Why Ghana Is Africa’s Top Candidate for an Economic Leap
The country scores high on development metrics; it just needs to break free of dependence on commodities.
On the road to industrialization.
Photographer: Cristina Aldehuela/AFP via Getty Images
Every time a region of the world goes from being poor to being rich one country tends to be responsible for getting the process started. In Europe that was the U.K., which was the first to industrialize. In East Asia it was Japan. In West Africa it could be Ghana.
Ghana has a number of big advantages over other countries in the region in terms of geography, institutions and human capital. It’s on the coast and has plenty of ports that can be used to ship and receive goods. With about 31 million people, it has a large enough population to create a substantial domestic market but small enough that providing jobs and food won’t be too insurmountable of a challenge. Members of the Akan ethnic group make up about half of the population, meaning that Ghana has less of the ethnic fragmentation plaguing many post-colonial states. It scores well on international indicators of governance quality, freedom, democracy, ease of doing business and corruption. Ghana has lower child mortality than its neighbors, indicating a relatively healthy populace. It also has a head start in terms of literacy rates and education: