The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has classified Ghana as a Low-Income Developing Economy in its April 2021 Fiscal Monitor.

Thirteen African countries were however ranked as Emerging and Middle-Income Economies.

Despite the World Bank ranking Ghana as a lower middle income economy, the Fund’s Fiscal Monitor does not recognized the country as a middle-income country.

However, countries such as Angola, Gabon, Swaziland and Namibia which Ghana is said to be doing better than, are classified as Emerging and Middle-Income Economies by the Bretton Wood institution. It appears the covid-19 pandemic had been unfavorable to the country, impacting negatively on its finances.

Economist and Finance Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr Lord Mensah tells Joy Business he’s not surprised about the country’s positioning in the Fiscal Monitor classification by the IMF.

“Those categorization was purely on projections and I think it has to do with how the countries will respond to the impact of covid-19 on their economies in terms of expansion, when the various initiatives that are being taken to fight the covid-19 start kicking in.”

“You understand that over the past few months, the covid-19 vaccine has started being injected across the globe. But the question is when the economies start picking up, what are the tools or the finances you can leverage to expand.

"And so if you look at the countries that have been categorized into Emerging Markets and Middle-Income Economies, clearly their base and their buffers are very good compared to those in the low income developing countries and I’m not surprised Ghana finds itself in there.”

For Advanced Economies, countries such as Australia, Belgium, Estonia, Iceland, Israel, Macoa, Malta, Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States are in that category.

African countries classified as Emerging and Middle-Income Economies are Algeria, Angola, Cape Verde, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Swaziland, Gabon, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, and Tunisia.

Ghana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Haiti, Honduras, Kenya, Lesotho, Niger and Nigeria are some countries branded as Low-Income Developing Economies.

The World Bank however classifies Ghana’s economy as lower middle-income, based on the nation’s per capita income.

IMF Fiscal Monitor.pdf

Economy Groupings

The following groupings of economies are used in the Fiscal Monitor. Data for all the economies can be found here: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/datasets/FM

Advanced Economies	Emerging Market and Middle-Income Economies	Low-Income Developing Countries	G7 Countries
Australia	Albania	Afghanistan	Canada
Austria	Algeria	Bangladesh	France
Belgium	Angola	Benin	Germany
Canada	Antigua and Barbuda	Bhutan	Italy
Cyprus	Argentina	Burkina Faso	Japan
Czech Republic	Armenia	Burundi	United Kingdom
Denmark	Aruba	Cambodia	United States
Estonia	Azerbaijan	Cameroon
Finland	Bahamas	Central Africa Republic
France	Bahrain	Chad
Germany	Barbados	Comoros
Greece	Belarus	Congo Democratic Rep.
Hong Kong	Belize	Congo, Rep.
Iceland	Bolivia	Cote d’lvoire
Ireland	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Djibouti
Israel	Brazil	Eritrea
Italy	Brunei	Ethiopia
Japan	Bulgaria	Gambia, The
Korea	Cape Verde	Ghana
Latvia	Chile	Guinea
Lithuania	China	Guinea-Bissau
Luxemburg	Colombia	Haiti
Macao	Costa Rica	Honduras
Malta	Croatia	Kenya
Netherlands	Dominican	Kiribati
New Zealand	Dominican Republic	Kyrgyz Republic
Norway	Ecuador	Lao
Portugal	Egypt	Lesotho
Peurto Rico	El Salvador	Liberia
San Marino	Equatorial Guinea	Madagascar
Singapore	Eswathini	Malawi
Slovak Republic	Fiji	Mauritania
Slovenia	Gabon	Moldova
Spain	Georgia	Mozambique
Sweden	Grenada	Mynamar
Switzerland	Guatemala	Nepal
Taiwan	Guyana	Nicaragua
United Kingdom	Hungary	Niger
United States	India	Nigeria

                                                 Etc.                                        Etc.