The Bank Group’s boards of directors approved the institution's 2005-2009 Country
Strategy Paper (CSP) for Ghana in May 2005. The main trust of the CSP is to scale
up the development impact, help improve quality of life for Ghanaians and help Ghana move closer to achieving the MDGs. To achieve these goals, the Bank Group’s  CSP for Ghana is centred around two pillars, namely:

• Improving the Investment Environment
• Promoting Pro-poor, Pro-gender Equity Policies.

The CSP is aligned with Ghana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) for the period 2003-2005.

Development Policy

The major strategic focus of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy(GPRS) poverty reduction based on maintaining macro-economic stability, increasing production and employment, promoting human resources development, implementing special programmes for the vulnerable and excluded, and ensuring good governance through accountability and transparency.

In line with the principles of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the Bank will also seek to engage in co-financing arrangements with other development partners to achieve economies of scale and ensure complementarity of interventions. In addition to project support, a new budget support programme, also to be funded from ADF-XI resources, will focus on private sector development and governance. The programme will set aside a package for institutional support, including training and technical assistance, with a view to strengthening Ghana’s capacity in the emerging oil and gas sectors and to assist the government in preparing a national oil and gas strategy.

The Bank Program’s focus on infrastructure and governance fully complies with the
strategic orientation of the Bank Group’s CSP 2005-2009 for Ghana. It is also fully aligned
with the Government’s Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) 2006-2009, which
is anchored on the three pillars ‘Private Sector Competitiveness’; ‘Human Resource
Development’; and ‘Good Governance and Civic Responsibility’. The Program is also fully
aligned with the Ghana Joint Assistance Strategy (G-JAS) 2007-2010, which covers all three
pillars of the GPRS II, and complies with the Northern Development Initiative launched by
the Government in November 2007.

Ghana has made considerable progress in recent years. Prudent macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, supportive international environment, massive debt relief, and donor financial support have contributed to macroeconomic stabilization, growth, a vibrant private sector and poverty reduction. However, significant challenges lie ahead, in particular, the further stimulation of private sector activity to attain sustained economic growth required to achieve the MDGs and middle-income status by 2015. The strategic orientation of the CSP is tailor-made to address these challenges.

The CSP’s conception around the two pillars ‘Improving the Investment Environment’ and ‘Promoting Pro-poor, Pro-gender Equity Policies’ allows the Bank to continue to support the Government’s socio-economic development agenda as spelled out in the GPRS II 2006-2009, and justifies the proposed new Bank interventions to be funded from ADF-XI during the remaining period 2008-2009 in the infrastructure and governance sectors. It is recommended that the Bank Group Boards of Executive directors approve the Bank Group’s strategy for Ghana for the remaining period 2008-2009.