Neoliberalism and Housing Provision in Accra, Ghana: The Illogic of an Over-Liberalised Housing Market

Abstract

The economic hardships experienced by African countries in the late 1970s forced many of them to fall on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for financial relief. The two institutions’ reaction in almost all cases was to impose structural adjustment programmes (SAP) on those countries in an attempt to stabilize and grow their economies through market forces, with little intervention from the state. Ghana became an unwilling apostle from 1983 when it implemented various rounds of the programme because of the deplorable state of its economy. The country became so committed to structural adjustment that it was portrayed as an extraordinary example of the efficacy of neo-liberal policies in restructuring broken economies. Primary among the benefits to the country was economic liberalization and a corresponding increase in domestic and foreign private investments, especially in the housing industry. Since then, Accra, the national capital, has faced an overproduction of housing for high-income earners thus leading to a dramatic rise of gated communities. On the other hand however, there has been virtually no production of housing for low-income earners, thus exacerbating their continued dependence on the informal sector for housing provision in Accra. With this stark difference, the paper argues that the neoliberal policies of the 1980s have rendered government irrelevant in the housing market, especially in the provision of housing for low income earners, and for that reason accelerated the development of poor housing and slums in the city of Accra.