Considering the current economic growth trajectory, even the next 25 years will not be enough for Ghana to achieve the highly coveted Upper Middle-Income status.
This is the observation of a World Bank expert who believes that the long-held ambition may remain out of reach for decades unless the country significantly improves its ability to expand the economy significantly and consistently.
Speaking at the AFW Youth Forum 2026, Dr. Ashwin Sebastian, Senior Agricultural Economist for Ghana and West Africa at the World Bank, painted a sobering picture of Ghana’s economic trajectory, arguing that strong economic growth alone has not translated into enough employment opportunities for the country’s rapidly expanding youth population.
He reveals that simulations conducted by the World Bank suggest that even by 2050, Ghana could struggle to attain upper-middle-income status under current trends.
Growth Without Enough Jobs
Dr. Sebastian noted that Ghana’s economy has recorded an average annual growth rate of about 6% over the past decade. This performance would ordinarily be expected to drive substantial improvements in living standards.
However, she argued that the country’s job creation record tells a different story. Despite years of economic expansion, Ghana generated only about 235,000 new jobs over the last decade, while approximately 3.7 million young people entered the labour force during the same period.
The disparity, she said, highlights a growing disconnect between economic growth and employment creation.
“Ghana is a weird and interesting case. I’m very serious. I come from a country very similar to Ghana. An island, even. And our GDP per capita is more than double. We are upper-middle-income by now. But when we ran some simulations for Ghana, for Ghana to even reach upper middle income by 2050, within your generation, is very tough,” she confessed.
She added, “Ghana has been growing around 6% a year for the last 10 years. But it has only created about 235,000 new jobs. And you have 3.7 million youth who have entered the labour force in the last 10 years. So there is a huge gap.”
Why Upper Middle-Income Status Remains Elusive
Experts say that for many countries, achieving upper middle-income status requires sustained growth in productivity, rising incomes, and broad-based employment creation.
But Dr. Sebastian suggested that Ghana’s current development model is not generating jobs at the scale required to lift large numbers of people into higher income brackets.
The consequence is that while the economy may continue to expand, many young people could remain trapped in unemployment, underemployment or low-productivity work, limiting improvements in household incomes and slowing progress toward higher-income status.
Her comments underscore a broader concern increasingly raised by development economists: that economic growth must be accompanied by meaningful job creation if it is to translate into widespread prosperity.
Youth Must Look Beyond Government
Based on the current situation of the country, she was quick to caution the youth against relying solely on government intervention to solve the country’s employment challenges.
With millions of young people entering the labour market and job creation lagging significantly behind, she argued that expecting government alone to provide opportunities is unrealistic.
“Depending on the government to solve your problem, it won’t get solved,” she emphasized.
The remark reflects growing recognition that the private sector, entrepreneurship, innovation and self-driven economic activity will play a critical role in addressing Ghana’s employment challenge.
A Wake-Up Call for Ghana
Dr. Sebastian’s comment is a reminder that Ghana’s development challenge is no longer simply about growing the economy, but about ensuring that growth creates enough productive jobs for a rapidly expanding workforce.
Without stronger employment creation, the country’s aspiration of becoming an upper middle-income economy could remain a distant goal, even as millions of young people continue searching for opportunities in an economy struggling to absorb them.
