Ghana

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence—a 1957 achievement that inspired thirty more nations to follow within a decade. Kwame Nkrumah's vision of pan-African unity electrified the continent; Ghana's cocoa wealth funded ambitious development. Then coups, economic mismanagement, and the resource curse demonstrated how difficult it is to translate liberation into prosperity.

The territory the British called the Gold Coast had traded gold with Europeans since the 15th century. Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, and British forts dotted the coast, purchasing gold, ivory, and—until abolition—enslaved people from African kingdoms inland. Britain gradually extended control during the 19th century, formally establishing the Gold Coast Colony in 1874. The introduction of cocoa farming in the 1880s transformed the economy: by independence, Ghana produced one-third of the world's cocoa, generating wealth that funded the most extensive colonial education system in Africa.

That education created the leaders who demanded change. Kwame Nkrumah, trained in the United States and Britain, returned to lead the Convention People's Party with the slogan "self-government now." Mass mobilization, strategic strikes, and electoral victories pressured Britain to accelerate the timeline. On March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast became Ghana—taking the name of a medieval West African empire to signal pan-African ambitions.

Nkrumah's vision was transformative: rapid industrialization, the Akosombo Dam for hydroelectric power, a modern port at Tema, universal education, and Ghana as the base for continental liberation. He hosted independence movements, funded freedom fighters, and preached African unity. But power corrupted: Ghana became a one-party state in 1960 with Nkrumah as life president. The economy deteriorated as grandiose projects consumed cocoa earnings. In 1966, while Nkrumah visited Beijing, the military seized power.

Decades of instability followed: coups in 1966, 1972, 1979, 1981. Jerry Rawlings, initially a radical populist who executed former heads of state, eventually embraced economic liberalization under IMF pressure and oversaw transition to democracy in 1992. Since then, Ghana has maintained democratic governance with peaceful transfers of power—a rarity in West Africa.

The economy diversified beyond cocoa into gold mining and, after 2010, offshore oil. But resource dependence creates vulnerability: commodity price swings hammer the budget; the cedi has repeatedly collapsed; debt crises recur. Illegal gold mining ("galamsey") now threatens cocoa production itself—over 60% of water sources are contaminated with mercury from artisanal mining, and forest cover shrinks yearly.

John Mahama, elected president in December 2024 with 56% of the vote, returned to power promising economic recovery and a "24-hour economy" to boost productivity. His vice president, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, became Ghana's first woman in that role. The program officially launched in July 2025.

Through 2026, Ghana faces the familiar challenge of African democracies: how to translate political stability into broadly shared prosperity when commodity prices set the terms and environmental destruction threatens the very resources that fund the state. Nkrumah's dream of pan-African unity has faded; the more modest goal of sustainable development remains elusive.