Systematic Review of the Factors Impacting the Agro-processing Sector Towards Economic Growth & Development: A Case for Ghana

In Ghana, the processing of agricultural raw materials into intermediate and secondary, agro-processing, is largely small-scale and informal. Formalizing and expanding the agro-processing sector to increase the share of manufacturing value-add (MVA) on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Ghana is an ongoing struggle. It is also unclear what the impeding growth factors are and what the leaders of Ghana are doing to rapidly fix this fundamental economic problem. This study aimed at bridging the gap between evidence-based research (EBR) and practice to fundamentally understand the growth factors that impact the agro-processing sector of Ghana towards economic growth and development. EBR is a scientific process of gathering the best available evidence to inform evidence-based practice (EBP). EBP requires the use of scientific, accountable, and explicit methods to gather credible and quality evidence for management decision-making. The systematic review methodology, which fits the rationale for EBR, was used to aggregate credible, quality, and best available evidence to help leaders in Ghana and management practitioners to make decisions on why the agro-processing sector of Ghana is still weak and undeveloped today, despite being known as a haven for agricultural raw materials. Thematic synthesis was used to aggregate evidence from 31 included articles, resulting in 7 analytical themes that directly addressed the overarching research question, “What growth factors impact the agro-processing sector of Ghana for economic growth and structural transformation”. Theme 1 categorized the growth factors impacting the agro-processing sector into 17 endogenous (e.g., knowledge management, technology, and innovation capability, access to capital, etc.) and 3 exogenous concerns (e.g., the influence of external organizations (e.g., International Monetary Fund (IMF), Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), etc.). Themes 2-7 addressed aspects of economic growth and structural transformation. Though this study was limited by time and the databases used to search for relevant scholarships, it rigorously informed management decision-making on how the agro-processing sector could be used to drive economic and structural transformation in Ghana and other resource-rich developing countries across the globe. Keywords: Agro-processing, Economic growth, Structural transformation, Economic development, Developing countries, Ghana, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Growth factors, Manufacturing value-add (MVA), Evidence-based Research (EBR), Evidence-based Practice (EBP), Systematic Review (SR). DOI: 10.7176/JESD/13-2-08 Publication date: January 31st 202