Economy In Ghana Research Articles

Impact of green construction procurement practices on the success of circular economy in Ghana

PurposeThis paper investigates the impact of green construction procurement practices (GCPPs) on circular economy (CE) success by identifying environmentally sustainable procurement practices that can promote a CE in the construction industry. The goal was to promote circularity in construction through GCPPs.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research approach was adopted and purposively selected 100 respondents for a cross-sectional questionnaire survey. Data from the questionnaire survey were analysed using mean score ranking, One-sample t-test and regression analysis.FindingsThe study found that using on-site systematic waste management, project stakeholder commitment and support for green practices and environmental requirements in technical specifications, significantly impact CE success in construction, with a 12.8% variance in CE when green procurement is practised. This implies that GCPPs have positive repercussions on CE success, where the CE success is expected to change as GCPPs levels increase.Practical implicationsThe study provides insights into green procurement, promoting its use in infrastructure development and aiding clients, particularly in the government sector with insights into the challenges and practices involved in green procurement. Practitioners can also benefit from better implementing CE strategies to draft and manage contracts for infrastructure projects that prioritize circularity.Originality/valueThe limited impact of GCPPs on advancing CE principles in construction suggests policy and practice must strengthen procurement requirements to fully leverage spending and drive the sector’s transition towards a circular model. Also, novel insight is provided into the most effective types of GCPPs for promoting CE success, aiding policymakers in optimizing construction procurement strategies.

Study on Implementation of Concepts of Project Management Theories in Delivery of Projects in Ghana

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate on the project management theories on project delivery. Project Management Theories has been underlined as one of the key diagnosis among businesses and economic growth with project delivery.
 Methods: A comprehensive review was carried out with the aid of online research journal websites as well as other in-context articles. While conducting this study, the key words in the search query were directed towards project management theories and project delivery in Ghana. Areas noted in relation to this study was use of project management theories among businesses and Ghana’s economic growth. Therefore, there was linkage of papers pointing out the effects on project management theories on project delivery.
 Results: The findings indicate that corporations have little to no say over project performance metrics and are unable to take on responsibilities outside of their core competencies. Managers' decision-making improves when they have access to reliable data. Having clear project goals in mind is crucial for making informed investment decisions. 
 Conclusion: This comprehensive review provides an in-depth understanding of project management theories on the project management deliveries among businesses and the growth of the economy in Ghana.

Chinese Technology and the Transformation of the Rural Economy in Ghana: Evidence From Galamsey in the Ashanti and Savannah Regions

Abstract The recent Chinese involvement in small-scale gold mining in Ghana has received wide publicity and scholarly attention. While the literature has focused on environmental sustainability, political accountability, and institutional reforms, it is yet to examine local adoption of Chinese technology and its impact on Ghana’s rural economy. We argue that it is in the interstices between the formal economy and entrepreneurship within the informal economy that opportunities for Chinese interventions emerge. Using evidence from Manso Akropong in the Ashanti region and Bole in the Savannah region, this article shows that, while Chinese technology’s impact is transformative, the outcomes are divergent in different regions. In Manso Akropong, the intensification of mining backed by Ghanaian–Chinese collaborations has led to the environmental destruction, creating competition between gold mining and cocoa farming that had underpinned Ghana’s rural prosperity. In Bole, where less aggressive Chinese technology such as Changfa and rubber mats are incorporated without direct Chinese participation, a more sustainable pattern of growth has emerged. This comparative study suggests that besides the large-scale projects and state-led training programmes, grassroots actors like informal artisanal miners are at the forefront of technology transfer in the China–Africa encounter.

Analysing the socioeconomic characteristics of fisheries-dependent communities in the context of the blue economy in Ghana

For centuries resource economists have persistently debated and discussed the potential of the green economy and how it should be protected and used sustainably. Most studies to date on the economic value of natural resources have thus concentrated on the green economy and how countries could harness its resources to achieve growth and development. However, perhaps the blue economy (i.e., ocean resources) could also help achieve growth and development. Studies on the blue economy are concept notes, reports and literature reviews on the evolving definition of the concept. Therefore, we examine the blue economy in the context of marine communities’ socioeconomic characteristics that could lead to changing patterns in the use of ocean resources. Using household survey data (Ghana Living Standard Survey – GLSS 7) and regression analysis, we investigate the socioeconomic lives and welfare of marine communities amidst blue economy principles. We found that most marine households enjoy a reasonably high standard of living, which bodes well for blue economy principles as livelihood diversification could reduce pressure on fishing as the only job in these communities. However, we also found that many rural coastal communities have more appalling socioeconomic living conditions than their urban counterparts, with poor amenities (like toilet facilities and waste disposal). These are potential threats to the achievement of a blue economy. Thus, policy implications are discussed.

