Ghana’s Forty-Year Development Plan: Are The “Skeptics” Justified?

I listened to some very seasoned minds pass judgments about the timing of a forty-year development plan, for an emerging economy like Ghana. Some have even gone all out to “bash and lambast” the Ghana National Development Planning Commission (GNDPC) for inaugurating such a plan. Worst of all, are those who made very bold and broad-brush assumptions of such long-term development plans without any empirical foundations, but partisan parochial “mischief making” intentions. My challenge is: are these critics saying we do not need such long-term plans? If indeed, that is the basis for their doubt, then I am indeed very sorry to say: their arguments are misplaced, highly implausible and preposterous. For me, what they should be asking is the discipline and the political will to stick to these plans until they are religiously pursued to their conclusive ends. Thus, regardless of which political party is in the saddle of government.

As a practitioner and student of “Development” (irrespective of the theoretical and conceptual perspectives), I know effective planning plays a huge role in creating the necessary frameworks for attaining targeted goals and objectives. It is like an organisational vision that guides how resources are “deployed” and disbursed for the accomplishment of short-to-medium and long-term goals. A long-term plan defines the pathway, as well as the trajectory for pursuing strategic and practical development needs. The strategic thinking that goes into designing development plans enables the planners to identify what I call the “here and now” development prospects and challenges; as well as challenges and prospects that have the potential to either fast-track or derail future development aspirations.

Given the chance, I am sure every Ghanaian parent would be very interested in knowing what future holds for their children. Better still, I am sure every Ghanaian parent would revel in excitement if they are told to do X or Y action, to guarantee the success of their children in the future (given that some serious and hard thinking had gone into determining the SWOT overview of the “nurturing ecology”). A properly thought through and strategically designed long-term plan is futuristic in spirit and outlook. It incorporates all the current and future development challenges and prospects, with a view to maximising the impact of allocated scarce resources for the good of the current, and future generations. Long-term development plans are therefore very critical especially, for developing economies like Ghana: where development challenges still revolve around the meeting of very basic human necessities.

Even beyond the so-called “superficial” argument, there are empirical data to support how most Western democracies for example hinged their development success on long-term plans. Some even had sixty-year and beyond development plans, regardless of which party was in government. They consistently followed the plans through with some fine-tuning until they got to where they are today. Development economists are fascinated by the economic “miracle” that has given birth to the “Asian Tigers”. Today, these economies have become the envy of most African and Latin American countries. Their rise to prominence was not an afterthought. It was the result of strategic long-term plans that were carefully carved out of short-to-medium term development goals and aspirations. A country like India, through its developmental SWOT analysis, envisaged how technological invention and innovation was going to be a huge driver of economic development. Guess what, today India too can boast of its own Silicon Valley, where technological innovations and start-ups are springing up by the day.

While Ghana was dabbling in her “fire service and scratch and abandon” development planning and execution processes, a post-conflict and recovering country like Rwanda had a long-term vision of becoming a hub for technological and internet service provision as drivers to their development process. As I write this piece, Rwanda is ranked higher than Ghana in the Global “Doing Business” Index; all because of how they have integrated technological and internet solutions into business transactions across all State and private institutions. That is a strategic plan. After all, why has Iroko TV decided to open a branch in countries like Rwanda (with all its security history) when the Nigerian owner would have minimised cost by establishing in neighbouring countries like Ghana? Obviously this is because; the infrastructures needed to stream online movies via Youtube are not adequate enough to support such online experiences.

Like we say, development planning is all about knowing your strengths and weaknesses; so that you can plan ahead to use your scarce resources judiciously. Take the example of Botswana, like Ghana they knew they had a depleting natural resources pool, so they planned their economy in such a manner that revenue from diamond would be efficiently applied to diversify their economy. As at the moment, the economic circumstances of the people of Botswana are comparatively better than ours. The question then is: how “wise” have we used the revenue we generated from the mining of our goldfields; and now oil? We still import everything, including tooth picks, like Kwesi Pratt reminds us every now and then. Take Malaysia for example, they came to Ghana to learn about the Palm tree. And because they had a long-term plan, look at the level they have taken oil palm to. They have more than added value to it. That is the cost we are paying, in our hesitation to see results, without “proper” planning.

Grounds for the scepticism

You sometimes can’t begrudge the Sceptics, since every action including critical issues of national importance have always been reduced to partisan political shenanigans and indiscipline. That is where our problems lie. The forty-year development plan is not the problem, but the architecture within which we frame our development debates. Can you fault the sceptic who has never seen governments stick to their short-to-medium term development plans when they draw forty-year development plans? There is definitely no positive precedence to this effect, so you can’t fault them for being dismissive about such grandiose long-term plans. In a political environment where periodic elections have become the determinants of development plans and projects, no opposition party would want to be the one to execute the development plans and programmes of another government, when it can take all the credit for initiating and completing its own projects and programmes.

Until recently, Ghanaian political parties did not have the courtesy and humility of giving other governments the credit for initiating or completing a project. They always want to take the credit for everything, even if the source of funding was engineered by their predecessors. In such a situation, which party wants to tie its future campaign message to “project initiating without completing?” That is how over-simplistic we have become. It is not uncommon to see very critical infrastructural projects terminated, just because there is a change of government. In some cases, such projects are left to rot; or until the government that started such projects return to power. Thank God, the Ghanaian electorate is beginning to frown upon such acts. We need to move away from such overzealous and destructive partisanship, into realities that put the ordinary Ghanaian at the centre of development projects and programmes.

Going forward

For development practitioners and students like me, developing a long-term plan for an emerging and over-polarised nation like ours is the best way to go; especially if the necessary legal and operational frameworks would be established to hold governments accountable. As commodities’ exporting economies add value to their produce, it is time we followed strategic long-term plans to benefit from our competitive advantages. The touch and abandon elections-tailored development planning have not helped us in any way, since multiparty democracy was introduced. We welcome a development plan that not only prioritises the agenda of political parties, but one that carries the spirit and “wailings” of the broad spectrum of the Ghanaian society. If it is a plan that resonates with the ordinary people, then it has a better chance for success.

All the ordinary Ghanaian needs, is leadership: to show us that regardless of our differences, our collective dreams and development aspirations are still closely linked together. I am very optimistic that, the ordinary Ghanaian electorate will soon become more politically mature and aware, to the point that, overblown campaign rhetoric would no longer be relevant in our political discourse again. And that, those who seek to make “fuss” out of partisanship would be exposed and punished electorally, until they have learnt their lessons the hard way. We do not need to reinvent the wheels; there are enough relevant development models to shadow for better results and development deliverables.

Inusah Mohammed Awall

Twitter: @Wagoooni