A leading Ghanaian policy analyst is challenging the fundamental logic of how Germany is engaging with Ghana’s industrial transformation agenda, arguing in a newly published paper that a relationship built on classroom training and small business support is structurally incapable of delivering the kind of economy Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy (24HE) initiative demands.
Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa, published the critique through the Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI) on Thursday, February 19, 2026, laying out a detailed case that the Ghana-Germany development partnership has drifted into a model that served a different era and must be fundamentally reoriented if it is to remain relevant to Ghana’s current ambitions.
The core of Simons’ argument is that Ghana in 2026 is attempting what development economists describe as a late-stage industrial time-compression jump, moving from shallow production to high-throughput industrial corridors through capacity maximisation rather than through the slow diffusion of capabilities. Germany, he argues, is still operating through models designed for the latter, creating a fundamental mismatch of development logics in which Ghana does not receive the industrial scaffolding it needs, and Germany fails to leverage its own true strategic strengths.
The paper draws a sharp distinction between two industrialisation pathways. The first, which Simons labels “platform-first,” involves spreading skills, upgrading institutions and diffusing capabilities broadly before major sectoral breakthroughs occur, the path taken by post-war Japan, Italy, Spain and Ireland. The second, which he terms “spearhead-first” or vanguardist industrialisation, prioritises a small number of export-driven sectors, building tightly integrated value chains before capability diffusion extends outward. South Korea, Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Vietnam are his primary examples.
Ghana’s structural conditions, including a weak research and development base, a fragmented training ecosystem, low domestic capital accumulation and weak industrial clustering, make the platform-first strategy unrealistic in the near term. The country’s development opportunity lies instead in selective value-chain acceleration: building deep, tightly networked industrial corridors in strategically chosen sectors.
The 24HE initiative, now backed by legislation signed into law on Thursday by President John Dramani Mahama, is organised around eight sub-programmes including Make24 for manufacturing, Grow24 for agriculture and food security, and Connect24 for logistics. The initiative aims not merely to extend business hours but to remove structural bottlenecks so that economic activity can flow continuously day and night, integrating agriculture, industry, finance, skills and public sector reform under a single framework. Simons argues that achieving this demands cross-sectoral investments in value-chain acceleration zones, production corridors and sectoral clustering that go far beyond what Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) can deliver.
Germany’s genuine comparative advantages, in logistics, industrial organisation, supply-chain governance, export embedding and blended finance, remain largely untapped in Ghana. A continued focus on skills diffusion without integration into production contracts and export corridors, the paper warns, risks perpetuating weak employment absorption regardless of how many graduates complete training programmes.
To resolve the mismatch, Simons proposes a Ghana-Germany Value Chain and Employment Compact covering 2025 to 2028, built around joint value-chain diagnostics, sector-based training linked directly to production contracts, blended finance for youth-led enterprises and integration into African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) regional markets. Critically, the compact would be framed around equal-interest industrial partnership rather than donor-recipient logic.
The energy cost dimension gives the argument concrete urgency. Industrial electricity in Ghana currently costs between US$0.13 and US$0.17 per kilowatt hour, a level the World Bank’s Business Ready report identifies as a major competitive disadvantage relative to neighbouring countries bidding for the same industrial investment. The government has indicated that agro-industrial and industrial parks developed under the 24HE initiative will benefit from reduced tariffs of between US$0.04 and US$0.07 per kilowatt hour, powered by renewable energy.
Simons closes with a question directed as much at Berlin as at Accra: whether Germany’s engagement in Ghana should remain developmental assistance or evolve into industrial diplomacy. For both partners, he argues, the current model is a missed opportunity.
