Standard of Living in Ghana and Government

 

In my opinion, Ghana’s standard of living is a low medium. I say this understanding that they are not among the worst of the worst and definitely not close to being part of the Great Eight. However, from most the Center of Intelligence Agency World Facts, I was able to interpret that my standard of living is different from Ghana’s standard of living. Take for example, Ghana’s weather issues such as “dry, dusty, northeastern harmattan winds that occur from January to March, and the droughts” (CIA 2012). This makes it hard to harvest food for the family or even to sell to local people. According to CIA, the recurrent drought in north Ghana severely affects agricultural activities, deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion, poaching and habitat destruction threaten wildlife populations as well. With that being said many issues are presented because of Ghana’s physical geography such as hunger, migration, scarcity of food, and water pollution causing an influence in several diseases and illnesses in Ghana. So, what is the government doing about it? That is a question we, Americans, would ask if we heard about these problems, which brings me to my next point of discussion the Ghana’s government system.

The Republic of Ghana is ran under a constitutional democracy, but has not been under its own government long. Ghana gained its independence March 6, 1957 from the United Kingdom and approved its constitution April 28, 1992, according to CIA World Facts. In addition, legal system is mixed with English common law and customary law and legal suffrage age is 18 years old, which can be great and refreshing since most of the population ranges from 15-64 years of age. Ghana has a legislative, judicial, and executive branch similar to the US, but it did not surprise me since we both, the US and Ghana, were under the King and Queen of England. However, just like today in the US, Ghana’s governmental system is suffering and trying to find solutions to their country’s problems. I believe this problem is because of lack of money towards educating the next generation. The Center of Intelligence Agency World Fact last reported that the education expenditures were 5.4% of Ghana’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005. This is close to that of the United States, yet “Ghana is about the size of the state of Oregon” (CIA 2012). 

Resource links:

http://www.expat-blog.com/en/destination/africa/ghana/

http://ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=181863

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html