A senior economist at the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) has renewed calls for Ghana to urgently overhaul the structure of its export economy, warning that the country’s continued dependence on unprocessed raw commodities is entrenching rather than eroding poverty and leaving the cedi perpetually exposed to external shocks.
Dr. Edward K. Brown, ACET’s Senior Director for Research, Policy and Programmes, made the remarks during a virtual transformation dialogue jointly organised on Tuesday by the World Bank, ACET, and the Institute for Statistical, Social, and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana. The dialogue is part of a series of high-level conversations examining Ghana’s economic reform priorities as the country rebuilds following several years of fiscal crisis.
ACET’s data ranks Ghana among the bottom 30 countries in Africa for export competitiveness, a finding that underscores a structural problem that has persisted across successive governments: despite commercial oil production commencing in 2011, Ghana’s export portfolio remains overwhelmingly concentrated in cocoa, gold, timber, and crude oil, commodities shipped out raw and reimported as finished products at significantly higher cost. The result, Brown argued, is a terms-of-trade imbalance that systematically weakens the cedi, fuels import-driven inflation, and suppresses the industrial employment base.
Brown noted that while Ghana’s goods export value rose from USD 1.2 billion in 1980 to USD 20 billion in 2020, the structure of those exports has barely changed. Manufacturing as a share of the economy dropped by nearly 50 percent between 2012 and 2020, reflecting a shift in employment toward low-productivity informal services rather than productive industrial activity.
The path out, Brown argued, begins with agro-processing. He recommended precision farming, organic certification for high-value export commodities, the establishment of agro-industrial parks, and technology incubation hubs designed to progressively add value to the agricultural base before products leave Ghana’s borders. He linked this to a broader agenda that includes improving regulatory coordination across ministries, investing in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and building the human resource pipeline required for a more sophisticated industrial economy.
Brown also called for targeted investment in the digital economy, which he said requires three simultaneous actions: expanding high-speed internet connectivity to underserved regions, building integrated digital platforms that reduce transaction costs for businesses, and leveraging Ghana’s membership of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to diversify export markets beyond traditional partners in Europe and North America. He stressed that the world is not waiting for Ghana to make this transition, arguing that the country must choose between remaining a supplier of raw materials or claiming its share of higher-value global markets.
The dialogue comes days after ACET signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the African Union Commission (AUC) in Addis Ababa to scale up the Growth with DEPTH framework, which measures economic transformation across five dimensions: diversification, export competitiveness, productivity, technology upgrading, and human wellbeing.
