Out of 193 countries globally, Ghana places 139th in UNCTAD-developed comprehensive productive capacities index.

Per the rankings, Ghana made a score of 37.91 out of 100 from individual scores of eight categories used in the benchmarking process, namely, energy, human capital, ICTs, institutions, natural capital, the private sector, structural change and transport.

Whilst this score is above the global simple average index score of 26.76, it is below 50, indicating that Ghana still lags in a number of the benchmarking categories, hence there exists some level of weaknesses in Ghana’s productive capacities as well as structural transformation.

According to the report, the highest ranked economy was the United States of America with a score of 50.51 and the lowest ranked economy was Chad with a score of 17.14. This is very much expected as developed economies are likely to be at the top of the ranking whilst least developed economies remain at the bottom.

Among its West African peers, Ghana is the second country to have performed better on the productive capacities index behind Cape Verde which was ranked 108th. Also, the median score for sub-Saharan Africa was 26.63. Such a low score indicates the regions’ struggle with underdevelopment, high poverty and unemployment levels as well as significant vulnerabilities to external shocks. Apart from the natural capital category which developing countries in Africa perform better than the other comparable groups, they are the worst performing in the other seven categories.

In an era where COVID-19 threatens to further worsen these already weak productive structures in developing economies, it has become less likely for these countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

UNCTAD therefore recommends that, the first step for developing economies to improve their productive capacities is to be clear about the policy interventions, incentives and international support mechanisms that is country-specific, considering country-specific opportunities, comparative advantages and binding constraints.

More so, it emphasizes that this should be done with the involvement of non-State actors such as the domestic private sector and civil society and robust support from the international community.

The Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Mukhisha Kituyi, also appealed for support from development partners to developing economies and the vulnerable among them. This is aimed at fostering the growth of their productive capacities and to transform their economic structures.

“UNCTAD is calling for a new generation of domestic policy strategies that place the fostering of productive capacities at their centre, shifting from current fragmented and project-based interventions towards coherent, economy-wide and programme-based approaches, to remove binding constraints on development,” he suggested.

He further advised that: “Actions and interventions at the domestic levels need to be supported and complemented by new and robust international support measures from development and trade partners.”

Being the first of its kind, the productive capacities index aims at supporting the formulation and implementation of coherent and evidence-based policy making in developing countries. The assessment covers more than a decade of these indices from 2000-2018.

“The Productive Capacities Index offers indispensable guidance for new policy pathways that can realign incentive structures to revive socioeconomic progress and address persistent vulnerabilities to external shocks, whether economic, health-related or other shocks.”- Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Mukhisha Kituyi.