A Professor at the University of Ghana Business School, Godfred Bokpin, has called on the Mahama administration to place greater emphasis on job creation for the country’s growing number of unemployed young people, rather than focusing primarily on gains in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He argued that an increasing number of countries are moving away from celebrating GDP growth as the sole indicator of economic success, urging Ghana to adopt a more inclusive approach that prioritises employment outcomes.
“The economy will continue to dominate political discourse, particularly when we talk about job growth. We must go beyond GDP growth and focus on job creation. Many young people have completed school and are still searching for jobs,” Prof. Bokpin said in an interview on Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, December 27.
Meanwhile, the government has maintained that the 2026 Budget was deliberately structured to drive economic transformation and reduce poverty, acknowledging that traditional indicators such as GDP do not always capture improvements in citizens’ living conditions.
The Ministry of Finance explained that while GDP remains a widely used measure of economic performance, it has clear limitations when assessing poverty reduction and overall welfare. This position was articulated at the KPMG/UNDP 2026 Post-Budget Forum held in Accra on Monday, November 17, 2025.
Speaking on behalf of the Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, the Chief Economist Officer and Director of the Real Sector Division at the Ministry of Finance, Samuel Danquah Arkhurst, also emphasized the importance of looking beyond GDP in evaluating the true health of the economy.
