Assignment: Institutions

inequality and income Ghana

and Cote d'ivoire

Name: M. Abdurrehman Aftab

Roll# S2021273001

MBA 1.5
Introduction:
Ghana and Cote d’lvoire are west African neighboring countries with an almost similar geographical size
situation, as well as population situation, with one major difference, so much so that they were declared
independent states within a few years of each other. The major difference between the two countries
however that we can’t overlook is that although both of these were colonial countries, Ghana was
occupied by the British while Cote d’lvoire was occupied by the French .However that full colonial rule
took a long time to become established throughout the territories of these countries, the French were still
fighting to extend their presence into the early years of the twentieth century.
The UNDP’s 2009 Human Development Report showed that, Ghana is considered a medium human
development country, with a human development index of of 0.526, while Côte d’Ivoire is considered a
low human development country with an HDI of only 0.484. No doubt that both the countries had it hard
to get by on their own after their independence, but Ghana made much more overall progress as compared
to Cote d’lvoire.
Before the partition the colonial controlling powers did not view them as a separate nation and only
invaded them for their resources and their connection to the coast line for ease of trade, in turn this left the
countries high and dry when they got their independence. To understand the aftereffects of the occupation
a little better we can look at the facts such as that, the settler mortality was stunningly high in these two
countries, each with an estimated 668 deaths per 1,000 per year, among the highest in a study made in the
nineties for comparison, the rate was just 15.5 in South Africa.

Problems faced by the countries:

• As was expected, the institutional quality in the countries was worse than expected because of
lack of educated individuals that could be competent officials to represent them.
• Social fractionalization: Both the countries are fairly highly fractionalized, but CIV more so. Both
countries have an Akan majority (45% in Ghana and 42% in CIV) and many smaller groups. In
Ghana, the population is 69% Christian and 16% Muslim, but in CIV, adherents are much more
evenly divided, with 39% Muslim and 33% Christian.
• Population Growth: At independence in 1960, the population of CIV was just 3.6 million, so it
grew about 51 ⁄ 2 times by 2007. In contrast, Ghana’s population was already nearly 7 million in
1960, so it grew by less than 31 ⁄ 3 times in the same period, without a proportional difference in
the amount of commodities and other resources.
• Inequality of distribution of wealth: As extreme inequality can retard the development process.
• Education: Improved education can result in improved institutions. Educational attainment was
abysmal in both nations at the time of independence. One of the most striking postcolonial
differences between the countries is the higher level of educational attainment in Ghana, where
there have been greater investments in education.

Policies iAdopted by Ghana:

Both nations started as largely agrarian economies, with over half of the labor force working in rural
areas. But the two countries have had somewhat different policy trajectories. In the first quarter century
after independence, Ghana chose many poorly conceived and often corrupt interventionist policies. Early
policies have been described as oriented toward urban industry. So, for Ghana, diversification of foreign
relationships is one of the candidates for explaining its relative success. The government of Ghana
adopted the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), which serves as the overall framework
document for medium to long-term development policy in Ghana. Budget and macroeconomic policies
are therefore to be derived from the GPRS. The GPRS is broadly speaking one of the poverty reduction
strategy papers demanded by the IMF and the World Bank, which describe the country’s macroeconomic,
structural and social policies and programmes over a three-year period. Which proved to be quite
successful lightening the load on their economy of the insufficient investment and debt.
Policies adopted by Côte d’Ivoire :
Cote d’lvoire economy is largely market-based and depends heavily on the agricultural sector. Almost
70% of the Ivorian people are engaged in some form of agricultural activity.. But this did not prevent
elites from extracting what they could from the rural areas. An apparently favorable tactic was having
early policy of effectively trying to keep all the ethnic groups engaged in and benefiting from growth in
the national economy. There were large migrations into CIV, A more ethnically based politics in the late
1990s is viewed by specialists in the politics of CIV as helping precipitate the disaster of regional and
ethnic conflict in the 2000s. Besides colonial rule having strongly negative effects, close Côte d’Ivoire
dependence on one nation (France) may have been a hindrance to its growth and economic and political
development over the long run. So the policies adopted by the country proved to be insufficient in the end
to counter the immense load that they faced.