President John Dramani Mahama has positioned the Sheapark Resource Hub Project as a flagship pillar of Ghana’s renewed push to move beyond raw material exports toward value-added agro-industrial production.
Launching the project in Wa, the President described the Sheapark Hub as a world-class, phased agro-industrial ecosystem designed to transform the shea industry through sustainability, innovation, and inclusion.
At full scale, the Hub is expected to empower more than 7,000 women in the Upper West Region while creating thousands of additional jobs for the youth.
The facility will host modern shea processing plants producing inputs for the cosmetics, food, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries.
It will also include quality control laboratories, training centres, warehousing, logistics infrastructure, cooperative aggregation systems, and export facilitation services.
Renewable energy solutions, water treatment and recycling plants, business incubation centres, and direct market access platforms will form part of the integrated show.
President Mahama said the Hub would serve as a processing anchor not only for shea but also for related commodities such as groundnuts, soya beans, sorghum, dawadawa, cotton, and honey, expanding income opportunities across the region.
The Sheapark initiative aligns with the government’s Reset Agenda, which prioritises domestic value addition before export.
According to the President, similar value-addition strategies will be applied nationwide to commodities including cashew, cassava, oil palm, cotton, and even minerals.
He emphasised that women, who have sustained the shea industry for generations, are central to the project’s design and long-term success.
By combining processing infrastructure with targeted financing through the planned Women’s Bank, government aims to convert traditional livelihoods into scalable, export-ready industries capable of delivering inclusive growth.