Ghana

Main article: Africa

Population

Main article: Population of Africa

Population

2022:33 million people

Migration

2021: Net outflow over 4 years

Overweight

Mortality

2018: High number of deaths in road accidents

2016: Average rate of opioid deaths

Economy

ECOWAS membership

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a regional organization established in 1975 to strengthen economic cooperation between West African countries .

GDP

2018: GDP $1,787 per capita

Key rate

Inflation

2022: Inflation in November - 40.4%

Foreign trade

2023:28% of wheat supplies come from Russia and Ukraine

Minerals

2022: 1.1 million people involved in small-scale mining

2017: Ghana in the top ten countries by gold production

Power

2020: Energy consumption per capita

and

2019: Electrification

R&D

2020: R&D expenses - $277 million

Ghana IT Market

2022: More than 40 start-ups

Agriculture

2024: World number two for cocoa production

Ghana's cocoa production declined to 55% of the average seasonal volume in 2024.

Catastrophic crop failures in Ghana and Kot-d have driven up global cocoa prices since early 2024. Both leading producers have been affected by adverse weather conditions, tree diseases and a shortage of workers .

2019: Low use of pesticides in agriculture

Consumption

Meat

2023: Fish consumption is higher than meat consumption

Cereals

2019: Average rice consumption: 38.6 kg per person per year

Vegetables

2018: Vegetable consumption - 30 kg per capita

Alcohol market

2018: Minimum age to purchase alcoholic beverages

Education

Percentage of people who can read

Health care

2021: Maternity leave

in

2020: Part of the population defecates on the street

2019: Launch of the world's largest drug and blood delivery network by drones

At the end of April 2019, Zipline announced the creation of the world's largest delivery network with drones that supply various medicines, vaccines and blood products to 2,000 clinics in remote areas of Ghana. Read more here.

Crime

Prisons

2019: Minimum age for children to be jailed

2018: Number of prisoners per 100 thousand citizens

History

2019

28 people died as a result of flooding

At least 28 people were killed and several injured in floods in northeastern Ghana in October 2019. A downpour that lasted eight days destroyed more than a thousand buildings and forced more than 100 people to flee their homes.

Authorities fear the toll could rise.

Ghana's meteorological department has warned there will be more rain in the coming weeks and warned of the possibility of more flooding.

Ghana averted coup d'etat

In September 2019, the Ghana Ministry of Information reported that security forces thwarted a conspiracy against the state and arrested the organizers.

A group of extremists known as "Take Action Ghana" (TAG) were involved in recruiting and promoting radical ideas among young people. According to the authorities, TAG was going to get weapons and seize key infrastructure in order to eventually take control of the country.

Wait for tourist boom on 400th anniversary of start of transatlantic slave trade

Every year, more people from the United States, the Caribbean and Europe come to West Africa "at the call of their ancestors." The popularity of trips is associated with the 400th anniversary of the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade.

The rise in tourism has been an economic boon for Ghana, which has been actively promoting its "slave heritage" for its 400th anniversary. The country's tourism authority expects about 500,000 tourists in 2019, 45,000 of whom are looking for their roots. With an average income of $1850 from one tourist, the department expects to receive more than $925 million, which is 50% more than in 2018.

Forts on the coast of Ghana are a reminder of what slaves have endured. Groups of tourists take part in the rituals of Ashanti, follow the grueling routes of enslaved ancestors from the northern part of the country to the coast.

Ghana's efforts stand in stark contrast to other West African countries. Neither, nor Benin, nor Senegal Nigeria seem to be in a hurry to monetize their slave pasts.

Yandex.Taxi started working in Ghana

Yango-branded online taxi ordering service launched in Ghana in summer 2019.

With the help of Yango, you can order taxis from licensed Yandex partner companies. It is compatible with the Yandex.Taxi application, so Russians will be able to use the well-known application.

Yandex plans to continue to cooperate with Africa. Services in the field of telemedicine, online education and others may become available to residents of the continent.

Citizen's attempt to return home outside the plane

In July 2019, aiational authorities in Nigeria are investigating how a man was able to climb the wing of a plane that was about to take off from Murtala Muhammad Airport in Lagos.

Video captured by Boeing 737 passengers showed the man scrambling onto the wing of the Azman Air-owned plane.

The man, believed to be from Ghana, ran to the plane with a suitcase and later said that he hoped to get home in this way.

The stowaway was detained and placed in custody.

1914

Culture

Merry funerals

In West Africa, funerals are the main event in a person's life. And in the life of the Ghanaians, they are so important that they have taken root safely even in the overseas diaspora, in particular in New York.

