Tackling post COVID-19 challenges: Economic recovery not easy to fix

An Associate Professor of Economics and Dean of International Programmes, University of Ghana (UG), Professor Eric Osei-Assibey, has shared what he describes as the three key potential game-changers for the country’s post COVID-19 economic recovery and transformation.

The three game-changers include the deployment of advanced technology; structural economic transformation; and social dynamism.

He said these three measures holds the key to accelerating the country’s recovery from the negative effect of the global pandemic.

“It is not going to be an easy fix. Rebuilding, resetting and reshaping the economy will require patience, persistence and an openness to break from past practices,” Prof. Osei-Assibey said at a lecture series organised by the Danquah Institute in Accra.

On the theme: “Centre Right Ideologies and Economic Policies in post-Covid-19 Ghana,” the virtual lecture created a platform for patrons to share ideas on policies needed to accelerate the country’s recovery.

Embrace technology

The Associate Professor said the country must embrace technology and operate at a higher technological level to help quicken its recovery.

To ensure that, he said there was the need to push for and support an increased focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in schools, particularly in universities and technical institutes.

He said that should also encourage the universities and technical institutions to form research and development (R&D) partnership arrangements with industry.

“Ghana should be an active player in ICT and in the fourth industrial revolution.

“We should seize the moment and leverage our abundant human talent to become a leader at least in Africa in the digital economy,” he said.

Prof. Osei-Assibey explained that the country should create a technology sub-sector that produced innovative applications - software- and generates productive employment with high incomes for the educated youth.

That, he said, would provide solutions for technological leap-frogging in many areas of the economy, and also contribute to services exports such as business process outsourcing and software exports.

Post-COVID-19 world

In a post -COVID-19 world, the Associate Professor indicated that the country would wrestle with 10 policy imperatives to survive the impact of the pandemic.

He mentioned some of the imperatives such as macroeconomic stability through prudent fiscal, debt, monetary and exchange rate management; expansionary policies and debt relief.

He said the country needed higher public resource mobilisation in the area of progressive tax collection.

Consequently, he said a greater efficiency in the use of all public resources, and a more professional and transparent approach to public investments should be adopted.

“The government must improve public infrastructure and ensure easier and more secure access to land amid a robust financial sector for higher domestic private savings and foreign private portfolio investment,” he said.

He stated that the country needed a more supportive private sector environment for domestic businesses and foreign direct investment (FDI).

“We also need more aggressive investment promotion efforts and support for small-scale enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship.

“There must be a strong social partnership among the government, businesses and labour market,” he added.

Lecture

The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, Dr Antionette Tsiboe-Darko said the lecture series would be a quarterly event of the institute.

She said the lecture would be used to share impactful stories of the Danquah, Dombo, Busia Tradition.

“The lecture will be spread across different quarters of the year and today’s is the maiden edition which will discuss the different ideologies of the Danquah, Dombo, Busia Tradition and how it is influencing policies in the country,” she said.