BY: Mawuli Dzodzome Agbenorto | VoltaOnline Opinions
Ghana has embraced digitalisation with remarkable enthusiasm. Government services are moving online, banks are becoming increasingly digital, hospitals are adopting electronic systems, universities are deploying learning platforms, businesses are embracing fintech, and citizens are increasingly interacting with the state through digital channels.
But beneath this impressive transformation lies a question we are not asking loudly enough:
Who is actually building the technology that Ghana is spending billions of cedis to acquire?
This is not an argument against foreign technology. Ghana needs international expertise, global platforms, advanced infrastructure and partnerships. The real question is whether our digital transformation is simultaneously building Ghanaian technological capability, Ghanaian companies, Ghanaian intellectual property and Ghanaian jobs.
If the answer is no, then we risk becoming a highly digitised country without becoming a technologically productive one.
ICT growth is not the same as digital ownership
Ghana’s Information and Communication sector is demonstrating extraordinary growth. The sector recorded 20.2 per cent growth in 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing areas of the economy, while Ghana’s overall economy expanded by 6.0 per cent.
These numbers are encouraging.
But GDP growth in the ICT sector does not automatically tell us how much of that value is being created by Ghanaian software developers, technology companies and locally owned intellectual property.
This is where Ghana has a serious measurement problem.
We can estimate the size and growth of the broader ICT sector, but we do not routinely publish a national figure showing the annual economic value generated specifically by Ghanaian software developers and locally developed digital products.
Consequently, we know that Ghana is becoming more digital, but we have a much weaker understanding of how much of that digital economy Ghana owns.
That distinction matters.
A country can spend heavily on digital systems, cloud services, software licences, cybersecurity products, enterprise applications and technology consultancy while much of the economic value ultimately flows outside the country.
Digitalisation can therefore produce two very different outcomes: digital consumption or digital production.
Ghana must deliberately pursue the second.
We have talent. The question is whether we are creating an ecosystem for it.
There is no shortage of Ghanaian technological talent.
Across universities, technical universities, technology hubs, fintech companies, startups and independent developer communities, young Ghanaians are building applications, payment systems, health platforms, education technologies, agricultural solutions and enterprise software.
The problem is that talent alone does not create technological sovereignty.
Developers need markets.
Startups need customers.
Technology companies need access to capital.
Researchers need opportunities to commercialise their innovations.
And government—the country’s largest single buyer of many digital services—needs procurement policies that can convert public expenditure into domestic technological capacity.
This is where government procurement becomes strategic economic policy.
When a government institution spends millions on a digital project, the question should not only be whether the system works.
We should also ask:
How many Ghanaian developers were employed? How much knowledge was transferred? Who owns the intellectual property? Can Ghanaian firms maintain and improve the system? What percentage of the contract value remains in Ghana?
These questions should become standard.
Government digitalisation must become an industrial policy
Ghana’s digitalisation programme should not be treated simply as an ICT programme.
It should be treated as industrial policy for the digital age.
Every major government technology investment should have a measurable local-capacity component.
For example, where an international company wins a major government technology contract, the contract could require meaningful participation by qualified Ghanaian firms and professionals.
This could include:
- local software development;
- technology-transfer programmes;
- training and certification of Ghanaian engineers;
- local technical documentation;
- Ghana-based maintenance and support;
- internships and apprenticeships;
- partnerships with Ghanaian universities and technical universities;
- and progressive transfer of technical responsibilities to local companies.
The objective should not be to exclude foreign companies.
The objective should be to ensure that foreign investment leaves Ghana more technologically capable than it found it.
Ghana needs a Local Digital Content Policy
Ghana should now consider developing a comprehensive Local Digital Content and Software Development Framework.
Such a framework should establish measurable targets for local participation in public-sector digital procurement.
Rather than simply measuring whether a Ghanaian company won a contract, government should measure the actual local value created.
A contract could, for example, be assessed according to:
local developers employed + local software development + local intellectual property + local training + local maintenance + local research and innovation + local expenditure.
This would create a more meaningful definition of local content.
We also need to know what we are producing
Ghana cannot manage what it does not measure.
The Ghana Statistical Service, Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, National Information Technology Agency and other relevant institutions should develop a National Digital Production Account.
This could measure:
- Number of software developers and digital professionals;
- Annual revenue of Ghanaian software companies;
- Value of locally developed software;
- Government ICT expenditure retained domestically;
- Value of digital services exported;
- Software and technology imports;
- Foreign software licence expenditure;
- Number of locally owned digital platforms;
- Government systems developed or maintained locally; and
- Intellectual property generated by Ghanaian technology companies and researchers.
Such information would finally allow Ghana to answer a critical question:
Are we becoming a digital economy—or merely a digital market?
Universities must become part of the production chain
The answer cannot come from government alone.
Ghana’s universities and technical universities must become stronger participants in the digital production ecosystem.
Our institutions should move beyond teaching programming as an academic subject.
Students should be challenged to build systems that solve Ghanaian problems.
Health information systems, agricultural platforms, educational technologies, logistics systems, cybersecurity solutions, artificial intelligence applications and public-service platforms should become practical areas of innovation.
Government institutions should provide real-world problems.
Universities should provide research and talent.
Industry should provide markets and commercialisation.
This would create a government–industry–university innovation triangle capable of turning Ghanaian knowledge into Ghanaian products.
Artificial intelligence makes the issue even more urgent
The rise of artificial intelligence makes this conversation more important.
If Ghana simply becomes a consumer of foreign AI models, cloud platforms and software services, the country could experience another wave of technological dependency.
But if Ghana invests in local AI applications, African datasets, local-language technologies, cybersecurity, health AI, agricultural intelligence and public-sector automation, AI could become a major source of domestic economic value.
The objective should therefore not be to build everything ourselves.
That would be neither practical nor necessary.
The objective should be to identify strategically important technologies that Ghana must have the capacity to understand, customise, secure, maintain and, where possible, own.
A new national target
Ghana should set a national ambition:
By 2030, every major government digital investment should demonstrably increase Ghana’s domestic digital productive capacity.
This could become a measurable national indicator alongside GDP growth, employment and investment.
The debate should therefore move beyond How many government services have we digitised?
We should ask:
How many Ghanaian technology companies have grown because of digitalisation?
How many Ghanaian developers are employed?
How much software do we export?
How much intellectual property do we own?
How much of government technology expenditure remains in Ghana?
These are the questions that will determine whether Ghana’s digital transformation becomes economically transformative.
The choice before Ghana
Ghana has already made the decision to digitalise.
The next decision is more fundamental.
Will we merely use technology—or will we build an economy that produces it?
Our digital future should not be measured only by the number of platforms launched, applications deployed or services placed online.
It should also be measured by the Ghanaian minds employed, Ghanaian companies created, Ghanaian intellectual property developed and Ghanaian digital products exported.
Digitalisation should therefore become more than a programme of government.
It should become a strategy for building Ghana’s technological productive capacity.
The goal should be clear:
Not a Ghana that is merely digitised, but a Ghana that creates, owns, secures and exports digital technology.
That is the digital Ghana worth building.
The writer, Mawuli Dzodzome Agbenorto, is a public servant and IT consultant with more than ten years in the industry. He can be contacted via mdmawuli@gmail.com.
Editor’s Note: Views expressed in this article are purely that of the writer and do not reflect the editorial policy of this portal.
