poverty alleviation.⁷¹⁶

Nevertheless, Muslim activists and leaders are painfully aware of the successful engagement of Christian organisations in enhancing social and economic development and empowering local communities in Ghana. Although this was a known fact throughout the twentieth century, Muslim leaders at first tried to block Christian influence by sealing off their communities from Western education. As this resulted in the structural marginalisation of the Muslims in postcolonial Ghanaian society, Muslim leaders started a slow process of reforming the Muslim education system and establishing local health institutions operated by local MFBO s. In 2016, the National Imam of the Ahlus-Sunna Wal-Jamaʿa Haji Umar Ibrahim Imam, called on Muslims in Ghana to declare war on “the enemies to human development”, most notably hunger, ignorance, diseases, conflicts and wars. He further urged Muslim chiefs, imams and the wealthy to consider establishing educational and health facilities as remedies for battling ignorance and disease. He said, “When ignorance and diseases are conquered; hunger, conflicts and wars shall definitely be brought to the barest minimum”. He also underscored the importance of providing modern education and career direction for children, saying, “The like of the child who is not educated in this generation is that of a bird that has been sheared of all its feathers and told to fly.”⁷¹⁷

In an interview one year later, he criticised the Ghanaian Muslim community for depending on economic assistance and investments from Arab governments and philanthropists, declaring that “until we stand up to provide for ourselves, no foreigner can provide and build our community to the expected standard we desire.”⁷¹⁸ The (then) General Secretary of COMOG Haji Abdul Manan Abdul Rahman made a similar outcry, calling on Muslim scholars and professionals as partners in eradicating ignorance and underdevelopment. To achieve this, COMOG launched the Muslim Ummah Development Initiative (MUDI) in 2016.⁷¹⁹ Sheikh Amin Bamba of Tamale, in turn, at the launching of a collaborative community development programme of the UNFPA and the Bamba Islamic Institute Ghana (BII-Ghana) in 2017, critically noted that the high rate of illiteracy was the main reason for blocking the empowerment of Muslims in Ghana. In his view, “… illiteracy has denied and continues to deny majority of our people critical information that they require to make informed economic, social and political decisions to improve their livelihood and general wellbeing.” He further urged Muslim leaders and organisations to cooperate with relevant government and non-governmental agencies to develop Muslim communities and promote the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.⁷²⁰ However, by the late 2010s, Muslim leaders realised that these efforts had only a limited impact and were shocked when they observed that more Muslims were converting to Christianity than vice versa. This realisation provoked a critical examination by the Islamic Peace and Security Council in January 2019 of the pitfalls of Islamic socio-economic infrastructure in Ghana, including kindergartens, junior and secondary schools, tertiary institutions, teaching and teacher training colleges, clinics and hospitals, vocational training centres, and orphanages. They also revisited the provision of social welfare and shelter for the needy and vulnerable, and the provision of food to the less endowed families.⁷²¹

Anika Altaf’s report on local and national Muslim NGO s in the Northern Region reached similar conclusions. Most of her informants mentioned only a few Islamic interventions, the bulk of them being mosques and madrasas. Although the recipients generally regarded “Islamic aid”, i.e., coming from international or national MFBO s and Muslim philanthropists, as more than welcomed, it was still criticised to be generally limited to funding religious activities. Nevertheless, Altaf identifies the lack of self-funding to be the biggest constrain for local and national MFBO s in implementing social and economic development projects. On the other hand, the capacity for generating funding in Ghana is minimal; the only organisation being self-sufficient is the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission. Interestingly, Altaf concludes her analysis by underlining the need for Ghanaian MFBO s to begin to explore ways to be either fully or partly self-sufficient through an institutionalised collection of zakat.⁷²²

The need for a reorientation in the approach of the Muslim communities in Ghana towards poverty alleviation per the UN SDG s of Agenda 2030 was further highlighted by the National Chief Imam in his speech at the 55th Session of the Commission on Civil Society at the United Nations in February 2017. In his speech, Sheikh Osman Nuhu Sharubutu pleaded for an Islamic perspective on eradicating poverty. Following a classical interpretation of the Third Pillar of Islam, the National Chief Imam underlined the imperative for Muslims to be charitable and to provide for the needy and concluded that zakat is the means for economic relief and poverty eradication. The Ghanaian government, he thankfully noted, had opened a new approach towards the economic and social development of underprivileged urban low-income settlements known as the Zongo communities by establishing the Ministry of Inner Cities and Zongo Development in 2017. However, he also stressed that “for poverty to be completely eradicated, a new approach must be adopted in consultation with the religious leaders and clergy.”

