The World Bank Group has approved 40 million dollars loan to support the Government of Ghana to implement selected components of its Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Accelerated Development Policy.
This policy was completed a few years ago and adopted into Ghana's Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy II. The Bank Group's assistance is, therefore, expected to provide the requisite resources to accelerate policy implementation. A statement issued in Accra said Ghana was one of the first countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to undertake a programme of liberalisation in the telecommunications sector in the mid 1990s. The result is an unprecedented explosion in overall telephone penetration, from 4.7 per cent in 2003 to 20 per cent in June 2006. The telecom sector contributed 5.3 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2004 (up from 1.8 per cent in 2000). Mavis Ampah, the Bank Group's Task Team Leader for the Project said that in the light of this, the eGhana Project had been designed particularly to encourage private sector participation. The ultimate objective of the Project was to assist the Government of Ghana to generate growth and employment by leveraging ICT and public-private partnerships to develop the Information Technologies Enabled Services Industry, and to contribute to improve efficiency and transparency of selected Government functions through e-Government applications.
