Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa (African Arguments)

by Órla Ryan

At independence, the country had reserves of $560 million. By 1966, they had long evaporated. Ghana had once been debt-free. By the time of Nkrumah’s departure, its foreign debt totalled $1 billion,32 much of it in short-term loans.

Fake Hero Nkrumah almost bankrupted Ghana

The success of the cocoa industry hinges on the availability of families, those of the farm owner or caretaker, to harvest the crop.

Modern slavery

Decades of political mismanagement, theft and waste mean that large parts of rural Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are massively underdeveloped.

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