Ghanaian funerals are a festival of mad waste and kitsch. For their sake, even the poor are forced to get into huge debts, just to provide the late relative with a worthy transition to a new and recent state. Therefore, in 2020, the bodies of the deceased lie in morgues for weeks and months, waiting for all formalities to be observed, and the funeral takes at least a week, after which the soul breaks up with the body and reunites with the world of ancestors to start the cycle again.

But Ghanaians do not stop at any expenses and debts. All because a lavish funeral is an investment. Into the world of the dead, into the world of the living, into the social capital of his family and family. It is not surprising, writes the Zangaro Today channel, that a colossal "afterlife economy" has grown around them - photographers, choreographic and musical troupes and groups, sewing workshops, florists who constantly experiment with genres and forms in the incredibly competitive and demanded market of "ritual celebrations." Hence - a continuous stream of amateur performances and creative innovations.

And if the controversial idea is true that the theater developed from memorial rites, then behind the confirmation of this bold hypothesis one should not immerse oneself in the nuances of Greek cults - it is enough to visit the country of akans, ha, ewe and ashanti. Here at the funeral there are all genres of spiritual culture - theatrical art, traditional and modern instrumental music, and especially dance (hell).

But almost the main highlight of such ceremonies is the coffins, the so-called fantasy coffins, or abebu abekai. Almost always, they have to tell something about the deceased - the field of study, dreams or addictions. Making such coffins is a real art, and everyone costs almost the annual earnings of the average Ghanaian. The unsurpassed master and innovator in this specific craft was the skilled Kane Kwei (1924-1992), who once made a "coffin-fish" to his dying uncle and soon plunged headlong into a new craft for himself.

To fishermen, he made coffins-boats, to mothers with many children - coffins in the shape of chicken. His repertoire included coffins-airplanes, coffins-houses, and coffins in the form of animals and fish. Caen Quei was so popular that his collection was even exhibited in 1989 at the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition in the Pompidou Center in Paris. By the way, he chose a rather unpretentious coffin - a simple box with a saw, hammer, chisel and coal engraved on it.

The repertoire of modern craftsmen includes mobile coffins (from the legendary Motorola to Apple products), as well as cars, Coca-Cola bottles and even packs of favorite cigarettes. By the way, one of the eminent Ghanaian sculptors - Eric Ajeti Anang - made several coffins for the exhibition in Novosibirsk (2011), where, among other things, he presented - by order of the curator - a coffin in uniform... bottles of vodka. In a word, any whim for your money.

• Paa Joe is a master of unusual coffins.

2020: Restrictions on funerals due to COVID-19

In 2020, the famous tradition of thousands of magnificent funerals with music and dances temporarily broke off in Ghana. In connection with quarantine measures against the background of COVID-19, no more than 25 people are allowed to attend the funeral, and the deceased must be interred within 24 hours.

2019: Creating a funeral dance group

In 2019, the head of one of the funeral homes of Ghana, Benjamin Aidu, created a dance group that sees off the deceased on their last journey with an incendiary dance.

It may seem strange, but there is no end to those wishing to arrange a "merry funeral" for their relatives.

And once these dances with a coffin should have ended that way...

Religion

Sermon in 2019

Superstitions

Gambaga witch camp: ghettos for witches and sorcerers

Ghana has ghettos in 2019 for witches and sorcerers who have been driven out of their villages.

The isolated community lives in a small area of ​ ​ Gambaga Township in northern Ghana.

Cinema

In the 1980s, English-language cinema finally shoots in Africa. Before that, only French-speaking directors were noticeable. The whole continent watches "Love Brewed in the African Pot" (1981) - a romantic melodrama by US-educated Ghanaian director Kwo Ansa, reminiscent of either^[1] in style^[2].

The second film of Kwo Ansa was even more successful - "Heritage Africa" (Heritage Africa, 1989), which became a kind of final code of the concept of "third cinema," which does not accept Western attitudes. Ansa explores the process of awakening national identity among the African intelligentsia. The action takes place in colonial times against the background of the beginning of the struggle of the indigenous population for their political rights. Having received the post of district commissioner Quincy Bosomfield, aka Kwasi Bosomefi, evolves from a loyal British administration official who has lost touch with the roots of the "mankurt," whom even his own wife calls a slave, to a supporter of reform and an advocate of the local protest movement. The fracture in the hero's soul occurs after, trying to please the white boss, he frivolously gives him the family heirloom once obtained in battle by the legendary ancestor. Realizing the weight of his act, he tries to redeem himself and gradually turns into a rebel.

The film is characterized by poster and even grotesque, however, as a historian, Ansa is quite objective. The leaders of the struggle against foreign oppression most often turned out to be not leaders, peasants or the curse of branded proletarians, but its yesterday's first beneficiaries - intellectuals who received a European education and made a career in colonial administrations.

Sport

2022: The most popular sport is football

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Calendar

Notes