Ghana must urgently revitalise its capital markets if it hopes to match the economic transformation achieved by its peers in Africa and Asia, the World Bank has cautioned. Speaking at a seminar on Financing Firm Growth: the Role of Capital Markets in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” in Accra, Robert Taliercio O’Brien, the World Bank’s Division Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, said Ghana’s slow progress stands in sharp contrast to countries that were at the same income level three decades ago.
He noted that since 1990, firms in low and middle-income countries have raised an estimated 4 trillion dollars through bond and equity markets, with cumulative net issuance quadrupling in middle-income economies and expanding eightfold in low-income countries since 2000. This expansion, he observed, has allowed thousands of younger and more productive firms to access financing, generate higher returns on capital, create jobs and drive industrial transformation.
However, Ghana has not followed this trajectory. “Ghana trails countries such as China, India and Vietnam, which were all low-income countries in 1990 along with Ghana,” O’Brien said. “Many of them have taken off, but Ghana has had an up-and-down path.”
He described Ghana’s capital market as narrow and underdeveloped, with only 36 companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange and just seven companies with outstanding corporate bonds. The bond market, he stressed, remains overwhelmingly dominated by government securities, leaving very little room for private sector financing.
This weak market structure is occurring at a time when Ghana faces enormous financing needs. The MSME financing gap alone is estimated at 11 billion dollars, equivalent to 18 percent of GDP. Private sector credit stands at just 9 percent of GDP, significantly below Senegal’s 30 percent and Côte d’Ivoire’s 23 percent. “There is no reason why Ghana should not be matching or surpassing these peers,” he added.
Beyond enterprise financing, Ghana’s infrastructure gap is estimated at 37 billion dollars annually over the next decade. Yet concessional financing is declining. Official development assistance is falling, while the World Bank’s IDA resources for Ghana amount to only 1.5 to 2 billion dollars over the next three years. “This is just a drop in the bucket,” O’Brien stressed. “The capital market must be jumpstarted.”
He acknowledged improvements in Ghana’s macroeconomic environment following the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. Growth has begun to recover and is projected to reach 4.6 percent by 2026. Inflation has dropped to 8 percent, short-term interest rates have eased to about 11 percent, and the fiscal balance has turned into a surplus. “These are encouraging developments,” he said, “but much more needs to be done.”
O’Brien highlighted one major opportunity: Ghana’s growing pool of long-term domestic savings. Pension funds and collective investment schemes have accumulated about 7 billion dollars that could be channelled into productive investments through well-functioning capital markets. These funds, he noted, could support Ghana’s infrastructure agenda and the government’s proposed 24-hour economy.
He emphasised that unlocking Ghana’s capital market potential will require deliberate reforms, stronger institutions and a clear policy direction that encourages more firms to list, issue bonds and access long-term finance.
“The question now,” he said, “is how to make Ghana’s capital markets a real engine for growth, just as other low-income countries managed to do over the past three decades.”
