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This volume discusses the Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) that addressed the critical poverty issues in Ghana. GPRS I is a comprehensive policy document prepared as a precondition for Ghana under the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative. The main component—human development—targets improvement for Ghana’s population to access basic needs and essential services. A general assessment shows that Ghana has a positive and significantly stabilized macroeconomic environment.
Since the inception of the HIPC Initiative, the story of the design and implementation of poverty alleviation strategies has largely been told through the filters of development partners and the Bretton Woods Institutions. Poverty Reduction Strategies in Action examines the efforts in Ghana to reduce poverty and initiate changes that it believes are essential to ensure a prosperous future for its citizens in the 21st century. It chronicles the achievements, pitfalls, and looming challenges of a government, its people, and its external partners in fashioning out and implementing anti-poverty and pro-growth policies. This edited volume, by a group of independent researchers, examines Ghana's experience: what was done, how it was done, what was left undone, the lessons learned, and fills the void in the development literature.
Ghana has pursued several programs to accelerate the growth of the economy. In 1995, the government presented “Ghana: Vision 2020,” aimed at making Ghana a middle-income country in 25 years. Vision 2020 focused on human development, economic growth, rural development, urban development, infrastructure development, and an enabling environment. It was followed by the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. One of the main challenges to economic growth is the unemployment problem. The recent discoveries of oil and gas create tremendous opportunities for stimulating national development.
This is the third Annual Progress Report on the implementation of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS). Both the budget and the GPRS propose to tackle issues including reduction in the domestic debt, reduction of inflation to single digits, increasing revenue mobilization, curtailing deficit financing, and rationalization of expenditure through effective monitoring. The disbursement of the District Assemblies' Common Fund (DACF) has improved. The macroeconomic indicators show that targets set by the government have been achieved, which has led to a stable economic environment.
Executive Directors believe that the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) outlines a comprehensive framework for growth and poverty reduction in Ghana. The GPRS II rightly emphasizes private sector-led growth as key to broadening the country’s economic base. The GPRS II will benefit from analyzing the risks to the strategy such as inability to implement planed structural reforms, exogenous shocks and domestic factors, fiduciary weaknesses, and capacity limitations. A comprehensive macroeconomic framework that is consistent with the medium-term fiscal framework and growth assumptions is required.
This Joint Staff Advisory Note provides IMF staff advice on key priorities for strengthening the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) for Ghana and for ensuring its effective implementation. It highlights critical areas that could justify renewed focus. IMF staff commends the Ghanaian authorities for the breadth and scope of the document, as well as the candid treatment of some of the issues. IMF staff also welcomes the progress in several areas reported in the annual progress report.
The neoliberal policy response to the crisis in Ghana did not succeed in reversing the economic decline in both the medium and long term. In fact, quite the opposite, rather than undoing the economic decline, Frimpong argues that the policy prescriptions further weakened the country’s ability to develop. This is because the policies intentionally and unintentionally encouraged factors that destabilised the possibility of the real productive assets to earn commensurate returns to facilitate the flow of capital to the real sectors to ensure the survival of industrial enterprises. Rising profit in the financial sector incentivised financial capitalist to divert capital into financial assets at the expense of productive investment, further decelerating the pace of real capital accumulation in the country.
This Joint Staff Advisory Note of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) on Ghana reviews the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA) for the period 2010–13. The GSGDA comprises three volumes: the policy framework, the costing framework, and the monitoring and evaluation framework; and follows Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy I and II (GPRS-I and GPRS-II). IMF staff finds the underlying sector development plans compelling and well considered. However, important risks to implementation remain, which could reduce Ghana’s ability to meet the GSGDA objectives.
This paper presents the Joint Staff Assessment of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Progress Report for Ghana. IMF staff believes that the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy overall provides a sound framework for implementing the government’s antipoverty agenda The strategy builds on creating favorable conditions for private-sector-led growth, improving the delivery of basic social services, and raising the efficiency of the public sector. To this end, the government intends to maintain a stable macroeconomic environment with moderate inflation, improve infrastructure and market access, and increase the availability and quality of basic health and education services.