Recycling of plastic wastes into alternative fuels towards a circular economy in Ghana

Traditional methods of disposing and storing plastic waste in Ghana, such as at damping sites and landfills, have put the environment and human life at risk for years. A sustainable and efficient solution is to shift to a circular economy by recycling plastic waste into alternative fuels. Therefore, this study focussed on the segregation of plastic waste and its conversion into fuel products via pyrolysis in the temperature range of 350 – 420 °C. In a kilogram-scale pyrolysis fixed-bed batch reactor, a large quantity of condensate oil was produced with minimal amounts of non-condensable gases, chars, and waxes. Gas chromatography, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermal gravimetric analysis were used to characterise the condensate oils. The measured fuel properties of the various condensate oil types were remarkedly similar to those of commercial fuels (gasoline, diesel, and kerosene). This makes them suitable alternatives to conventional energy sources, with the potential to significantly improve living conditions, reduce environmental pollution, and cut down on the need to import refined fossil fuel. Finally, the condensate oil from the individual plastic waste types outperformed the mixed-plastic waste in terms of fuel properties and yield.

Recognizing, supporting and embracing the urban informal economy in Ghana: A local economic development perspective

ABSTRACT The informal economy has become a vibrant and growing phenomenon across the world. Within the context of sustainable development, connecting local economic development (LED) to the informal economy is imperative. However, the informal economy remains largely neglected within the conventional LED literature. Using key informant interviews and focus group discussions, this paper found that recognizing, embracing and supporting informal economy contributes to a more inclusive form of LED. The study concluded that local government authorities need to be more innovative in recognising the informal economy as part of local governments’ strategies for addressing unemployment, and supporting livelihoods.

Service recovery and loyalty of Uber sharing economy: The mediating effect of trust

This study investigate how service recovery affect customer loyalty of Uber customers in Ghana and how trust mediate the relationship between recovery and customer loyalty. With the aid of quantitative research design, data was collected from 601 clients of Uber in Accra the capital City of Ghana, situated in the western region of Africa. Structural equation modelling was used to analyze the relationship among the variables. This study reveals a positive and significant relationship exists between procedural justice and trust; distributive justice and trust; interactional justice and trust; and interactional justice and customer loyalty. Trust mediates the relationship between service recovery performance and customer loyalty in the Uber sharing economy in Ghana.

The informal prison economy in Ghana: patterns, exchanges, and institutional contradictions

This study aims to document, describe, and examine how the informal prison economy is mediated. It is argued that, in part, it is the prison’s internal micro bureaucratic capitalism that gives rise...

Finance‐growth nexus: New insight from Ghana

AbstractWe re‐examine the links between financial development and the real economy in Ghana given the gaps in the literature, recent happenings in the financial sector, new dataset, and the more active interventions by the Bank of Ghana to inform good policy decisions. By employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Bounds Cointegration approach (ARDL) and the Fully Modified OLS model (FMOLS), the study documented broad money supply, domestic credit provided by the financial sector, domestic credit to the private sector, bank deposit to GDP, liquid liabilities to GDP, deposit money banks assets to GDP, deposit money bank assets to deposit money bank assets and central bank assets, non‐life insurance premium volume to GDP, stock market capitalization to GDP and the number of listed companies to have a significant negative effect on Ghana's economic growth in the long‐run. The joint effect of financial development was also found to have a significant negative effect on Ghana's economic growth from the FMOLS model. The study recommended the imperative for policymakers to increase infrastructure investment by promoting reforms to boost cooperation between civil societies, the public sector, and the private sector to address the high cost of investment to improve the macroeconomic performance of the country. The study further recommended policymakers to support the financial sector by injecting liquidity during these distress times.

GHANA’S ROAD TO CASHLESS ECONOMY: THE E-ZWICH EXPERIENCE

In 2008, the Government of Ghana (GoG) through the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GHIPSS) launched a smart card called e-zwich which formed a central part of the government’s plan to move the country towards a cashless economy. Modernization of the cash sector has remained at best in a confused state since it was launched and at worst an embarrassing drawback. In this article, we employ the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the structural equation model to estimate users' behavioral intentions and actual usage of the cashless system. The structural results show that eleven out of the fourteen hypotheses are statistically significant, while the remaining three are statistically insignificant. The results also indicate that performance efficiency, effort efficiency, and social influence significantly influence the behavioral intentions of people to use the cashless system, and the age and gender of users significantly moderate the three constructs. Behavioral intentions and facilitating conditions are also found to influence actual usage of the cashless system significantly. This study fills the gap in the applicability of the UTAUT model in a central cashless system acceptance and usage. The study also provides empirical evidence on how demographic factors such as age, education, and gender moderate the relationships among the major constructs of the UTAUT model. For the first time, we support the empirical findings on the moderating effect of age in the UTAUT model with established economic theory, the life-cycle theory. We have outlined recommendations in detail on some important considerations needed to achieve smart financial economy in Ghana, and such achievement could be emulated by other countries that are yet to implement a central cashless system.

