Indermit Gill
Developing countries including Ghana have been urged to initiate vigorous investment driven strategies in order to navigate from middle to high income status.
The World Bank Group in its latest World Development Report 2024 titled “The Middle Income Trap” says though some middle income countries have done well to escape from low income levels and eradicate extreme poverty, they have not done well enough given the number of middle-income economies that transitioned to high income status in the last three decades.
The report therefore proposed strategies that identified accelerated investment, infusion and innovation as pathways for emerging market economies in order to avoid what it described as “the middle income trap”.
It stated that the handful of economies that have made speedy transitions from middle to high-income status have encouraged enterprise, developed talents by rewarding merit and changed policies and institutions that are no longer suited for the purposes they were designed to serve.
For low-middle income countries, it also proposed the need for them to adopt different growth strategies and mix of policies at different stages of development.
Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, Indermit Gill, in an interview said, though Ghana needs to do more to achieve a high middle income status, various reforms initiated by the government is in the right direction.
According to him, though the country’s growth rate has remained positive, more needs to be done compared to some Eastern European countries which were on the same level with Ghana some decades ago.
He cited the example of India which used to have a per capita income lower than Ghana in recent past but now growing at the rate of 7% and still aiming higher to achieve 9%.
He therefore called on the government to utilise its assets both human capital and natural resources that abounds, to provide a stable micro investment environment, focused on spending on high return project while keeping public debt at low levels.
Director of the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Prof. Peter Quartey, for his part said it will take Ghana about 26 years to transition from a low-middle income country to a high-middle income country hence the need for the government to be intentional about policies and investment to transform the economy.
By Ebenezer K.Amponsah
