Putting Ghana’s Informal Sector in Business

Ghana Business News, April 28th, 2009

After many decades of official development assistance from Ghana’s Western benefactors, emphasis seems to be shifting from poverty eradication hand-outs to making finance accessible to the informal sector. This is for good reason. The informal sector provides more jobs than government and the formal private sector combined. Indeed, the biggest pie of the country’s economy is largely unaccounted for because many Ghanaians who make a living from the informal sector - such as farmers, traders, private transport services, artisans and others operate on the blind-side of government officials that keep track of the amount of goods and services produced in the country each year.

By making finance accessible to these informal sector operators, the country is to some extent able to provide the needed fuel to turn around their means of livelihood and possibly take them out of poverty - whilst as the same time bringing them into the formal setting, at least as far as their need for finance and credit goes.

The full article is available from the Ghana Business News.

Published in Ghana Business News on April 28th, 2009