The Role of New Economy Indicators on Banking Sector Performance in Ghana: Trend and Empirical Research Analysis of Banks’ Clients and Experts Perception

The revolution of the new economy is contemporaneous with an improvement in the financial sectors all over the world, while financial innovations make the sector more productive. The banking sector plays an important role in supporting economic growth especially in allocating funds from savers to borrowers. The productivity level of the banking system is of great importance for the whole economy to operate more effectively. Electronic banking has been the center-stage of modern banking with enormous benefits. From this point of view, this research paper contains an effort to critically examine the activities of the banks and make concrete suggestions in the new economy process also at the same time called the information economy, the network economy and the computer age. The research employed a research questionnaire from a survey that sought to seek opinion from customers and experts regarding the banking sector and the new economy in Ghana. Within the scope of the survey, bankers and customers from ADB, GCB, Fidelity Bank, Access Bank and Bonzali Rural Bank, as well as experts from the banking industry and entrepreneurs were interviewed. The findings of the study shows that in the adoption of the new economy in the banking sector, many challenges such as high charges, e-crime and fraud are of great importance. To deal with the challenges of adopting e-banking services, the research paper recommend that the universal banks or commercial banks should undertake rigorous internal control measures to reduce the high charges so as to establish a judicial banking system and also the bank of Ghana should develop a robust regulatory framework to avoid cyber risk and Ponzi banking schemes. Auditing fraud and forensic banking programs will also contribute immensely to macroeconomic stability. After all, even though such difficulties persist, customers and experts mainly use new economy products such as mobile banking, internet banking, and ATM service for ultimate purpose of withdrawing cash, checking account balance and bank statement request. In view of this, the new economy appears to have positively affected the banking sector's activities in Ghana, and the banks are beginning to equip their operations with the latest technology.

The Challenges of the Blue Economy in Ghana and the way forward

The Challenges of the Blue Economy in Ghana and the way forward

Determinants of research collaboration towards a knowledge-based economy in Ghana

The purpose of this study was to analyse the determinants of the intention of academic researchers to collaborate on research projects with the carriers of innovation. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach was employed to analyse survey data from 266 stratified sampled researchers and 11 key informants from different disciplines in two of Ghana’s public universities. Analysis of variance results showed a quite high intention to collaborate, with no statistically significant differences across disciplines. Regression results indicate that attitude was the leading predictor of intention to collaborate, and it was explained by the conviction and relevance attached to the capacity of research collaboration to speed up career advancement, to be a source of income and to be a means of advancing research work. Perceived behavioural control, explained by research capability and boundary-spanning skills, and environmental possibility, made up of funding, reward and administrative support, also influenced the intention of respondents to engage in research collaboration. The authors therefore propose that the universities should acknowledge and count research collaboration as a criterion in the promotion of academics and, together with national actors, should spearhead the establishment of a national research and innovation fund, research and innovation award schemes, and the requisite administrative support.

Mainstreaming Green Economy: An Assessment of Private Sector Led Initiatives in Climate Change Adaptation in Ghana

The study examines private sector initiatives and investment challenges in mainstreaming green economy in Ghana. An exploratory study design of qualitative research method was adopted. Due to the level of information required for the study, a purposive sampling technique was employed and a total of twenty-four respondents selected from 8 private sector organisations and some selected government ministries participated in the study. Data collected through in-depth interviews was transcribed, coded and analyzed thematically in line with the objectives and questions of the study. The study found out that green economy initiatives are not well mainstreamed in the private sector. Most companies’ involvement in climate change and green economy activities was commonly carried out through corporate social responsibility (CSR). The study further revealed that, government incentives for private sector investments in adaptation are not attractive. The study identified access to finance, poor knowledge base, weak collaborative effort, inadequate incentives, absence of clear-cut government policy and unsatisfactory recognition as challenges facing private sector-led investments in climate change adaptation. The paper recommends the need for government incentives to attract private sector investment, identification of green investment opportunities, collaboration among stakeholders, climate change sensitisation and education among the private sector in order to address the immediate to long-term consequences of climate change in Ghana.

