The State of Policy Capacity Problems in Africa: The Viewpoint of Historical Institutionalism From Ghana

Why is policy capacity still a problem after years of capacity‐building initiatives in Africa? Many African states continue to lack policy capacity. Despite recognizing the limited policy capacity issues on the continent and all the capacity‐development initiatives that continue to take place, there has been a dearth of theorizing as to why this problem persists. How then can one explain the apparent dilemma? The failure to theorize policy capacity problems on the continent is extremely unfortunate. To explain this limited policy‐capacity problem, we turn our attention to historical institutionalism. Using Ghana as a case study, the paper attempts to demonstrate, from a historical institutional perspective, why capacity problems on the continent continue to exist. It is argued that the policy‐capacity problem stems from the inability of governments to bring about a seismic shift in thinking, distinct from that developed under colonial rule, with its over‐reliance on expatriates and consultants and path dependency. This paper constitutes desktop research and draws from both primary and secondary sources.