Rethinking Persistent Poverty in Northern Ghana: The Primacy of Policy and Politics over Geography

The Ghanaian economy has long been characterized by the persistence of regional income inequalities along a north-south divide, where poverty remains disproportionately concentrated in the northern part of the country. In contrast to much of the extant literature, which explains this phenomenon in terms of the relatively unfavorable geography in the north vis-a-vis the south, this article suggests the need to understand this problem as the product of the export-biased orientation of agricultural policy and the relative neglect of the agricultural products in which the north has comparative advantage in producing. The Ghanaian experience suggests that relying on migration and other redistributionist measures as the means to overcome spatial poverty traps can be problematic not only for regions that are not well connected to those prosperous parts of a country but also for those that are fully connected through adverse forms of inclusion.