Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Emeritus Professor Ernest Aryeetey has criticised successive governments for failing to take ownership of Ghana’s economic reform agenda, saying the country has benefited little from repeatedly turning to Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank for policy guidance.
Speaking with Bernard Avle on The Point of View on Channel One TV, the distinguished economist argued that Ghana’s development strategy has too often been shaped by external consultants rather than by home-grown expertise and clearly defined national priorities.
“In a way, when we went to the Washington Group to seek support for what we were doing, we didn’t always go to them with a clear plan of what we wanted,” he said. “We often went to say something like we want to do something about agriculture, and they would say okay fine, we’ll send you some experts to come and help you.”
Prof. Aryeetey explained that such experts, often from different countries, naturally bring perspectives based on their own experiences — which may not fit Ghana’s unique context. This, he said, is partly because the country has not invested enough in developing its own technical capacity to design and execute economic transformation policies.
“These experts are coming from different countries; they are going to sell to you what they do in their own countries, and this is because we have not invested enough in the capacity of people who could tell the government how to transform our sectors,” he said.
He stressed that for Ghana to make meaningful economic progress, it must build and rely on local expertise capable of defining and driving its own development vision.
“You don’t let a World Bank consultant come and tell you what you need to do,” he noted. “You should be telling him or her, this is what I want to do — can you help me structure it, not ask him what should I do.”
Prof. Aryeetey’s remarks reignite debate on the effectiveness of Ghana’s long-standing engagement with multilateral lenders and the broader question of whether externally driven economic prescriptions have truly served the country’s long-term development needs.