Part 3: Why You Can Be For African Development, Or Against Secondhand Imports, But NOT BOTH

The most important thing in the history of this blog is boring.  Secondary research. Data journalism.

The most important "unique" insights I've been credited with were available to everyone, in plain sight.

- World Bank and IMF Data on electricity demand.

- Digitimes data on display device manufacturing in the 2000s

- @GrahamMytton's 1983 "Mass Communcation in Africa"

Electricity demand (IMF, World Bank) correlates strongly with device ownership and use.

Device ownership and use does NOT correlate as strongly with device production and sales (Digitimes).

Historical device ownership correlates strongly with secondhand device sales.

"But I've seen the photos!" #povertyporn is easier to witness than #datajournalism. That's the problem.

So when you see a pile of old wire in Agbogbloshie, first look to see if it is automobile wire, not the 80% claimed imported computers "dumped days earlier". It's in the photograph.  Look to see whether the chips being sorted for resale in Guiyu are being "primitively sorted for acid baths", or sorted for obvious secondhand value. It's in the photograph. Jim Puckett's photo of the 1972 TV casing used to carry automobile wire is in the photograph. Prince Nico Mbarga's 1977 album cover ("Sweet Mother" album, the "White Christmas" of Africa) has the same TV.

So this is a case where everyones eyes saw the same photos, but without an easy 60 seconds of data research, our eyes were hijacked into a warped DEI claim that the poor were being "dumped upon" rather than the wise buyers meeting their own device demand with repair and reuse.  And the OECD wealthy nations recycling sector was merely competing for the copper. Nations so wealthy that their demand for secondary raw material coopted the cops to compensate for the greater value of reuse.

Why so many respected media broadcast the #falseclaims of the #ayatollahofewaste when the background data is obvious has mainly to do with donations via the #charitableindustrialcomplex, by OEMs (like Samsung, #BANs biggest funder) who immediately know the core claim is false - because Samsung itself was founded by a reuse and refurbishing purchase order. 

The race now is who will capitalize refurbishment and recycling - but not repair - in Africa, because the stock market does not measure "informal sector" device ownership which provides the devices to meet supply and demand.  It only measures "formal sector", new factories which Digitimes monitors, and then reports on a "copper shortage" which funds formal sector recyclers.

Last week I was blasted by someone in the industry (who I thought was a friend) for "putting myself above the industry", "appointing myself spokesperson" for Africans, and writing this blog "for my own monetary interests", and posting "monograph" (which I guess means making the same point over and over - guilty I guess). The person very recently, in the past year, switched his company certification from R2 to E-Stewards. It hurt a little bit. But ultimately #touchepasamonpote, dude. The whole attack was against my demands that the #CanaryIslands arrests of African diaspora be investigated with data, because the only data provided in the press release clearly exonerated the accused.  The industry dude didn't cite any data in his ad hominem retort.  He ended his last email with "Goodbye". 

Hotels upgrading to flat TVs were the major source of CRT TVs for Africa. E-waste Republic

The photo below was shot in Tema, Ghana, at a secondhand store that had a sign "Hotel TVs". The claim that the African buyer imported these for "primitive wire burning" is neither supported by data nor by the photos posted of Agbogbloshie in the reports of the Canary Island arrests.

You can be for African Development, or Against Secondhand Imports, but not BOTH.