BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHERN GHANA

Abstract

Northern Ghana is Ghana's problem region. It is a large area accounting for about half the total land surface of Ghana, yet it is the least developed part of the country. It would be futile to seek to explain the lack of economic development in the region mainly with reference to the problems of the savanna environment, which indeed are no more serious than in many other parts of West Africa where there has been greater economic development. The reason must be sought primarily in the strategy adopted for economic development, which at first failed to identify the fundamental problems of low productivity in food farming and high transport costs. Later, the solution of the transport problem was made conditional upon the success of the measures adopted for increasing agricultural productivity; yet these measures proved to be partially unrealistic since they ignored long-established local values and preferences.