Ghana Flops on Global Competitiveness -Amidst IMF’s Red Herring Praises

Ghana has flopped on the latest Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) by dropping five places from its 2018 ranking.

The new GCI released by the World Economic Forum this week shows that Ghana’s rank dropped from 106 out of 140 countries to 111 in 2019 from 141 sampled countries.

The GCI is a world ranking system that evaluates the level of the productivity of a country and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country.

The latest ranking shows that despite the usual glowing remarks given recently to the country by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Ghana’s image among independent investors may not be all that rosy.

A few days ago, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Mark Assibey-Yeboah, told journalists that the IMF team which is in the country for consultation is impressed with the management of the economy after the 3-year bailout from the IMF. “They [the IMF team] said the macroeconomic situation remains favourable. Those were the words of the Mission Chief,” Mr Assibey-Yeboah said.

However, the global competitiveness rankings which provide a more realistic reference point than IMF’s pronouncement says the country has slipped in what may affect investor decisions. The GCI is the product of an aggregation of 103 individual indicators, derived from a combination of data from international organizations as well as from the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey.

These indicators are organized into 12 ‘pillars’ that comprise: Institutions; Infrastructure; ICT adoption; macroeconomic stability; Health; Skills; Product market; Labour market; Financial system; Market size; Business dynamism; and Innovation capability.


In Africa, the best-performing country was topped by Mauritius with a ranking of 52 on the global ranking; South Africa, the second-most competitive in the region, improved to the 60th position, while Namibia (94th), Rwanda (100th), Uganda (115th) and Guinea (122nd) all improve significantly.

Among the other large economies in the region, Kenya (95th) and Nigeria (116th) also improved their performances but lose some positions to faster climbers.