The writer
Serving as Australia’s High Commissioner to Ghana has been an immense honour. Over the last four years, I have come to know a country of exceptional richness, not only because of its natural resources, but above all because of the strength, creativity and resilience of its people.
I arrived as the world was still emerging from the pandemic. Since then, I have watched Ghana navigate economic pressure, hold elections, and remain a source of steadiness in a region where several neighbours have not had that luxury. What has stayed with me most, though, are the people: ministers and traditional leaders, entrepreneurs and artists, students and academics, market traders and small business owners. Each conversation taught me something I would not have understood from a briefing paper.
Arriving at a time of real economic strain gave me a front row seat to something I don’t think I fully appreciated before Ghana: the sheer fortitude it takes to keep a business open, keep a family fed, keep building toward something, when the cost of living keeps climbing and infrastructure can’t always keep pace. I don’t say that as an outside verdict on Ghana’s economy. I say it because living alongside it changed how I think about resilience altogether.
What struck me, again and again, was how little that resilience was matched by resignation. Ghana’s institutions have held. Its commitment to democratic governance has held. Its role in West Africa, particularly as a voice for stability, has been consistent even when the region around it has not been.
For Australia, Ghana is a trusted partner in a region of growing strategic and economic weight. For Ghana, I hope Australia has offered something of value in return, not just investment, but a genuine willingness to engage on equal terms. After four years here, I believe this is a relationship with strong foundations, built less on scale than on substance: practical, grounded in shared interest, and carried forward as much by people to people ties as by anything signed between governments.
Mining sits at the centre of that. Ghana’s position as a leading gold producer aligns naturally with Australia’s mining expertise, and I’ve watched Australian companies here take seriously their responsibility to host communities, investing in skills, safety and environmental standards alongside their operations. It’s a partnership I believe still has room to grow.
People to people links are the other cornerstone. Through the Australia Awards programme, Ghanaian professionals continue to access world class education and training, and return home to put it to work, building over time a network of alumni across government, industry and civil society that I think will outlast any of our individual postings. Alongside that, Australia’s Direct Aid Programme has backed local initiatives in education, gender equality and community development, work that succeeds because of the strength of Ghanaian partner organisations, not despite it.
Australian High Commissioner to Ghana Berenice Owen-Jones at the Black Star Gate
A visit to Jamestown earlier this year offered a close look at community-led effort in practice: young people in workshops at the Adanse Stool House, mothers receiving care, including support for postpartum mental health, at the Jamestown Maternity Home, and a community working to preserve its own heritage even as it builds toward its future. It was the kind of visit that stays with you, and I was glad to put the organisers in touch with our Direct Aid Programme team.
I was also glad that during my time here, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) opened an office in Accra, supporting work on agricultural productivity and climate resilience that matters enormously in a country where food security and climate variability are not abstract concerns.
Ghana’s foundation for the years ahead looks strong to me: a resilient democracy, extraordinary human capital, abundant natural resources, and a diaspora that punches well above its weight globally. What comes next, turning that stability into transformation, is Ghana’s story to write, and I say that with real confidence in the people I’ve come to know here.
On a personal level, four years in Accra asked more of me than I expected, the heat, the traffic, the occasional bureaucratic maze that tests everyone’s patience eventually. But what I’ll carry with me is the warmth of the Ghanaian people, and how much that warmth taught me. In a region where my work spanned nine countries, it was the quality of individual connection here that made this posting feel genuinely human. Ghanaian culture opened doors I didn’t know I was looking for, music that travels far beyond these borders, visual artists whose work I still think about, a generosity of spirit I’ve tried to carry with me into every room since.
Some of what I’ll carry home is more personal than any programme.
Years ago, my own child needed heart surgery, and I never expected that experience to find its way back to me in Ghana. It did, when I found myself helping raise funds through the Melbourne Cup charity ball for The Children’s Heart Foundation Ghana. That effort helped fund surgery for two children in Accra this year. It’s not the kind of thing you plan for when you take up a posting, and it ended up meaning more to me than almost anything on the official calendar.
Ghana does not let you stay at arm’s length, and I’m grateful for that. I leave a better diplomat for having been here. More than that, I leave having been genuinely changed by this country, and by the people who were generous enough to let me in.
By Berenice Owen-Jones, Australian High Commissioner to Ghana
