After its independence in 1957, Ghana appeared relatively prosperous compared with many other African countries. Agricultural crops, including yams, grains, cocoa, oil palms, kola nuts, and timber, formed the base of Ghana's economy, which was moderately stable during that time. Hence, when the situation in Ghana is juxtaposed with some other African countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Uganda, where the estimates of income per capita are much lower, it is very easy to underestimate the severity of economic underdevelopment in Ghana. The truth is this problem, originated from Ghana’s colonial history, is prevalent today. For example, a typical Ghanaian family has no portable water, electricity and other basic amenities. Actually, there are also some other African countries sharing the same situation or even worse. Due to the similarity in the developing process of Ghana and those African countries, if a solution for Ghana’s economic hardship is found, it may also be applied to the African countries that are facing the same problem. To find a solution, it is critical to examine the problem of economic underdevelopment in Ghana in terms of its origin from the impact of c

The problems brought by the colonialism, the regional disparity in modernization and the unskilled labor force, contributed as a major factor to Ghana’s fragile economy during post-colonial period. This eventually led to the instability of Ghana’s political condition. The political instability then greatly hindered the economic development. Thus, these factors were interrelated; they are both the cause and consequence of each other. This is not only the case in Ghana, but also the case in other developing countries in the Sub-Sahara region. Political instability is widely recognized as a major factor that hampers the economy development in some developing countries, because the constantly changing politic parties inevitably brings out the constantly changing economy policy, thus it creates the instability of a country’s economy. Ghana has gone through a number of political upheavals since its independence. Ghana experienced, before its fourth return to multiparty democratic government in January 1993, nine different types of government (three civilian and six military), including a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, a socialist single-party republic, and several military regimes following coups in 1966, 1972, 1979, and 1981 (“Ghana”). For every politic change, the political groups declared change in economy; this was based on two reasons: first, Ghana’s constantly declining economy called for a more effective economical system, and second, it was much easier to gain public support by claiming economic changes, and it had almost been the major approach for Ghana’s political movements.

Second, during the colonial period, few workers had the chance to be trained to do more technical jobs, and those jobs were always done by the Europeans. Ghanaians were mainly required to do things that only involved physical labor. This happened in many areas of production. For instance, in the process of producing a gem diamond, work had to be done to locate the diamonds. In this case, the skilled task had to be done by a geologist, and the geologist was always a European (Rodney, 1974). Local workers were brought into the picture only when the physical labor, which required less specialization in skills, is needed. The locals did jobs such as digging out the diamonds. Thus, the Ghanaians living in the colonial region had no access to acquire the “modern” skills from the westerners. This created the problem of mass unskilled labor force, and it subsequently hampered Ghana’s economic growth after the colonial

Some topics in this essay:
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