Kinks in the High-End Tech Supply Chain: A View from Ghana
In our globalised, interconnected and fragmented world, the glue that keeps many of us in sync with family, friends, colleagues and communities is our slim-fit pocket pals, or phones. Studies suggest that the average person in the UK/US spends 3–4 hours a day on their phones[1]and having been born and raised in the UK, I’m probably not far off these statistics — all in the name of work, of course.
Yet since I moved to my country of origin close to a decade ago, this is the first time that I’ve been without a phone for an extended period of time, joining 25% of women without a phone on the continent[2]. And this isn’t because it’s August and I simply want to assimilate a desert-island getaway (well…). But rather because my experience of repairing an iPhone in Ghana has actually become an unwanted crash course in patience for three main reasons:
1. Unclear diagnosis. Over 80% of Ghana’s economy is informal. Phone repairers can be found on every other street corner in some parts of Accra. In practical terms, what this means is that having a phone repaired by “Rafael” doesn’t come with a detailed description of what work needs to be carried out and why. Rafael told me that my phone repeatedly failed to charge because I had “too much load” on it, but wasn’t able to elaborate further. While the GSMA Gender Gap Report[3]recommends that there should be greater digital skills training for women to make full use of their phones and to close the gender gap, I don’t believe that this can happen in a silo. Part of that solution rests on supporting sellers/repairers within the informal economy with training too.
2. Inaccessible authorised Apple repairers. Although I managed to brave the Spintex Road traffic to get to the only Apple store in Accra, a city of 2.5m people, I daresay if all the iPhone users in the country went there, there would be a logjam. Ghana has an estimated 15.1m Smartphone users[4] and knowing how my people have a penchant for aspirational brands, I should think that the iPhone customers aren’t too much of a negligible slice of the android pie. So making a calculation to try to save time by opting for Rafael over “Amponsah” (Apple’s authorised technician for this story), will actually cost you. Please read the small-print: Amponsah isn’t permitted to work on your phone once it’s been looked at by a non-authorised repairer. So back to Rafael it is.
3. Unavailability of spare parts. I was told by Amponsah that the missing treasure for my phone to work is a “cowling”. Once I lay my hands on that, then I can speak til my heart is no longer content, I’m reliably informed. Oh, but the devil in the detail is that I won’t be able to get hold of this gold-dust in Ghana because “it’s not sold here”. Ahem. The good news though, is this will hopefully soon change as Apple has recently expanded its Independent Repair Provider Programme to include Ghana. This will enable technicians to access genuine Apple spare parts, though not until later this year[5].
After close to four weeks in “WhatsApp wilderness”, putting friends, colleagues and acquaintances truly on their last nerve, I may have saved up to 84 hours from non-screen time, but I’m losing out on that age-old, irreplaceable human connection. Thankfully, I’m no longer pining for that desert island holiday — yam[6]phone, here I come .
[1]https://elitecontentmarketer.com/screen-time-statistics/
[2]GSMA Gender Gap Report 2021
[3]https://www.gsma.com/r/gender-gap/
[4]https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/blog/the-state-of-mobile-in-ghanas-tech-ecosystem/
[5]https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/03/apples-independent-repair-provider-program-expands-globally/
[6]https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Yam-phone-sales-rise-as-people-seek-to-disconnect-from-technology-678311