Exploring the involvement of academic researchers in research collaboration with knowledge users - a study of two Ghanaian universities

In the face of limited national innovation and competitiveness, it was imperative to examine research collaboration between academic researchers and knowledge users for attainment of a knowledge-based economy in Ghana. The study followed an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach to analyse survey data from proportionate stratified samples of academics from the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics, social sciences and arts and interview data from 11 key informants, from two public universities in Ghana. Through descriptive analysis and Kruskal-Wallis tests, it was established that involvement of academics in research collaboration was low. There was no statistically significant difference, at the p < .05 level, in the number of research collaboration across the three academic disciplines. Although the condition points to the existence of a wider knowledge filter, it presents the nation with the opportunity to institute the necessary measures to step up the uptake and commercialisation of research findings.

Determinants of choice of economic sector in the non-farm economy in Ghana

This paper examines the economic sector choice of individuals in the non-farm economy, using the 2012 Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). The multinomial logit regression results indicate that factors that influence individuals' decisions to participate in the non-farm economy differ for the different sectors - manufacturing, wholesale/retail and services. This research emphasises the heterogeneous nature of choice and entry into various sectors of the non-farm economy in Ghana. From a policy perspective, the findings may signal the various policy measures that policy-makers may adopt in order to increase participation into a targeted sector, and promote long-term growth and development of the country.

Tackling informal entrepreneurship in Ghana: a critical analysis of the dualist/modernist policy approach, some evidence from Accra

The principal aim of this study is to provide a critical analytical overview of the nature and extent of informal entrepreneurship in Ghana, and to evaluate how it is being tackled through government policies under the spectacle of the dualist/modernist. Despite the widespread recognition of its magnitude and even growth, the informal economy in Ghana has not received the attention it deserves in the employment policies of the government until now. Little is known until now to evaluate how informal entrepreneurship could be tackled to make it more relevant to the economy. This study seeks to bridge this gap. Reporting data from a 2014 qualitative in-depth interview of government officials and other policy think-tanks, the key finding is that government policy towards tackling informal entrepreneurship has been at best ad hoc with no clear-cut policy to deal with informal entrepreneurship but somewhat adopting deterrent approach (mainly force eviction - aggressive, combative and impulsive). As a consequence, this paper calls for humane approach that will make informal entrepreneurship significant part of the overall economy such as deregulation, facilitating formalisation of informal entrepreneurship amongst others.

Comparison of Shadow Economies: The Case of Ghana, Nigeria and UK

This study seeks to assess the size and the trend of the shadow economies of Ghana, Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The multiple indicator and multiple causes model (MIMIC) is employed for this analysis. The model consists of two parts; the structural equation aspect and the measurement aspect. The structural equation model estimates the impact of the observed variables in determining the level of shadow economic activities. The measurement model estimates the coefficients of the indicator variables. Results from the study show variation in the causal factors of shadow economic activities in the various countries. The size of Ghana’s shadow economy stands at 36.73%, Nigeria 47.75% and UK, 15.05% at the end of the 2012 fiscal year. The average level of such activities for the past three decades is 30.20% of the official economy in Ghana, 50.36% in Nigeria and 14.07% in UK. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n1p248

Modelling Renewable Energy Economy in Ghana with Autometrics

Renewable energy consumption has been identified as a potential solution to the intermittent power supply in Ghana. Recently, a Renewable Energy Act has been passed which has a target of 10% of renewable energy component in Ghana’s energy mix by 2020. Whilst effort is been made to enhance supply through feed in tariffs, education and tax reduction on renewable energy related equipment, there is the need to understand the drivers of renewable energy demand. In this study, the general unrestricted model through Autometrics is used to estimate the determinants of renewable energy demand in Ghana. The results indicate that both economic factors and non-economic affect the demand for renewable energy. In addition, the underlying energy demand trend exhibits energy using behaviour. The study recommends that economic factors such as consumer subsidies should be considered when promoting renewable energy demand.

Intelligent enterprise: wasting, valuing and re‐valuing waste electrical and electronic equipment

The common narrative on e‐waste recycling in contemporary Ghana refers to a sector that is primarily a marginalised, ‘survival entity’ involving excess workers living in poor urban neighbourhoods. Other narratives highlight the environmental health challenges associated with e‐waste recycling management practices. In this paper, we explore how such recycling in Accra, notwithstanding the health and environmental externalities, also involves a vibrant entrepreneurial part of the urban economy. This case‐study‐based article was conducted through community asset mapping and 17 key informants' interviews. The study identified within the e‐waste economy a network of worlds of work that intersect with both formal and international industries. Based on our findings, we propose that when properly nurtured, regularised and managed, e‐waste recycling can foster economic growth and job creation. In conclusion, we highlight three foci that can enrich theory, practice and research, all three of which are in need of broader understandings. These foci will also support progress towards achieving a democratic account of everyday life and work complexities within the informal economy in Ghana.