While Ghana has seen signs of economic development like new hotels and large homes being built, it remains heavily dependent on foreign aid. Ghana currently receives about $1 billion in aid annually, accounting for 10% of its GDP. The country's finance minister wants even more aid in order to meet growth targets and become debt-free within the next decade. However, Ghana will need to demonstrate it is using aid money effectively and make further progress reducing poverty.

1. Ghana Still
Dependent on Aid
By Josh Naughton

2. Introduction
 Ghana is a proud country, with obvious signs that money is
there. Such as the occurrence of new hotels in the capital city,
along with large houses that are being slowly built in the
suburbs.
 However, for many who are on the lower rungs of society in
Ghana, opportunities are very much limited, work has a great
deal of insecurity and rising fuel prices have impacted the
poor hard.

3. Ghana FACTS
 Location: West Africa
 Population: 27 Million
 GDP per Capita: $3794
 Official Language: English

4. Aid
 Ghana has benefited from heavy debt relief, but despite
promises to increase aid to Africa from the UK, there has been
little evidence to prove that this is happening. Ghana needs to
show it uses aid money well and to make against worse-off
African countries.
 Ghana already receives about $1bn in aid a year, a figure
which counts for 10% of the country’s gross domestic product
(GDP).

5. Aid
 Ghana’s Finance Minister wants more aid, however. The gains
from debt relief which will be spread over 40 years, are a
fraction of what the country needs. If Ghana is to reach its
growth targets, more investment and donor flows are needed.
 If demands are met easily, Ghana may be debt free within the
next decade.

6. Exports
 Ghana has already seen hefty investment from mining
companies and is now Africa’s second-largest exporter of
Gold, after South Africa. Though gold mining (and cocoa
farming) has helped a 20% rise in Ghana’s exports in 2006,
prospects for Ghana’s economy depend on tourism and other
services.

7. Exports
 Countries that have bought the most exports from Ghana in
2006 are:
 NETHERLANDS
 UK
 USA
 BELGIUM
 FRANCE
 GERMANY

8. Ghana Today in 2014
 By any measure Ghana is a success story. The first African
country to gain independence in 1957 following 83 years of
colonial rule by the British, it is now a stable democracy whose
last couple of elections have been deemed free and fair. It
has made huge progress in reducing poverty, having already
met the millennium development goals on poverty and
hunger, and boasts a growth rate that places it among the
best-performing economies in the world.