Sustaining democracy in Africa: The case for Ghana

Abstract

On balance, Africa generally has made some progress in good governance under liberal, multiparty democracy in the past two or three decades. But there are well‐noted, wide‐ranging dysfunctions in governance, which inhibit human development and fulfilment. Several papers have been published, which propose various solutions to the dysfunctions. Among them are proposals for types of all‐inclusive democratic politics. I examine a couple of these proposals and conclude that they generate formidable feasibility challenges, even for the types of democracy they advocate. This paper focuses on Ghana, but with a thrust intended to have import for the sustainability of democracy across Africa. The argument is basically that the operating democratic constitutions in Africa provide a normatively desirable liberal, multiparty democracy, which promises a reasonably good life for all without exception; but practice has resulted in enduring, multiple deprivations and low standards of living for millions of citizens. The reason for the undesirably wide gap between the ideal and the practice is not because multiparty democracy is inconsistent with African traditions or is otherwise not good for Africans, as some scholars claim, but because of those who tend to run it—their general incompetence, including or marked by their intellectual and ethical inability to rise above partisan limitations and failure to leverage the efficiencies of the free market system. The proposed solution for Ghana, intended to eliminate or significantly mitigate the dysfunctions just mentioned and to sustain the multiparty democracy, is to redesign the National Development Planning Commission (NPDC), a constitutional organ which serves the partisan executive, into a robust, non‐partisan, independent institution, anchored on the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, to enable it to do at least the following two things: (a) to produce, with representation from key stakeholders, including political parties, technocratically objective, competent, efficient and accountable rolling and all‐inclusive National Development Plans (NDPs) in place of vote‐inspired and partisan manifestoes, with budgets approved by parliament; and (b) to monitor, evaluate and report on the governing party's implementation of the NDPs to parliament. Democracy will become sustainable as the general quality of lives grows steadily under the continuous implementation of all‐inclusive NDPs, which are to be crafted to efficiently and sustainably deliver public goods and services that serve district, regional and the common needs and interests of all Ghanaians rather than the interests of the few and powerful or, at best, of majorities.