This study explores the successes and challenges of comparator countries including Botswana, Zambia, Brazil, Nigeria, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ghana in the institution of local content policies for five main sectors of their economies namely Oil and Gas, Mining, Coastal and Inland Water Shipping, Construction and Renewable Energy. The aim is to extricate key thematic issues that hamper the achievement of local content objectives and to tease out lessons for Ghana.
Local content is an intricate concept which can be best appreciated in context. This is demonstrated by the fact that it is defined variously in different countries. However, the crux of local content is to allow countries the opportunity to build capacity in economic sectors where they
would otherwise have limited opportunity. Therefore, local content policies generally require foreign investors to purchase domestic goods and services, employ and train citizens, transfer technology and know-how and to contribute to research and development.
In Ghana, several initiatives have been taken over the years to build essential capacity through local content requirements. However, in recent times, there has been a greater impulse to apply local content to several sectors of the economy through the use of distinct local content policies as pertains in the oil and gas industry. Draft local content policies have emerged for the downstream petroleum sector, construction as well as coastal and inland water shipping. Several other local content policies are being considered for power, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics sectors.
