Making International Policy: A Stern Look at Ghana’s Policies on Migration and Remittances

Abstract

The relationship between migration, remittances and national development has been a hot topic amongst development thinkers, scholars and practitioners since the close of the last century. Better late than never, the topic made its debut in Ghana in the last few years. Ghana’s premier University has sustained the note by establishing in 2006, a Centre for Migration Studies. Drawing on the experiences of some Asian countries, some scholars are calling for a national agenda that focuses on the use of migration and remittances as a tool for national development. The silent argument being made is that, despite the many dangers inherent in a reliance on remittances, no developing country can afford to neglect remittances when they are much bigger and more stable than the Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and have been increasing more than proportionately compared to GDP and export earnings. In this article, I underline the growing importance of migration and remittances to the Ghanaian economy. I then discuss some formal and informal international policy making processes in Ghana, drawing out a critical disconnect between the patent, intuitive and rational international policy outcomes. I conclude by reflecting on what I consider to be attacks on Ghana’s national policy space which account for the brazen policy distortions and hint at what forebodes the evolution of national policy in a country that assumes that it is independent.