In his view, this new approach should strive to create employment and means of distributing national resources equitably for the benefit of all. He also emphasised the need to create a basket for their needs and wants and enabling their vocational training. Osman Nuhu Sharutubu stressed the need to develop new mechanisms of reaching out to the wealthy and resourced people in the Muslim community to do more in charity.⁷²³

An illuminating reflection on the dependence on external donors came up in a long discussion with Haji Sulemana Mumuni (Haji Sulley) in April 2019. In his view, there is a basic distinction between secularly and non-secularly trained Muslims. The former “talk but do not act” while the latter, predominantly traditional Muslim scholars, depend on others, namely their congregation and, increasingly, on donations from the Arab world. A crucial question about the relationship with political leaders is whether religious leaders should cooperate with them (and gain resources from them), or remain independent and generate resources from within their communities? Likewise, the relationship with external Muslim philanthropists and charities and Haji Sulley underlined that it is better to be independent and depend on resources accumulated from within one’s community than to rely on outside donors. What is at stake is the empowerment from within, Haji Sulley underscored than relying on the shorthand strategies of external donors whose objectives might not correlate with that of the recipients. While funding the building of mosques ranks high among Muslim donors, the priorities of local communities might be ‘worldly’ infrastructure like schools, health care centres or vocational training centres. Haji Sulley remarked that establishing an NGO is easier than being able to run it effectively amidst the numerous challenges, especially if there is no plan on how to fund its activities. Funds allotted by external donors seldom include overheads to pay the salaries of the staff members of an NGO or, in extreme cases, are distributed for other purposes. He further noted that external donors invest in new projects, not their maintenance. The outcome is a vicious cycle where local NGO s exist as long as they receive external funds and collapse when the funds cease.⁷²⁴

Haji Sulley tried to set an example and made an effort to discuss with secularly trained Muslims about achieving empowerment without relying on external donors. On top of the agenda was the need for secularly trained Muslims to be economically independent and realise how they can be part of and have an impact on society. The discussions resulted in the formation of the Holy Green Foundation in 2010.⁷²⁵ The objective of the Foundation is “[the] improvement of the economic status of Muslims and the quality of life of the general community” to emerge as “the facilitator of the socio-economic development of Muslims.”⁷²⁶ It, therefore, collects monthly dues (of 5 or 10 Ghana cedis or 0.8 to 1.6 USD) from its members to fund its activities. The activities of the Foundation include supporting and arranging Iftar meals for pupils and students at the Lady Fatima Senior High School in Accra.⁷²⁷ Its second objective was to introduce a collective Islamic sharing system where each member would contribute GHS 50 (USD 8) every month for its members’ social and intellectual development; the accumulated funds from its 50 members yielded some GHS 5,000 (ca. 800 USD). A part of it was to be invested in private transportation, the rest to be used to enhance and advocate saving habits among young Muslims.⁷²⁸

Muslim scholars, imams and grassroots activists have for decades been alerting their Muslim brethren and sister about the need and possibility for self-empowerment. Perhaps with the rise of a (relatively) affluent urban Muslim middle-class, the public discourse on self-empowerment gained momentum among the Ghanaian Muslim communities during the 2010s. Interestingly, the Muslim Caucus in Parliament took a leading role in this process. In 2010, it initiated the Zakat and Sadaqa Trust Fund of Ghana (see Chapter 5.3.1); eleven years later, it ranked among the organisers of the first National Muslim Conference (NMC). In line with his strong commitment to the unity of the Muslim communities, the National Chief Imam Sheikh Dr Osman Nuhu Sharubutu opened the 2021-conference by stressing that unity is the way out of poverty:

Until we are able to harness this common destiny, by rededicating ourselves to the tenets and the teaching of Islam, come together, identify our common problem, proffer a solution, and implement it, we will continue to be among not only the poorest of the Ghanaian society, but also outside of the decision making systems of the Ghanaian community.⁷²⁹

At his speech at the closing ceremony of the 2021-conference, Sheikh Dr Amin Bonsu, National Chairman of the Ghana Muslim Mission, urged for the need of self-empowerment of Ghanaian Muslims: “If we unite we will be able to build more educational, health and other infrastructure that the Muslim communities require to develop and to be able to contribute their quota to national development.”⁷³⁰ As an outcome of the conference, the participating Muslim sects decided to form the NMC as a forum for deliberation and management of matters relating to education, health, financial and the general wellbeing of Muslims in Ghana. In a press release at the end of the conference, the participants further declared their ambition “to mobilise and provide sustainable funding for the developmental objectives of Muslims relating to education, health, and finance and to establish relevant structures and carry out projects to meet the socio-economic needs of Muslims in Ghana.”⁷³¹

Future development will tell if the establishment of the NMC opened a new chapter in the history of the Muslim communities in Ghana. At least its projectors envisioned it to develop into core national institution to promote the welfare and self-empowerment of the Muslim communities beyond sectarian boundaries. The NMC, its deed of covenant outlined, was to spearhead the formation of three new bodies to carter for the needs of the Muslims, namely the Ghana Islamic Education Service, the Ghana Islamic Health Service, and the Ghana Islamic Financial Service.⁷³²