Ghana Office The Oil Economy and the Resource Curse Syndrome: Can Ghana make a difference? by Daniela Kuzu and Danaa Nantogmah Ghana was the first sub-Sahara country to gain independence from the British and was at the forefront of decolonization in Africa. After many years for military rule, Ghanaian embarked on democratic dispensation in the early 1990s and is now regarded as one of the most stable democracies in Africa. Ghana discovered oil in commercial quantities in July 2007 by a consortium of foreign oil companies at an exploration well in the West Cape Three Points, Ghana has found oil. But the country is now facing a new challenge of not just how to manage an oil economy but more importantly how to avoid the“resource curse syndrome” with which sub-Saharan Africa has a bad reputation for. Indeed, Ghana is not new to natural resources exploitation, gold mining for example has being taking place in Ghana for over hundred years, yet poverty and corruption remain the key development challenges. In this paper, we will address three main questions: what do we know about the resource curse? What has Ghana done to avoid the resource curse syndrome? And how can the resource curse be overcome? September 2010 The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of FES Ghana or of the organization for which the authors works.