IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/esid-041-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The politics of regional inequality in Ghana: State elites, donors and PRSPs

Author

Listed:
  • Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai
  • David Hulme

Abstract

Through an analysis of Ghana's HIPC Fund, which was established as part of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) process, this paper shows how aid-financed efforts to reduce regional inequality in Ghana have failed. Dominant political elites agreed to policies of regional inequality reduction to access aid funding, but, once approved, such funds were allocated on quite different criteria in ways that marginalised the poorest. Analyses here reinforce the growing recognition that developmental outcomes in most poor countries are not shaped so much by the design of 'good' policies per se, but more importantly by the power relationships within which policy-implementing institutions are embedded. Aid donors seem unable to fully grasp this important lesson, and so their capacity to contribute to reducing regional inequality remains limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai & David Hulme, 2014. "The politics of regional inequality in Ghana: State elites, donors and PRSPs," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-041-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:esid-041-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.effective-states.org/wp-content/uploads/working_papers/final-pdfs/esid_wp_41_abdulai_hulme.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bettina Woll, 2008. "Donor harmonisation and government ownership: multi-donor budget support in Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 74-87.
    2. World Bank, 2011. "Tackling Poverty in Northern Ghana," World Bank Publications - Reports 2755, The World Bank Group.
    3. Arnim Langer, 2009. "Living with diversity: The peaceful management of horizontal inequalities in Ghana," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 534-546.
    4. Arnim Langer, 2005. "Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Conflict. Côte d’Ivoire Country Paper," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2005-32, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arnim Langer & Frances Stewart, 2015. "Regional Imbalances, Horizontal Inequalities, and Violent Conflicts," World Bank Publications - Reports 22514, The World Bank Group.
    2. Frédéric Gaspart & Pierre Pecher, 2019. "Ethnic Inclusiveness of the Central State Government and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 28(2), pages 176-201.
    3. Barbara Rohregger & Katja Bender & Bethuel Kinuthia & Esther Schüring & Grace Ikua & Nicky Pouw, 2018. "The politics of implementation or why institutional interaction matters: The role of traditional authorities in delivering pro-poor social policies in Kenya," IZNE Working Paper Series 18/2, International Centre for Sustainable Development (IZNE), Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences.
    4. Resnick, Danielle, 2019. "Strong democracy, weak state: The political economy of Ghana’s stalled structural transformation," IFPRI book chapters, in: Ghana’s economic and agricultural transformation: Past performance and future prospects, chapter 3, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Arun, Shoba & Annim, Samuel & Arun, Thankom Gopinath, 2016. "'Even' After Access to Financial Services? Ricocheting Gender Equations," IZA Discussion Papers 10099, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai & Sam Hickey, 2014. "Rethinking the politics of development in Africa? How the 'political settlement' shapes resource allocation in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-038-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    2. Cossar, Frances, 2016. "Boserupian pressure and agricultural mechanization in modern Ghana:," IFPRI discussion papers 1528, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Paul Mosley & Abdul‐Gafaru Abdulai, 2020. "The political economy of progressive fiscal contracts in Africa and Latin America," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 38(4), pages 411-427, July.
    4. Coleman, Simeon, 2012. "Where Does the Axe Fall? Inflation Dynamics and Poverty Rates: Regional and Sectoral Evidence for Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2454-2467.
    5. Arnim Langer & Frances Stewart, 2015. "Regional Imbalances, Horizontal Inequalities, and Violent Conflicts," World Bank Publications - Reports 22514, The World Bank Group.
    6. Paul Mosley, 2012. "The politics of what works for the poor in public expenditure and taxation: a review," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-011-12, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Eugenia Allotey & Rocío García-Carrión & Lourdes Villardón-Gallego & Marta Soler-Gallart, 2023. "Transforming the educational experiences of marginalized students in Ghana through dialogic literary gatherings," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Mahadevan, Renuka & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2015. "Exploring the potential for green revolution: a choice experiment on maize farmers in Northern Ghana," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 10(3), pages 1-15.
    9. Stephen Brown, 2016. "Putting Paris into practice: Foreign aid, national ownership, and donor alignment in Mali and Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series 145, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Vaughn F. Graham, 2017. "Toward a Conceptual Expansion of Ownership and Post‐2015 Global Development Policy: Illustrations from the Jamaican Experience," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35(3), pages 373-395, May.
    11. Paul Mosley & Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, 2016. "The political economy of 'linked' progressive taxation in Africa and Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series 131, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Franklin Oduro & Mohammed Awal & Maxwell Agyei Ashon, 2014. "A dynamic mapping of the political settlement in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-028-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    13. Frimpong Boamah, Emmanuel & Sumberg, James, 2019. "The long overhang of bad decisions in agro-industrial development: Sugar and tomato paste in Ghana," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    14. Ana Luiza Cortez & Namsuk Kim, 2012. "Conflict and the identification of the Least Developed Countries: Theoretical and statistical considerations," CDP Background Papers 013, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    15. Ratner, Blake D. & Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela & Hellin, Jonathon & Mapedza, Everisto & Unruh, Jon D. & Veening, Wouter & Haglund, Eric & May, Candace & Bruch, Carl, 2013. "Addressing conflict through collective action in natural resource management," CAPRi working papers 112, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Stephen Brown, 2016. "Putting Paris into practice: Foreign aid, national ownership, and donor alignment in Mali and Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-145, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Pallas, Sarah Wood & Ruger, Jennifer Prah, 2017. "Effects of donor proliferation in development aid for health on health program performance: A conceptual framework," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 177-186.
    18. Paul Mosley & Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, 2016. "The political economy of 'linked' progressive taxation in Africa and Latin America," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-131, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Gill,Indermit S. & Revenga,Ana L. & Zeballos,Christian, 2016. "Grow, invest, insure : a game plan to end extreme poverty by 2030," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7892, The World Bank.
    20. Jonas A. Akudugu, 2018. "Institutionalising local economic development practice in Ghana," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(4), pages 405-420, June.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:esid-041-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.