Poverty in Afica ( Ghana) Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Poverty in Afica ( Ghana) - Research Paper Example For this reason Africa has poised to become the next frontier of economic growth, yet Ghana and many other African nations have continued to remain in poverty. Majority of the citizens are still in the poverty and a significant proportion has continued to enjoy chronic extreme poverty. In Ghana 28% of the population is living conditions of extreme poverty (Owusu and Mensah, 2013). In this paper therefore, I will be exploring some of the reasons behind Ghana state of poverty despite possessing vast natural resources. Ghana continues to remain poor yet the country is home to vast mineral deposits, arable agricultural land and many other natural resources that are vital to economic development. At a time when manufacturing industries in the Europe, china, Japan, America and beyond are sourcing raw materials almost entirely from the African continent, Ghana and many other nations in Africa have no viable industrial or manufacturing economy beyond agro processing and production of raw materials. This situation can be looked at from different perspectives. Firstly, some have argued that Ghana and the entire Africa lacks knowledge on what can be done with the vast wealth in terms of oil, minerals and gas deposits. It can as well be argued that Ghana does not place any economic value at all to the rich mineral resources. Yet it can also be argued that that Africans are traditionally non-capital oriented and as such they derive satisfaction from just the surface value rather than what lies beneath their natural resource wealth. The most important issue here is that Africa and Ghana in particular is a net exporter of raw materials and this translates into transforming economic benefit for its citizens as would be if it were converting these raw materials into finished products for export. The biggest problem facing Ghana with its rich natural resource base revolves around the capability of converting the resources on a mass scale into finished