Effects of Globalization on Ghana

Globalization is a phenomenon that has conquered much of the world we live in today. From the depths of the most rural village to the world’s biggest cities, the effects of globalization are quite apparent. However, this paper aims to address the issues that globalization presents for countries in West Africa; more specifically, Ghana. To fully understand the situation of Ghana, we must look at the meaning of globalization and what it represents to Ghana and the Ghanaian people.

Afterwards, we must examine the foreign direct investment that is flowing into the country and then finally inspect the annual food production rates, exports of goods and services as well as the GDP growth rate. As globalization takes more and more seeps into the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries such as Ghana, it requires the population of the country or countries (West Africa) to be able to acquire, absorb and communicate in many different and advanced manners.

The shrinkage of time, space and the disappearance of borders are connecting people in ways that are very hard to grasp without the existence of globalization.  What does this all mean for the African nation of Ghana? As a major result of globalization, the country and its economy has gained great access to a vast amount of resources as well as other world markets to trade and interact with and therefore aided the population by creating employment opportunities, new educational services along with the improvement of their quality of living.

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With all of these new opportunities that are presented with the globalization of Ghana comes foreign investment. Each year, companies spend billions of dollars investing in places beyond their own shores.  One of the biggest industries in Ghana is cocoa farming. In the past decades, the growth of the plantations has been lagging behind due to bad harvesting methods and transportation issues. With foreign investment coming in the way it has for some years now, Ghana is slowly but steadily rising in its outputted yields.

The FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) for the country from 1987 to 1992 is $14million USD. This isn’t that large in comparison to some other countries in West Africa such as Nigeria and Niger, but for the moment, given the economy and the resources the country has and has to offer, $14million is abundant. (Aryeetey) It is imperative to understand that these investments create jobs and therefore makes the economy grow in substantial ways. As the quality of life improves the people of Ghana due to the effects of globalization, we must understand that it also puts a straight on the economy.

More and more people want more things that are now affordable to them, whether it be from the most basic everyday necessities to luxury items. Looking at the average annual food growth per capita, which is 0. 3, it is evident that there is a shortage of food. This is probably because the orthodox ways of farming and transporting food to different parts of the country. However, again, with the recent foreign development and investment these rates are steadily growing. (Aryeetey) The GDP growth rate is another influent factor of globalization, perhaps not as important as FDI, but still significant.

The growth of this number represents the growth of the economy as a whole, and for the statistics from 1980 to 1993, there has only been a 0. 1 growth. This is substantially a slow figure but will undoubtedly grow in the years to come. (Aryeetey) With this economic growth, the amount of Ghanaian imports requested from other countries grow and capital investments will start growing which will result in increased exports; thereby creating more employment for the population.

In conclusion, indeed globalization plays quite a significant role in the development of Ghana and where the country and its people are headed. With more and more job opportunities opening up for the population, there is no telling where the numbers we observed above will stand in another few decades. Agriculture, which is the countries main industry (Aryeetey) grows steadily with injections of foreign investment, along with new technologies that go hand in hand to prepare and train the workforce to deal with these positive effects of globalization.

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