The Drive Towards Building a Digital Economy in Ghana
22 October 2019
Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House, University of London
Speaker: H.E. Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana
Ghana is at the forefront of building a digital economy, where transactions by government departments are based on digital computing technologies and private sector companies are conducting business through markets on www - the internet. The economy is growing fast (real economic growth rate is at 8.5%). Financial technologies (fintech) are transforming banking and related financial services. But, how did it all start? How do the success stories compare to the impediments, so far? What does the future hold for companies investing in Ghana? Will going digital deliver better livelihoods?
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has been involved in this journey, right from his previous roles as Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, then later at the African Development Bank Group, and now as the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, chairing the Economic Management Team which has the responsibility of rebuilding the Ghanaian economy. He will invoke his credentials, as a distinguished economist and his experiences as a policy maker at the highest level of government, to talk about ‘the drive towards building a digital economy in Ghana’.
Speaker
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia was born in 1963. He has been the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana since January 2017. As the Vice President, he chairs the Economic Management Team which has the responsibility of rebuilding the Ghanaian economy. He holds a First Class Honours Degree in Economics (Buckingham University, 1987), a Masters Degree in Economics (Oxford University, 1988); and a PhD degree in Economics (Simon Fraser University, Canada in 1995). He has had a prestigious career which includes serving as the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana in 2006 and the Resident Representative of the African Development Bank Group in Zimbabwe in 2011. He has numerous publications to his credit, including “Monetary Policy and Financial Sector Reform in Africa, Ghana’s Experience”. He is married to Samira Ramadan and they have four children.
