Western Region

Western Region produces 100% of Ghana's bauxite, 100% of its manganese, 100% of its rubber, 60% of its cocoa, 60% of its gold, 25% of its timber, and hosts offshore oil fields discovered in 2010—yet it ranks among Ghana's poorest regions in infrastructure and human development. This is the resource curse at maximum concentration: the richest region in extractable wealth becomes the poorest in retained benefits. By 2025, Sekondi-Takoradi earns the title "Oil City" while experiencing forced evictions, infrastructure strain, land grabs, and social ills—all the negatives of resource extraction with minimal revenue capture or employment. Western Region demonstrates a harsh biological principle: organisms that host parasites rarely thrive from the relationship.

The region's resource wealth predates Ghana itself. Gold mining at Tarkwa, Prestea, and Obuasi stretches back centuries, intensifying under British colonialism when the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation established operations in 1897. Cocoa cultivation spread through Western Region's forests in the early 1900s, making it Ghana's longest continuous cocoa producer. Timber extraction followed, then bauxite and manganese mining. Each resource layered onto the last, creating an economy structured around extraction for export: raw materials leave via Takoradi Harbor (Ghana's second-largest port after Tema), value-added processing happens elsewhere, and the region receives wages, environmental damage, and depleted deposits. The 2010 offshore oil discovery in the Jubilee Field seemed like a development breakthrough—until it replicated every previous pattern.

Sekondi-Takoradi's transformation into an "oil city" exemplifies the curse's mechanics. Oil revenues flow to national government in Accra, not regional coffers. Foreign oil companies employ skilled expatriates, not local youth. Land prices spiked, displacing fishing communities and small farmers. Infrastructure strained under influx: roads designed for 50,000 people now serve 200,000+, yet national budgets prioritize Accra's needs. Illegal mining (galamsey) encroaches on cocoa farms—a 2025 trend where gold's immediate returns outcompete cocoa's three-year wait for first harvest. The region that feeds Ghana's export economy cannot feed its own development needs because extraction industries externalize costs locally while centralizing revenues nationally.

Today, Western Region's 2.6 million residents occupy territory rich in everything except political power. Takoradi Harbor ships gold, cocoa, timber, and oil globally, but the trucks carrying exports out pass villages lacking electricity. Mining companies pay taxes to Accra; environmental cleanup costs stay local. Oil platforms visible from shore generate billions; coastal communities fish depleted waters. The biological parallel is precise: like a host organism drained by parasites, Western Region provides resources that sustain the national body while its own tissues atrophy.

By 2026, Western Region faces intensifying extraction pressures. Gold prices above $2,000/oz incentivize illegal mining that destroys cocoa land and water sources. Offshore oil production continues, but Ghana's debt crisis means revenues service bonds, not regional development. Climate change threatens cocoa yields, but farmers lack resources to adapt. The region's paradox is complete: it cannot develop because it's too valuable as a resource source. Whether Ghana implements revenue-sharing that benefits extraction zones, or continues the pattern of centralized capture, will determine if Western Region represents temporary extraction or permanent extraction—a place mined until depleted, then abandoned.