ABSTRACT
Ghana has been lauded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a model nation in Sub-Saharan Africa for its achievements in economic development and transition to democracy. However, the sustainability of Ghanaian economic development in recent years has begun to be suspected. In this chapter, we delve into the international political economy literature to recover a critical approach that offers a fresh perspective when considering questions of sustainability and emerging markets in the contemporary era. In particular, we apply the dependent development concept, generated by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, to deepen our understanding of how Ghana has followed an unsustainable developmental trajectory since the debt crisis of the 1980s, one that has maintained its financial dependency on multilateral and bilateral donors and led the country to the verge of another debt crisis four decades later.
