Impressed by the success and profit that India has managed to realize in the outsourcing IT sector, Ghanaian officials are driven to become the IT hub of West Africa. They draw their inspiration and moral as well as some monetary support from India.

What are the measures that are taken to achieve this goal?

The government of Ghana is aiming at getting young people interested in the topic of IT. An incredible amount of $5 million is spent on an information and communication project especially established for youths. 

Offices that formerly belonged to the State Housing Corporation, but have been out of use for a while in all of the ten regional capitals will be re-organized into parts of this IT hub. The plan is to build five during the course of this year. 

Like India, Ghana wants to become a desired provider for expert knowledge in the global business process outsourcing sector. India provides Ghana with $800,000 to develop its IT sector and started several projects, assisted by Indians, which were meant to promote IT within the country. 

The collaboration between India and Ghana began in 2003 when former President John Kufuor of Ghana had intense discussions in India and afterwards initiated the building of the main training center, named the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence. 

Additionally to this training center, some Indian companies have started their business in Ghana. Some of them help training IT professionals while others provide business solutions for companies. Because the center works together with a University in London, enabling students to get a degree in business and computer studies without ever having to leave the country. Within the last decade the center has managed to increase its size from about 2000 students to more than 10,000 with many more of those centers being on the way. While India provided instructors to help create the curriculum, Ghana already possessed the infrastructure to work with computer software, hardware and other communication devices of this kind. 

Ghanaian officials want to emphasize though that it is not their intention to steal away business from Indian companies, on the contrary they want to help those companies that are looking for alternative locations on a different continent.