Ghana’s reliance on gold to support cedi stability and rebuild foreign exchange reserves over the past eighteen months has underscored the need for broader economic diversification.
The government is now pursuing investments in oil and gas, cocoa, and agribusiness, with these sectors expected to play a greater role in reducing the economy’s dependence on a single commodity and supporting sustainable growth, according to the 2026 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review presented by Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson.
Gold did the heavy lifting in the initial phase of recovery. The establishment of the Ghana Gold Board, GoldBod, to curb smuggling and formalise the trade generated an additional US$15 billion in foreign exchange inflows, helping lift the current account balance from a surplus of 1.9 percent of GDP in 2024 to 8.3 percent of GDP in 2025.
Ato Forson described the intervention as a “macroeconomic stabilisation policy” intended to strengthen the cedi and build external buffers while the government worked on the rest of the economy.
The upstream oil and gas sector is one focus of this diversification. Crude production had declined from 71.4 million barrels in 2019 to about 36 million barrels in 2025, but Ato Forson added that “investor-friendly reforms” have since secured more than US$3.5 billion in new investment commitments from the Jubilee and Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) partners, with Jubilee output rising from a projected 68,000 barrels per day to about 95,000 and Sankofa producing roughly 28,000 barrels daily.
Government is also updating the laws governing the sector to make it more attractive to investors, with amendments expected before Parliament by year-end. A parallel Gas-to-Power Strategy, meanwhile, has already delivered GH¢3.08 billion in fuel cost savings in the first half of 2026 alone by displacing light crude oil with cheaper natural gas, a shift the minister said will eventually cut electricity generation costs by “at least 75 percent.”
Agriculture is being built up on a similarly deliberate timeline. Government is finalising a US$500 million Integrated Oil Palm Development financing facility with the World Bank, alongside a land bank initiative that has already reviewed over 270,000 hectares in the Western Region and is expected to eventually exceed 100,000 hectares nationwide, an effort that will “unlock significant private sector investment” and create over 250,000 direct and indirect jobs across the value chain.
A separate US$523 million Agricultural Enclave Roads Programme is rehabilitating 1,050 kilometres of feeder roads across four farming corridors, aimed at reducing post-harvest losses and connecting producing regions to markets more efficiently.
Cocoa, historically Ghana’s other major export earner alongside gold, is also being repositioned. A new COCOBOD Bill will replace the sector’s 1984 governing legislation, introducing a producer pricing mechanism tied to international cocoa prices and guaranteeing farmers not less than 70 percent of the gross Free-on-Board price, alongside a requirement that at least half of the cocoa beans produced in Ghana be processed domestically.
Ato Forson stated that the reforms are designed to “place Ghana’s cocoa sector on a stronger financial footing” while enhancing value addition, a phrase that echoes the diversification logic applied elsewhere in the Review.
None of these initiatives yet approaches the scale of the US$15 billion in inflows attributed to gold reforms, and each remains at an earlier stage of implementation. Several oil palm assessments are still underway, the gas processing facility awaits financial close, and the COCOBOD Bill has yet to reach Parliament.
But the pattern across the Review is consistent; the government appears to be treating the gold-driven stabilisation of 2025 as a foundation rather than a permanent feature, using the breathing room it created to fund longer-gestation investments in oil, cocoa and agribusiness.
Ghana is gradually moving towards reducing its dependence on gold, where fluctuations in global gold prices can influence key economic decisions. However, the government must replicate the special interventions and strategic support mechanisms introduced for GoldBod across other productive sectors to unlock broader economic growth and diversification.
