An Economic Analysis Of Ghana's Savannah Accelerated Development Program

Abstract

This dissertation intends to review and assesses economic consequences of elements within the Savannah Accelerated Development Program in Ghana. The program has never been economically assessed in the literature. Agricultural policies are assessed at both the regional and national level. To achieve the assessment, a regional farm planning model is developed and then it is used in interaction with a computable general equilibrium model. The research attempts to determine the regional impacts of different agricultural policies and whether they will narrow the developmental gap between northern and southern Ghana. The policies assessed are input subsidy, expanded agricultural extension, guinea fowl program, and expanded irrigation. The assessment shows that the expansion in agricultural extension has the biggest effect in terms of narrowing the income gap.