​​Early Independent Africa's Abortive Attempt at Industrialization: The Case of Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah

Abstract
It is anticipated that the post-Covid-19 world will see a moderation of the hyper-globalization that has characterized the last couple of decades and usher in a renewed emphasis on national sovereignty and autonomy in economic decisions. The 1980s has served as an important watershed in independent Africa's political economy, marking the ascendancy of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Africa's economic policies. Yet, before the late 1970s, only one sub-Saharan African country, Ghana, had been the recipient of an IMF stabilization program. This lecture focuses on the early decades of Africa's independence and Ghana's aborted attempt at industrialization, considered the only genuine endeavor to de-colonize a black African economy. Ghana's example – with its prioritization of infrastructural development, import-substitution industrialization, and regional integration – is particularly instructive as we enter a post-Covid-19 era in which national and regional economic decisions move to the fore and the continent embarks on its Free Trade Agreement.

Emmanuel Akyeampong is the Ellen Gurney Professor of History and of African and African American Studies and Oppenheimer Faculty Director of the Center for African Studies at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK). He is the author and editor of several books and articles including Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of Alcohol in Ghana, c.1800 to Recent Times (1996); and Between the Sea and the Lagoon: An Eco-Social History of the Anlo of Southeastern Ghana (2001). He served as co-chief editor with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., for the Dictionary of African Biography, 6 vols. (2012). Akyeampong has been a co-editor of the Journal of African History, of African Diaspora and serves on the editorial board of African Arguments.

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