“Resources are not; they become.” This famous observation by economist Erich W. Zimmermann should challenge one of the most deeply rooted misconceptions in Ghana’s development thinking: the belief that our natural resource endowment is the foundation of our prosperity.
We have become so obsessed with what lies beneath our soil that we risk underestimating what lies within our people. We celebrate gold, bauxite, manganese and lithium, yet pay insufficient attention to the knowledge, skills, innovation and productive capabilities that transform nations into economic powerhouses.
Countries such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have demonstrated that abundant natural resource wealth is not a prerequisite for national prosperity.
Their experiences show what education, skills, innovation, technology and industrial development can achieve. We must stop conditioning Ghana’s youth to believe that our natural resources are the foundation of our wealth.
Our greatest resource must be our people and their ability to think, innovate, invent, manufacture and solve problems. Ghana should invest heavily in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education to equip young people with the capabilities to create technologies, develop products and build competitive industries.
Mineral deposits can be depleted or lose their market value, but human ingenuity can continually create new industries, products and sources of wealth. Ghana must invest in its people as seriously as it exploits its minerals.
History reinforces this thinking. Aluminium was once more expensive than gold until technological advances made it affordable. Natural ultramarine, once more expensive than gold by weight, lost much of its commercial importance when synthetic alternatives emerged. Natural alum, once vital to textile dyeing, was displaced by manufactured chemicals.
Flint lost its importance with the development of metalworking, while asbestos declined sharply after its deadly health effects became known. Even natural saltpetre and guano lost much of their strategic value as industrial alternatives emerged.
These resources once generated substantial wealth for the nations that controlled them. If materials once considered indispensable can lose their value, why should Ghana build its economic future around the assumption that our minerals will always command the same importance they do today?
Our gold, bauxite, manganese and lithium present opportunities, but opportunities are not guarantees of lasting prosperity. Technological breakthroughs, alternative materials, recycling and changing industrial needs can alter demand and prices.
Ghana must therefore move beyond the obsession with extracting and exporting natural resources. We must invest in education, technical skills, scientific research, technology, manufacturing and enterprise. Where economically viable, we should process our minerals locally and use the proceeds to develop industries that can survive beyond mineral booms.
The fundamental question is not how much wealth nature has deposited beneath our feet, but how much productive capacity we have developed above the ground.
OUR FUTURE MUST BE EXTRACTED FROM OUR PEOPLE, NOT FROM THE GROUND.
Human resources, when continuously developed, can renew and expand their value, while natural resources are finite and can be depleted. Human capabilities can also adapt to emerging global needs through education, innovation and skills development in ways that mineral deposits cannot.
Ghana therefore cannot continue to teach its young people, implicitly or explicitly, that our natural resource endowment is the principal answer to our economic challenges. Such a mindset risks producing a nation that is rich in minerals but poor in innovation, employment creation and industrial capability.
Natural resources provide potential; human knowledge, productivity and innovation turn that potential into lasting wealth.
Our national ambition must be to raise generations of highly skilled and innovative Ghanaians capable of creating products, developing technologies, building competitive businesses and exporting knowledge to the world.
The countries that will prosper tomorrow will not necessarily be those with the richest mineral deposits, but those with the most capable people and the strongest capacity to innovate. Ghana must prepare its youth to create wealth, not merely to inherit the hope that wealth lies beneath our soil.
MY QUESTION
The Akufo-Addo and Bawumia administration demonstrated this understanding through its education policies. Is the Mahama administration investing enough in STEM education, and doing more, to equip our youth with the knowledge, skills and technological capabilities to create wealth beyond our natural resources?