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Northern Ghana is Ghana's problem region. It is a large area accounting for about half the total land surface of Ghana, yet it is the least developed part of the country. It would be futile to seek to explain the lack of economic development in the region mainly with reference to the problems of the savanna environment, which indeed are no more serious than in many other parts of West Africa where there has been greater economic development. The reason must be sought primarily in the strategy adopted for economic development, which at first failed to identify the fundamental problems of low productivity in food farming and high transport costs. Later, the solution of the transport problem was made conditional upon the success of the measures adopted for increasing agricultural productivity; yet these measures proved to be partially unrealistic since they ignored long-established local values and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the opening of the first artificial harbor at Takoradi in 1928 Ghana possessed numerous surf ports, most of which originated early through European trade contacts with the coast, Subsequent disappearance or survival of ports depended on the changes in speed and direction of the country's economic development. Finally the flourishing economy of the 1920's made the construction of a modern port imperative, and most surf ports disappeared after the construction of Takoradi harbor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]