Trends and composition of government expenditure on agriculture in Ghana, 1960-2015

AUTHOR

Samuel Benin

SERIES NAME

ReSAKSS Issue Note

YEAR

2019

ABSTRACT

In Ghana and other countries, controversy over what figures to count as GAE as a share of GTE toward the CAADP 10 percent target continues to impede the tracking of this indicator. Such discrepancies may side-track policy actions and efforts needed to sustainably raise productivity and growth in the sector. Two recent agPER studies conducted in Ghana show high estimates of performance in this indicator at 6.7–21.2 percent in 2001– 2011 and 5.8–7.5 percent in 2012–2015. However, these estimates are not consistent with the official AU guidance note on tracking this indicator, which specifies that countries should use expenses of the general government sector on agriculture—crops, livestock, forestry, and fishing and hunting.

This note presented revised estimates for Ghana in accordance with the official AU guidance note for assessing GAE against the CAADP 10 percent target. It also proposed a revised formula for obtaining parallel estimates when expenditures of Cocobod and other market-based PBCs are included in the calculations, which was achieved by adding expenditures of all market-based PBCs to GTE in the denominator to make it comparable to adding expenditures of Cocobod to GAE in the numerator. 

PUBLISHER

ReSAKSS