• Ghana’s high illiteracy rate with close to 40% of the population above the age of 6 years without any form of educational attainment with only about 3% of the population with tertiary level education has serious implications for the nation’s development. • The country has a high primary school drop-out rate and very low secondary school enrolment rate. --- With close to 50% of junior secondary school leavers failing to progress to senior secondary school and a high proportion of senior secondary school leavers failing to continue their education. • Close to 40% of Ghanaians currently live below the poverty line of less than $1 per day and five of the 10 regions of the country currently have more than 40% of their people living in poverty. The ICT4AD Policy has also taken into account the fact that: • Ghana has a predominantly agricultural economy ---- most of which is based on subsistence farming with very little mechanization or application of modern agricultural production methods or practices. The agriculture labour force has a high percentage of women and about 70% of these are illiterate • The Ghanaian economy has not experienced a major structural transformation since independence. --- And that the majority of the working population (60%) are still actively involved in agriculture with only 13% working in the industrial sector and 28% in the service sector of the economy • Ghana's industrial base is narrow and its services sector, the second largest contributor to GDP after the agriculture sector, is under-developed • The informal private sector is by far the largest employment sector of the Ghanaian economy. ---This sector alone accounts for about 81% of the employed work force, with the formal private sector accounting for only 8% of the employment of the economically active population. Majority of women operate in the informal sector with very little support The Policy Statement also acknowledges that: • The job creation capacity of the Ghanaian economy is extremely low. ---- And that most of the employed population are involved in set-ups that do not have the potential to generate additional jobs or employment opportunities. • Only about 15% of the working population are employees of public and private sector organizations; and that close to 68% of the employed population are self-employed with no employees compared to 5.2% of self-employed with one or more employees. • Ghana is currently facing a human resource problem in technical and managerial skills and more so in the area of ICT skills. • Ghana’s R&D capacity and capabilities are limited, with the nation’s universities and research institutions lacking the necessary capacity to conduct and engage in advanced and cutting-edge R&D work. 15