Addressing Ghana’s Job Crisis: World Bank Outlines 3 Areas Gov’t Must Focus Policy For Greater Impact

Ghana’s quest to address its labour market challenges won’t yield any impactful outcomes without focused strategies in key sectors.

This is the observation of the World Bank, insisting that unless decisive actions are taken, targeted at certain critical areas, the rising unemployment and underemployment will continue to stifle the country’s economic fortunes.

In its latest 9th Ghana Economic Update, which put the spotlight on Ghana’s labour market, the Bank identifies three critical areas that policymakers must prioritize if Ghana is to generate sustainable jobs and attract the private investment needed to fuel long-term prosperity.

Building Physical and Human Capital

The World Bank stresses that job creation is impossible without modern infrastructure and a skilled workforce. Poor roads, unreliable electricity, and weak irrigation systems continue to raise the cost of doing business and limit the competitiveness of Ghanaian firms to create jobs.  

To address this, the Bank suggests the government should not shoulder this burden alone but instead crowd-in private sector investment through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Also important is the deliberate development of human capital. The Bank argues that without reforms to improve education quality, particularly in technical and digital skills, Ghana risks producing graduates who cannot meet labor market demands.

Improving the Enabling Environment

The Bretton Woods institution further observes in the report that even where infrastructure exists, Ghana’s private sector struggles to expand due to structural bottlenecks. The country’s economy is dominated by small, informal firms, with limited integration into value chains.

Land tenure issues, lengthy insolvency processes, and restricted access to finance discourage innovation and business growth.

According to the World Bank, stabilizing the policy and regulatory environment will be essential to rebuilding investor confidence. Practical steps like digitizing land registries, reforming insolvency laws, and ensuring predictable policy direction could dramatically shift the playing field for entrepreneurs and SMEs that drive job creation.

Mobilization of Private Capital

The last area that the World Bank says requires deliberate policy is unlocking private capital at scale. It underscores that government budgets alone cannot finance the level of job-creating investments needed.

Instead, Ghana must deepen access to finance, encourage entrepreneurship, and deploy innovative instruments such as political risk insurance and guarantees to draw in investors, particularly in underserved regions like the north.

Long-term stability, which will reduce both political and country risk, will be critical. In the development partner’s view, private investors are looking for certainty, not surprises; hence reforms are needed to lower risk perceptions. This could open the floodgates for new investments in manufacturing, agribusiness, and services.

The Bottomline

The World Bank Group is certain that Ghana cannot create the millions of decent jobs it needs by relying on public spending or short-term fixes. Creation of decent employment will depend on a combination of factors propelled by deliberate policy interventions.

For a country where thousands of young people join the labor market every year, deliberate policies in key areas that will create jobs cannot just be left to chance.

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