African Development Bank revises Ghana’s 2024 growth rate to 3.4%; 4.3% in 2025
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has revised Ghana’s growth rate projections upward, forecasting a growth rate of 3.4% for 2024 and 4.3% for 2025.
This revision marks a significant increase from the 2.8% predicted in February 2024, reflecting a more optimistic medium-term growth outlook.
According to the AfDB, this stronger-than-anticipated growth will be driven by robust performance in the industry and services sectors on the supply side, and increased private consumption and investment on the demand side.
With these projections, Ghana is poised to rank 14th in West Africa in terms of GDP growth, placing the country ahead of Nigeria.
However, the AfDB cautions that the outlook is tempered by several risks. These include the impact of fiscal consolidation measures under the Post-Covid Programme for Economic Growth, the ongoing effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, limited access to finance and foreign exchange, and broader global macroeconomic shocks. Prudent macroeconomic management, the AfDB notes, will be crucial in mitigating these risks.
To accelerate structural transformation and sustain this growth trajectory, the AfDB emphasizes the need for Ghana to enhance its competitiveness by addressing infrastructure bottlenecks and promoting agro-industrialization.
This includes strengthening skills development, value addition, and private sector development, as well as creating a conducive policy framework for technology adoption and innovation.
“Ghana’s structural transformation needs reinforcement,” the AfDB states. “Productivity has stagnated in services, the dominant employment sector, and is rising only slowly in industry and agriculture. Agriculture’s employment share declined from 53.9% in 2007 to 29.8% in 2019, while industry’s share rose from 14.1% to 21.0%, and services’ share increased from 31.9% to 49.2% over the same period.”
Regionally, West Africa’s growth is projected to rise from an estimated 3.6% in 2023 to 4.2% in 2024, consolidating at 4.4% in 2025. This reflects a 0.3 percentage point upgrade from the January 2024 projections, driven by stronger growth in large economies such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.
The AfDB’s projections indicate that Africa’s average growth will be led by East Africa, with Southern and West Africa also showing significant improvements. By 2024, 40 countries are expected to post higher growth rates compared to 2023, with the number of countries achieving growth rates above 5% increasing to 17.
