Question

In the 1960s, Ghana implemented state-led development policies under the government of President Kwame Nkrumah. Between the 1980s and 2000s, Ghana implemented market-led development policies. Explain why Ghana’s development policies changed, by paying attention to the following:

a. Description of the development policies implemented in Ghana in the 1960s and between the 1980s and 2000s;

b. International orders;

c. The project of international development;

d. The relationship between b and c to explain the changes in Ghana’s development policies.

Answer 1

The administration of Kwame Nkrumah,primarily socialist as well as nationalist,from 1951-1966 Ghana was controlled by the Convention People's Party (CPP).During this period CPP sponsered vaireity of state-led popular economic projects and that process lead the large foreign debts.Basically they funded on national industrial and energy projects,education system and culture and played a leading role in the period of decolonization period.When Ghana is the lone country who got independence from the Colonial rule in 1957 and expected much jubiliation of economic growth and evelopment.In the mean time Ghana experienced reasonable ecnomic high growth soon thereafter,by 1965 the per capita income was negative.Indeed when the coup d'etat overthrew Nkrumah regime the per capita income was below its value at the time of independence.The then economic conditions appeared to improve significantly during the late 1960s and very early 1970s.The mid 1970s saw the beginning of significant economic detrioration ,so that by the early 1980s,per capita GDP had reached the nadir in the history of Ghana's post independence.

The drastic fall down of economic development during the period of Nkrumah,now the major economic reviews on performances have attributed the recent growth after reform to the rapid expansion of capital after years of accumulation with some inconsistent role aasigned to the productivity growth.The analysis based on the growth accounting framework of Collin and Bosworth suggest that the total factor of productivity and market led contributor to growth.Take the record of growth rate of Ghana was unevenness indication of reasonable highy GDP growth in 1950s and early 1960s and then the Ghananian economy began to slowdown in 1964.The turbulent of growth during the period of mid-1960s and began to stabilise by 1984.In the period 1966,1972,1975-76,1979,1981-83 the growth rate was actually negeative due to the coincided changes in governement and with policy or reversal.

negative growth was experinced at the time of coup d'etat in1966 by forceful tranfer of authority from the dictatorial Nkrumah regime to the military regime.The lowest ever groth was -12% in 1975, coinciding with the oil supply shock,policy reversal from market oriented to inward looking protectionist regime.So in the turbulance period liberal Busia civil administration there is relatively positive growth of 10% in 1970s.To revive the economic condition of Ghana after that taken major reforms marked by the adoption of stabilizaion programme,Economic Recovery Programme(ERP),support from IMF,and from the World Bank.The intervetion of these organisation the economy started moving toward the positive and recovery.The market oriented programme initiated by ERP intended to halt the downward movement of ecnomy.The next reform led by the ERP supplemented by the structured adjustment programme(SAP) eared up for correcting number structural imbalancement which are cause to sustainable economic growth.

The positive response of ecnomy the soon after inception and implementation of ERP/SAP got recovery from negative growth in 1981-83 with hefty positive rate of 9% in 1984.The Ghana ian economy was structured after success implementation fo reform programmes and seen slightly shift from agriculture towards industry between 1960s and early 2000.The reforms may have succeeded in reversing the course of de-industrialization. The data also show, though, that much of the industrial growth was attributable to non-manufacturing (mining and quarrying, construction, and electricity and water), for while industry on the whole grew by an average of 4.3 percent annually during 1986-2003, the growth of manufacturing averaged only 1.4 percent annually over the same period.The importance of manufacturing has increased the following the reforms,though not sufficiently to real structural changes since independence.

While since independence may not be encouragig in terms of strucural shift towards manufacturing it appeared to be silver lining in the manufacturing exports data pointing to increased competitiveness of Ghana's slimmer weaker manufacturing sector.On the global comparativeness evidence angle Ghana's growth performance since independence is attributable to the various factors of production.Another factor is investment by different ERPs the miracle changes taken place and GDP was 23 percent in post 2000.The current thought about the external aid or debt promotes sound policy of environment of Ghana that paid attention towards freign investment as well in 1980 and 1989 the ratio of GDP or GDI slightly upward direction at the macrolevel of opened market.