Part 3 of this series discusses the cross-cutting themes involved in the implementation of 24HE.
These themes include stakeholder and citizen engagement and participation, youth, women, and social inclusion, climate-smart solutions, innovation, learning, knowledge exchange, and adaptive management.
Stakeholder and citizen engagement and participation
As indicated in Part 1 of this series, Ghana experienced a deterioration in the elements of voice and accountability, rule of law, and control of corruption between 2016 and 2023.
Ghanaians expect the Mahama administration to change this narrative. The upcoming National Education Forum and National Economic Dialogue are promising steps, but they are not enough.
Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs), and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) should actively identify 24HE stakeholders within their sectors and engage them in the conception, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of 24HE projects.
These stakeholders will include private sector industry associations, informal sector associations, organised labour, traditional rulers, professional bodies, civil society organisations, and youth groups, who will ultimately benefit from 24HE projects in the form of decent jobs.
Each MDA, MMDA, and SOE should establish a 24HE Advisory Group with representatives from these stakeholders. The group should meet periodically, both in person and online.
Any 24HE policy paper or programme design prepared by experts should be validated by the 24HE Advisory Group to elicit their feedback, which can help refine it before implementation begins.
MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs should not limit their stakeholder engagement to the 24HE Advisory Group alone. They should also engage with broader stakeholder groups periodically.
The overarching goal of 24HE is to create jobs for youth, in particular. Social media offers a convenient and inexpensive way for MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs to engage Generation Z (GenZ) and gather their perspectives on 24HE projects.
It should not be the case that “the youth have no sense, only the old can lead Ghana,” as Hon. KT Hammond expressed in September 2022.
Women, Youth, and social inclusion
Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) data on jobs from 2021 to date indicates that women and youth are disproportionately represented in unemployment and vulnerable work.
For the third quarter of 2023, the overall unemployment rate was 14.7%. However, the unemployment rate for females was 17.7%, compared to 10.9% for males. The unemployment rate for 15–35-year-olds was 21.7%, with the rate for 15–24-year-olds reaching 29.7%.
The overall percentage of persons employed in vulnerable work was 68.5%, but the percentage of females employed in vulnerable work was 77.8%, compared to 57.6% for males.
The GSS’s 2021 Population and Housing Census also indicates that 7.8% of the population aged five years and older had some form of disability, with difficulty in seeing being the most prevalent (4%), followed by difficulties with walking and climbing stairs (3.6%), remembering and concentration (2%), hearing (1.7%), self-care (1.2%), and communication (1%).
Accordingly, 24HE must set overall targets for the inclusion of women, youth, and persons with disabilities in the 1.7 million new jobs to be created by 2028. Inclusion targets should also be set for the related goal of reducing existing vulnerable work.
Climate-smart solutions
24HE should contribute to Ghana’s climate agenda, as outlined in the Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (Climate NDC) under the Paris Agreement (2020–2030).
The Climate NDC aims to “build a resilient society that can adequately withstand the impacts of climate change and contribute to mitigating global emissions.” It includes climate mitigation and adaptation measures for key sectors such as energy, agriculture, forests, water, transportation, housing, infrastructure in cities, oil and gas, and waste management.
Therefore, all 24HE projects, whether private or public sector, should incorporate climate-smart solutions in their design and implementation. This will enhance the likelihood of such projects attracting climate finance and investment.
Ghanaian export products destined for the European Union must comply with the European Union Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR), which comes into force on 30 December 2025 for large and medium companies, and 30 June 2026 for micro and small enterprises.
EUDR affects commodities such as cattle, wood, cocoa, soybean, palm oil, coffee, rubber, and some derived products, such as leather, chocolate, tyres, and furniture.
Under the regulation, any operator or trader who places these commodities on the EU market or exports from it must be able to prove that the products do not originate from recently deforested land or have contributed to forest degradation.
EUDR requires Ghanaian exporters of these products to the EU to collaborate with relevant MDAs to design and implement traceability systems for their export products.
Innovation
The low and inconsistent economic growth and lack of structural transformation in the Ghanaian economy can be largely attributed to low innovation.
