Background to Technology Development in Ghana

Ghana has a relatively brief history of modern manufacturing activity. The colonial legacy was one of economic activity based on primary product production and exports, and there was little manufacturing activity apart from traditional crafts and repair work associated with mining and plantation activities. As in many Sub-Saharan African countries, the post-independence government launched an industrialisation programme based on import substitution. In the absence of an African entrepreneurial class in manufacturing, a leading role was assigned to the public sector.1 As the Government’s recent Industrial Policy Statement says: With the attainment of political independence in 1957 and given the international situation at that time, Ghana was faced with two basic strategic options for economic development. The first was the gradualist approach, based on market forces and private enterprise; the second was a ‘fast track’ strategy founded on the notion that rapid economic development was feasible, provided the State assumed the entrepreneurial function. By adopting the accelerated strategy, the option propagated by leading development economists at that time, it was generally expected that development goals were best achieved through massive investments in industry.