ARE THE IDEAS OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS STILL RELEVANT TO GHANA’S SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPROVEMENT?

The presence of the Bretton Woods institutions, that is, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have been felt in Ghana since independence. Their names always pop up in long-term infrastructural projects, especially in the area of road construction, power stations, urban development, population control, etc. The initial paramount objective of the Bretton Woods was to reconstruct war-torn economies of Europe and I believe strongly that significant trace of parochial sentiments still runs in the veins of these twin institutions.


Foreign aid, otherwise Official Development Assistance (ODA) refers to a financial or material assistance to a country from another country or an external financial institution. Just recently, a World Bank official toured the areas destructed by the recent torrential rains and enunciated the support of the institution to bring the situation under control. That’s quite philanthropic! But is that gesture free from strings?

Of course, the Bretton Woods institutions have been helpful in streamlining economic activities in Ghana. For instance, the World Bank provided a sum of 2.6 million dollars to revitalise the economy of Ghana during the country’s economic recovery programme. Also, during the era of the National Liberation Council, the IMF and the World Bank gave an amount of 10 million dollars to help solve our balance of payment crisis at the time.

But my beef is if the Bretton Woods have our interest and economic progress at heart, why are their policies, which they often recommend for us, not shooting us into the club of developed nations? Moreover, history has shown that some of their relief packages further aggravate our social conditions such as hunger, unemployment, etc. This point to the fact that some of their policies and recommendations are incompatible with some persistent problems in our country. Thus, it would be advisable to revert to home-grown solutions.

I’m not advocating complete dissociation from the Bretton Woods, but i’m entreating our government to thoughtfully evaluate the terms and conditions of these bodies, and negotiate the best for our country.