ACCRA, Ghana — What do giant barges spewing diesel fumes, solar panels the G20 and Canada have in common? More than you might think.

After the latest tumultuous G20 summit, from the vantage point of this developing nation, it’s easy to question whether these meetings of rich countries are worthwhile — but they are.

Amid the violent protests, acrimony and destruction in Hamburg, constructive things did happen, decisions that could bring positive outcomes for countries like this one, and eventually, opportunities for Canada and other.

A popular perception of these global meetings is that they’re an opportunity for blowhard politicians to strut and pose and then sign agreements that have little meaning.

But things do happen behind the scenes. A so far little noticed outcome of the G20 in Hamburg was the endorsement of a Compact with Africa that could help countries like Ghana.

It’s an initiative backed originally by the German government that hosted the summit and endorsed by the G20’s finance ministers, with nary a peep from Donald Trump.

True, it’s a bit boring so far as international agreements go. But its aim is important— to make it easier for African nations and the countries they borrow from to finance and get moving on the infrastructure countries like Ghana need badly.

Ghana is as good an example as any. It has 26.6 million people and late in 2016 held an election that led to a peaceful transfer of power — no small achievement these days in a world of Russian hackers.

New buildings are rising in the capital and there are four active Canadian mining companies in the country, with relatively good records for corporate social responsibility.

But Ghana has big challenges. Its roads get washed out to the point where many are unusable, it needs to upgrade its railways to move raw materials, minerals and cocoa yet it’s heavily in debt and doesn’t have the money to pay for what it needs.

Here’s where the barges come in.

In the run-up to the election, to keep the country’s lights on, Ghana leased huge diesel-spewing power plants from Turkey that were actually huge ships. These barges anchored off the coast, providing electricity but spewing carbon emissions and pollutants.

Electricity shortages are a problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In May, a World Bank report said that with current trends half a billion people in the region might still lack power in 2040.

Given this country’s sunshine and its creaky electricity grid, Ghana ought to be a prime location for a technology leap — moving straight from building costly, dirty power plants to using local solar power that doesn’t rely on the grid.

In late June, the New Yorker magazine reported that U.S. alternative energy companies are all over sub-Saharan Africa looking for opportunities to supply small-scale solar energy equipment.

Why not us? Ghana could benefit easily from solar panels that Canadian plants produce but struggle to find enough markets at home.

The Compact with Africa that was endorsed by the G20 is designed to help Ghana and similar countries put these kinds of infrastructure deals together.

The point is that these kinds of agreements that emerge from the G20 may be obscure and plodding to all but the biggest nerds, but they set the conditions for positive change to happen.

In fact, Ghana is already one of the three countries named in the compact to receive 100 million euros to get the ball rolling on infrastructure. The other two are Côte D’Ivoire and Tunisia — the latter the only country that emerged from the Arab Spring as a democracy.

Canada could easily be part of this positive story, and our exporters could gain financially. Canada and Ghana have a friendly relationship dating back to Ghana’s independence in 1957, and Ghana’s finance minister both taught and was educated in British Columbia.

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Canadians could, of course, pursue these trade, aid and infrastructure opportunities on their own, without the benefit of G20 side deals like the Compact with Africa. But these global agreements provide an easier framework to get things done, a common language and understanding of how deals can be structured, how they should work, and in this case, with at least 100 million euros to get things started.

So while it’s easy to be appalled by G20 riots and the antics of Donald Trump, it’s also worthwhile to look behind the scenes and appreciate that positive steps actually do take place behind the scenes.