Ghana

Ghana The first British Black African colony to gain independence in 1957 and thus a model of decolonization, and the first African country to adopt capitalist economic reform in 1983. A West African state under European influence since 1471, it came under British rule in 1850 and was declared the British Colony of the Gold Coast in 1874. After 30 years of warfare against the rebellious Asante people, it was finally pacified in 1900. After 1920 economic growth, based on mining and cocoa-farming, combined with high standards of education, produced demands for home rule. Achimota College, one of the first secondary schools for Africa, was founded in Accra in 1925. (A university college was established in 1948.) In 1946, Ghana became the first British colony in Africa whose legislative assembly consisted mostly of Africans. Serious rioting in 1948 caused the British to speed up the drafting of a new Constitution, though Nkrumah demanded self-government and independence. Nkrumah was elected Prime Minister in 1952, and led the country to independence on 6 March 1957.

Foreshadowing the developments in most other newly independent African colonies, Ghana soon degenerated into a showcase of postcolonial instability. A Western-style democracy upon independence, it became a socialist dictatorship until the overthrow of Nkrumah in 1966. He was replaced by an anti-socialist, pro-capitalist military regime, which in turn was replaced in 1969 by a civilian government led by the conservative Busia. The latter was deposed by the military in 1972, which governed through a National Redemption Council (Supreme Military Council as from 1975), and tried to establish its nationalist credentials through promoting the country's economic and cultural self-sufficiency. In 1979 a military coup was led by Jerry John Rawlings. He subsequently purged the military and government administration of corruption, executing three former leaders ( I. K. Acheampong, A. A. Afrifa, F. W. K. Akuffo) and other senior officers. He introduced civilian rule, but when he was beaten in the elections he soon re-established his own authority in a coup on 31 December 1981. By this time, the once-prosperous colony was all but bankrupt. In 1970–82, Gross Domestic Product declined by 30 per cent per capita, export revenues declined by 50 per cent, and average real income declined by 80 per cent. Revenues from its main export staple, cocoa, declined almost fourfold. Education and literacy levels declined, and the state social security system withered away.

Rawlings appealed to the World Bank for help, and in 1983 introduced a series of economic reforms. These produced one of the highest rates of economic growth in Africa, though this was achieved at an immense social cost of unemployment and poverty. In the early 1990s, therefore, it appeared as though the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank to overcome the indebtedness of developing countries were working. However, it was soon apparent that economic and political liberalization, far from complementing each other, appeared to be mutually exclusive. After devising a new democratic constitution in 1992, Rawlings was only able to win the ensuing elections by ‘bribing’ the electorate with large government spending. The economic damage which this caused lasted until the 1996 elections. Creditors were again faced with the choice of supporting the destructive pre-election government spending, to enable the re-election of the market-oriented Rawlings, or risk his defeat against socialist rivals. In late 2000 the oppositional New Patriotic Party won both the parliamentary and the presidential elections, with John Kufuor becoming President in 2001.