In 1960, Ghana was on par with South Korea in economic development. In 2023, however, South Korea had a GDP of $1,713 billion, which was twenty-two times that of Ghana’s GDP of $76 billion. South Korea also had a GDP per capita of $33,128, which was seventeen times that of Ghana’s at $2,261.
Studies comparing the two economies attribute South Korea’s economic growth and high standard of living to a high level of innovation compared to Ghana.
The Harvard Growth Lab’s Economic Complexity Index (ECI), which assesses the current state of a country’s productive knowledge, has consistently ranked Ghana as a less complex economy from 2000 to 2022. In the same period, Vietnam has significantly moved from a less complex economy to a more complex one.
A less complex economy means a less diversified economy and fewer decent jobs.
24HE must stimulate innovation in the Ghanaian economy to expand and diversify it, thereby creating and sustaining decent jobs.
According to the World Bank, innovation refers to technologies or practices that are new to a given society. What is not disseminated and used is not innovation. Innovation is distinct from research and need not result directly from it.
Innovation should be homegrown, but it should also capture global knowledge and technology to adapt and disseminate within the Ghanaian context.
The Mahama administration should develop an Innovation Policy to complement 24HE. Among other things, the policy should require MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs to allocate at least 1% of their annual budgets to fund sector-specific innovations.
It should specify how public institutions can co-fund innovations with the private sector and civil society organisations (CSOs).
The policy should outline innovation priorities, particularly relating to private sector growth, increased productivity, enhanced competitiveness, and job creation for women, youth, and persons with disabilities (PWDs).
It should also establish criteria for selecting innovations for funding, specify procedures for transparent evaluation of innovation proposals, and provide a framework for monitoring and evaluating funded innovations.
MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs should use their 24HE Advisory Groups as sounding boards for innovation.
The Ministry of Finance and the Controller and Accountant-General should create a distinct accounting line item in the Government Integrated Financial and Management Information System (GIFMIS) and SOE accounting systems to track public sector innovation expenditure.
The annual reports of all MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs should include a section on innovation.
Finally, a National Innovation Award Scheme should be established to recognise impactful innovations across all sectors of the economy, as part of Republic Day (1st July) celebrations.
Learning, knowledge exchange, and adaptive management
The implementation of 24HE should incorporate guidelines for learning and deriving lessons from 24HE projects within MDAs, MMDAs, and SOEs.
These guidelines should complement the standard project monitoring and evaluation protocols in place within each institution.
The agendas for board and management meetings, as well as quarterly and annual review meetings, should include a “24HE Lessons Learnt” section.
There should be mechanisms for knowledge exchange amongst and across MDAs, MMDAs, SOEs, and their respective 24HE stakeholders.
This could involve cross-sectoral and multi-agency working groups focused on thematic issues such as access to finance for MSMEs, TVET, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), private-public-CSO partnerships, formalising the informal sector, and digitalising public services.
The 24-HE vision articulated by President Mahama will remain consistent over the next four years. Similarly, the bottom-line goal of 24-HE—creating new decent jobs and reducing vulnerable work—will also remain unchanged.
However, MDAs, MMDAs, SOEs, and their 24-HE stakeholders should remain dynamic and flexible in their strategies. Unexpected changes, challenges, and opportunities may arise at any moment during the 24-HE project implementation.
As such, lessons learned should be fed back into 24-HE project design and implementation to ensure adaptive management.
Part 4 of this article series will examine the Reset Agenda for the Bank of Ghana and Monetary Policy to power 24-HE. It will draw on specific pledges from the NDC 2024 Manifesto and lessons from East Africa and other parts of the world.
The writer is a Development Economist and Chartered Accountant, a member of the National Democratic Congress, and an Executive Member of Eagles Forum, a social democratic organisation.
He was a member of the NDC’s 2024 Manifesto Committee on Jobs and Employment Creation and the Lead for the 24-Hour Economy Task Team. He also served on the Social Sector Committee of the 2024 Transition Team.
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