The Ghana Beyond Aid, exploring its efficacy as a plan for national development.

Abstract

Considering the growing interest among developing nations to lower their dependence on the benevolence of aid coupled the recent proclamation made by the Ghanaian president and his government which later became a policy known as Ghana Beyond Aid; there is a need for the concept to be extensively explored to examine its feasibility and practical relevance to the populace of the country and perhaps across Africa as economic independence continues to be an objective far from reach. This research embarks on examining how realistic the move of Ghana Beyond Aid is for a country that is known to be a major beneficiary of aid from the world’s poorest continent. The study sought to explore whether the policy is pragmatic and an accomplishable plan to spearhead the national development required for Ghana to attain economic independence or contrary. Through the examination of two key secondary data sources namely: the Ghana Beyond Aid policy Charter and the national annual budget in addition to a primary data in the form of interview, the study was able to achieve its objectives. The data from the Charter of the Ghana Beyond Aid policy was used to evaluate the agenda’s coverage which established that the policy has a nationwide transformative goal across six major sectors that is bent on restructuring Ghana's economy, moving it away from the dependency on aid in a gradual process and rather not about the entire scrapping of aid. Additionally, the 2024 budgetary report and economic strategy from Ghana's Ministry of Finance implies that the policy has been implemented to a satisfactory extent given the recent economic challenges that the nation has encountered. Further, even know the content of the policy’s Charter displays a comprehensive and multifaceted means through which Ghana could achieve its socioeconomic autonomy objective, the realization suggests that more effort, reforms, resources, and proper management must be efficiently committed into it before Ghana can consider the prospects of becoming the resourceful, wealthy nation it intends to be. Finally, the views of Ghanaian tertiary students in Iceland gathered through interviews for the study’s primary data shows a mix of optimism and skepticism regarding the Ghana Beyond Aid policy due to its demanding nature, practical feasibility, and tendency of discontinuity because of the lack of political will, problem of mismanagement, corruption, and the fact that the agenda lacks the needed legal and national backing.