Faculty Publications

Adjustment, Industrial Locational Incentives and Structural Transformation in Ghana

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Structural Adjustment, Ghana, Industrial Location, Wood processing, Spatial Structure, Regional Development

Journal/Book/Conference Title

East African Geographical Review

Volume

20

Issue

2

First Page

1

Last Page

24

Abstract

A number of studies have focused on the Structural Adjustment Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, but just a few have focused on the issue of spatial structural transformation under those programs. This paper focuses on such transformation with respect to Ghana's formal wood processing industry. Using an empirically- based qualitative analysis, the paper utilizes the government's industrial locational incentives under Ghana's program to explore post-adjustment spatial structural transformation involving the location pattern of formal wood processing firms, relative to regional development within the national framework. The extent to which the pre-adjustment geographical distribution pattern of firms, deemed as a structural problem, changed in response to the locational incentives is examined. It is shown that for those firms, adjustment was essentially a program which fashioned export sector rehabilitation, using new financial resources, and not for spatial structural transformation. The pre-adjustment “colonial” pattern of urban concentration of firms, thus, persisted indicating that the incentives did not foster the desired structural change.

Department

Department of Geography

Original Publication Date

1-1-1998

DOI of published version

10.1080/00707961.1998.9756264

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