Introduction: Hope in Development

Abstract

In Ghana, as in much of Africa, it is hard to escape the various activities, material manifestations and discursive spaces created by development organizations. Driving around the capital, Accra, brightly coloured hand-stencilled banners advertise workshops, meetings and development forums, while sign boards at the roadside link non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with various projects and programmes. Amid the congested streets, four-wheel drive vehicles emblazoned with NGO logos stand out from the battered taxis, trotros (local buses) and over-laden lorries, testament to the ubiquity of such organizations and the extent of the resources at their disposal. At rickety wooden roadside kiosks, newspaper headlines boldly proclaim the successes and failures of development projects, feeding off and into widespread public interest about the activities of NGOs and development organizations. Such discourses emerge through the practices of a relatively elite group of Ghanaian and Western development workers, but form part of a nationally understood lexicon through which a variety of interests are articulated.