First published in 1997, this volume looks at the rationale for, the implementation of, and the economic and social effect of the World Bank Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) in Ghana from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. It shifts the focus from a primarily economic evaluation of these programmes and includes issues such as their impact on vulnerable groups within the Ghanaian society and on poverty in general. Therefore, it must be asked whether the ‘ordinary Ghanaian’ has gained anything from any wealth creation in Ghana. The book will be useful for both academic and policy purposes.

Includes statistics.

A definitive one-volume guide to all sub-Saharan African countries, providing invaluable economic and directory data.

Paul Spicker examines views about what poverty is and what should be done about it. 'Poverty' means many different things to different people - for example, lack of money or dependency on benefits. Here, he makes an argument for a participative, inclusive understanding of the term.

Politics & Economics of Africa, Volume 1

In this book, this author utilizes various concepts, theories, analytical methods, techniques, and practical knowledge and expertise propounded or espoused by scholars and experts with differing worldviews that tend to facilitate the understanding of diversity and diversity management in the ‘global village.’ Some of the perspectives are based on philosophical, ideological, and cultural orientations of scholars, statesmen, and experts from the various geopolitical regions of the world. Some of the discussion may evoke some controversial thought processes that are considered necessary for healthy debate on the issues of diversity and diversity management from interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and trans-disciplinary perspectives. However, there is more emphasis on global and interdisciplinary perspectives in the discussion of diversity and diversity management in this book. The purpose of this book is to refocus attention on the issues of diversity and diversity management but from global and interdisciplinary perspectives. The book contributes to the continuing discourse on diversity and diversity management by presenting some conventional and less controversial theories and models, as well as some traditionally controversial ones for managing diversity in the workplace in particular, and in society in general. Whereas much has been written in the past about the debate over which strategies are best for managing diversity, new study dimensions in the era of globalization of business, economic, political, and socio-cultural relations now require the revisiting of the issues of diversity and diversity management from global and interdisciplinary perspectives. Existing published research on diversity management does not focus on both the global and interdisciplinary perspectives.

This title was first published in 2002: This work is about the socio-economic and spatial impacts of planning policy aimed at improving the living standards and well-being of the regional communities of Ghana. Implicit, the effectiveness assessment of regional planning practice. It is set within the context of the new national planning system and offers strategic opportunities and challenges. Characteristically, the national and regional policies and contacts are probed and the lack of formal regional plan-making stressed. The author critically analyzes the problem of socio-economic and spatial disparities, over the mid-60s to the early 1990s, explaining the observed changes. The latter is, differentiatingly, done in terms of relevant theories and the empirics undertaken. These include the fashion of perception and conceptualization of development. Change is based on one-off micro-projects at the regional level and a meso-regional project within a sub-regional context. Dr Ofori equally stresses the implementations and local management of the planning policies and programmes. Inclusive in the dynamics behind the processes is the role of partnership. A further distinctive contribution is the identification of opportunities for planning intervention and policy recommendations for a better change in the future: towards making things happen.

In March 2017, the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufu announced his intention to build a national cathedral to the people of Ghana. The announcement elicited watertight counter arguments that morphed into two a priori re-litigated assumptions: First, Ghana is a secular country and second, religion and state formation are incompatible. Informed by a frustrating paradox of an overwhelming religious presence and concurrent pervasive corruption in the country, public conversation reached a cul-de-sac of “conviction without compromising.” In The Political Economy of Heaven and Earth in Ghana, Charles Prempeh deploys the national cathedral as an entry point to provide both interdisciplinary and autoethnographic understanding of religion and politics. The book shows the capacity of religion, when properly cultivated and curated as a worldview to answer the why questions of life, will foster personal, moral, collective and ontological responsibility. All this is needed to stem the tide against corruption, commodity fetishism, environmental degradation (illegal mining—galamsey), heritage destruction and religious exploitation. Prempeh recuperates a historical fact about the mutual inclusivity between religion and politics—politics helping to manage differences, while religion provides a transcendental reason for unity to be forged for human flourishing. Separating the two is, therefore, ahistorical and an obvious threat to the intangible virtues that answers, “why and how” questions for public governance.

International Migrations have become a central topic in the Humanities in the last years. Understanding migration requires a closer look at the migratory phenomena and the continuities within the societies involved in the migration process. This volume intends to overcome simplistic views on migration and the shortcomings of a push and pull-factor analysis. Instead, the perspective of the migrants themselves orients the approach of "cultures of migration". In this view, migration becomes a complex issue, and motives and acceptance of migration appear to be a matter of negotiations, in the migrants' societies of origin and in the host societies as well. The present volume brings together a number of essays exploring the cultures of migration in various contexts. It is organised in three sections, dealing with "Migrations as Encounters", "Migration as Challenge", and "Transcontinental Migrants". Ten contributions, each based on original fieldwork in various parts of Africa, examine the validity of the concept of "cultures of migration", as explained in the introduction.