Editor’s Note
This article examines a critical perspective on international development partnerships. A Ghanaian policy analyst argues that Germany’s current support model, focused on training and small-scale aid, is insufficient for Ghana’s ambitious industrial transformation goals. The critique raises important questions about the alignment of foreign assistance with national economic strategies.
A leading Ghanaian policy analyst is challenging the fundamental logic of how Germany is engaging with Ghana’s industrial transformation agenda, arguing in a newly published paper that a relationship built on classroom training and small business support is structurally incapable of delivering the kind of economy Ghana’s 24-Hour Economy (24HE) initiative demands.
Bright Simons, Vice President of IMANI Africa, published the critique through the Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI) on Thursday, February 19, 2026. The core of Simons’ argument is that Ghana in 2026 is attempting what development economists describe as a late-stage industrial time-compression jump, moving from shallow production to high-throughput industrial corridors through capacity maximisation rather than through the slow diffusion of capabilities. Germany, he argues, is still operating through models designed for the latter, creating a fundamental mismatch.
The paper draws a sharp distinction between two industrialisation pathways. The first, which Simons labels “platform-first,” involves spreading skills, upgrading institutions and diffusing capabilities broadly before major sectoral breakthroughs occur. The second, which he terms “spearhead-first” or vanguardist industrialisation, prioritises a small number of export-driven sectors, building tightly integrated value chains before capability diffusion extends outward.
Ghana’s structural conditions, including a weak research and development base and low domestic capital accumulation, make the platform-first strategy unrealistic in the near term. The country’s development opportunity lies instead in selective value-chain acceleration: building deep, tightly networked industrial corridors in strategically chosen sectors.
The 24HE initiative, now backed by legislation, aims not merely to extend business hours but to remove structural bottlenecks so that economic activity can flow continuously day and night. Simons argues that achieving this demands cross-sectoral investments in value-chain acceleration zones, production corridors and sectoral clustering that go far beyond what Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) can deliver.
Germany’s genuine comparative advantages, in logistics, industrial organisation, supply-chain governance, export embedding and blended finance, remain largely untapped in Ghana.
To resolve the mismatch, Simons proposes a Ghana-Germany Value Chain and Employment Compact covering 2025 to 2028, built around joint value-chain diagnostics, sector-based training linked directly to production contracts, blended finance for youth-led enterprises and integration into African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) regional markets. Critically, the compact would be framed around equal-interest industrial partnership rather than donor-recipient logic.
Simons closes with a question directed as much at Berlin as at Accra: whether Germany’s engagement in Ghana should remain developmental assistance or evolve into industrial diplomacy.