Ghana: Progress, Problematics and Limitations of the Success Story

Abstract

Ghana is cited by advocates as the key case of successful adjustment, and by critics as adjustment with an inhuman face. Both views are reductionist and fail to take on board the 1890-1982 historical context. Ghana’s stabilisation effort, begun in 1982, was altered to secure Fund/Bank backing in 1983. The added resource inflows, the end of drought and the policy change have resulted in significant macroeconomic recovery. The sustainability of that record is problematic but far from hopeless. But human conditions have not improved comparably because — at least until 1982 — the poor were treated as peripheral, and even now production by and basic services for the poor are not priorities well integrated into the macroeconomic policy and allocation framework.