Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly becoming vehicles for public
infrastructural financing globally. Proponents of PPPs have listed impressive positive potentials of PPPs such as increasing efficiency, a good source of rapid infrastructural development, transfer of knowledge, and technology among many others. PPPs are not entirely novel. In Ghana, PPPs began to be part of the development agenda after the overthrow of the Kwame Nkrumah regime in 1966. Yet, they were not as common as today.
From the 1980s, through the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) loan conditionalities from Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), the Ghanaian state has systematically pursued deinvestment in public infrastructure financing ceding this role to the private sector and local governance structures. The Central government’s fund allocation to the local government structures has always remained insufficient while the latter’s role continued to expand. On the
back of their expanded mandates at the local level internally generated funds especially those in local markets have become crucial for revenue mobilisation.
To increase revenue mobilisation, the local government authorities have made market modernisation and reconstruction a key part of the development agenda. PPPs have become therefore become the vehicles to modernise markets. In Ghana, markets are spaces for women’s economic survival and accumulation and historically feminised in character. The market space is also hierarchical, political and heterogeneous in its structure with varied interests and sociopolitical affiliations. With traders operating on different scales, and others in tow to transition to the higher echelon of the scale, PPPs have increased class struggles within the market. This study focused on the construction of lockable shops and open shed PPP projects at the Dome Market in the Ga East Municipal Assembly in the Greater Accra Region to highlight the ramifications of market PPPs for gender inequality and women’s socioeconomic rights. The findings of this work are based on a qualitative study and review of documents.
The Women’s Market
Step into the heart of Accra (Ghana) and discover the untold story of how global macroeconomic policies crafted in the North affect not only women’s livelihoods but also their cultural and historical leadership role in one of Ghana’s busiest marketplaces. The “Women’s Market” is a powerful film that delves into the lives of women traders in the Dome Market as they navigate the complexities of economic hardship and public-private partnerships (PPPs).
Follow the transformation of the market, once a decentralised space of individual traders, into a battleground for economic justice. As the Ghanaian government implements a PPP initiative to modernise the market, promises of progress quickly give way to disillusionment as local traders are left struggling and unable to afford the new infrastructure. As the PPP unfolds, it becomes clear that women, the backbone of the local commerce, bear the brunt of its negative impacts. Displacement, rising costs, and unequal access to resources threaten their livelihoods and fracture the fabric of the market community.
But the women of Dome Market refuse to be silenced. Through protests, political engagement, and unwavering determination, they demand justice and fair treatment. The film highlights the vital role of women in the market’s economy and their fight for economic autonomy in the face of adversity. It also deepens the understanding about the drivers and dynamics of PPPs , examining how Ghana’s journey from a state-centric model to embracing collaboration with international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, paved the way for the integration of PPPs into its development agenda.
The Podcast
Our hosts, feminist economist Corina Rodríguez Enríquez and international development expert Sue Godt will guide us through an in-depth conversation with feminist researchers Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey and Sylvia Ohene Marfo. They are the authors of the case study about public-private partnerships in Dome Market in Ghana’s capital, Accra. Their article inspired the film “The Women’s Market”, launched by DAWN this March and now streaming on YouTube.
In this engaging conversation, Dzifa Torvikey, a research fellow at the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana and Program Officer for the Feminist Africa Journal, and Sylvia Ohene Marfo, a food studies researcher and Research and Program Manager for the Union for African Population Studies, provide a nuanced exploration of Ghana’s PPP experiences. They shed light on the historical context, the impact of PPPs on market women traders, and the broader implications for national development.
“Most of the PPP shops are occupied by people who were not part of the market at the beginning. And women who are displaced as a result of the PPP shops—very few of them are still in the market, most of them work selling in sheds or under umbrellas or whatever space they could find in front of other people’s shops. So it has really impacted the livelihood of the women who are displaced as a result of the PPP,” says Sylvia Ohene Marfo.
Through the lens of feminism, the dialogue touches upon the challenges faced by market women’s associations, the growing class differentiation within the market, and the need for alternative gender frameworks to address socio-economic inequalities exacerbated by neoliberal policies.
Tune in to this thought-provoking episode to deepen your understanding of PPP dynamics in Ghana and explore pathways towards transformative change through the power of grassroots activism.
Connect The Dots
Ghana is a located in West Africa with about 30 million people. Women constitute about 51% of the population (Ghana Statistical Service, 2016). The country has made impressive progress over the past three decades regarding democracy and multi-party system although two major parties have dominated the political landscape for a long time. Ghana’s democratic advancement has not benefitted men and women equally, as women continue to struggle to have the same socioeconomic rights as men. Women’s political engagement remain lower than that of men due to the adherence to sociocultural norms that restrict women’s participation in public spaces.
Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amounted to US $65.556 billion as at 2018 with a 6.3% annual growth rate and a US $4650 gross national income (GNI) per capita, making it a low middle-income country. Its lower middle-income status meant that it can no longer access certain types of loans available for poorer countries. It now has to borrow at higher interest rate and compete with other borrowers to access loans at favourable terms. Ghana’s economic performance is a Janus-headed one. While its GDP keeps growing and the growth figures soar, it is however experiencing jobless growth, high unemployment and increasing inequality between men and women (Aryeetey and Baah-Boateng, 2016).
Ghana’s labour market is highly gender segregated and segmented and women accounted for 64.7% of the economically active population compared to 71.4% of men (Ghana Statistical Service, 2016). There are more women (91%) in the informal sector than men (81%) (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012). Over the years, Ghana’s development agenda has incorporated the private sector for service delivery and infrastructural development projects. Ghana’s shift from statist development to the inclusion of private sector predates Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) and economic recovery programmes that started in the 1980s. The Privatisation of State Own Enterprises (SOEs) started in earnest after the overthrow of the Kwame Nkrumah regime in 1966. From late 1960s, the country moved from statist development model, to state partnership with multinational organisations and International Finance Institutions (IFIs) especially in the agricultural sector (Graham, 1993).
Nonetheless, SAP conditionalities increased the private sector involvement in development. Ghana was the first country in Africa to accept market driven public sector reform policies inspired by the World Bank and other donor institutions (Awortwi 2011) and the country, from the 1980s, embarked on a vigorous privatisation of state entities which were in line with loan conditionalities of the BWIs. Many of the SOEs were established as part of a national project during the early independence period with the policy framework of increased industrialisation, import substitution and self-determination. Appiah-Kubi (2001) notes that between 1987 and 1999, 14% of Ghana’s GDP came from privatization. By 2005, over 335 SOEs were privatized in agricultural and manufacturing sectors (Bank of Ghana, 2005) and Ghana was praised as a SAP success. Thus, PPPs are seen as part of the trajectory of the state’s de-investment in development and the institutionalization of private sector participation in development.
Read now A Feminist and Human Rights Based Analysis of Public Private Partnerships in Ghana’s Markets by Gertrude Dzifa Torvikey and Sylvia Ohene Marfo