Abstract

Local economic development involves identifying and using primarily local resources, ideas and skills to stimulate economic growth and development, with the aim of creating employment opportunities, reducing poverty, and redistributing resources and opportunities to the benefit of local residents. Growth and development cannot take place in an institutional and legal vacuum. Local development and growth require an institutional and legal framework that allows development to take place in an orderly manner and in which agents know that the decisions they take and the contracts they make will be protected by law, and enforced. This paper examines the policy and institutional frameworks on local economic development in Ghana. The paper relies on desk research and secondary documents by critically examining and reviewing them. The findings show that over the years several institutions and policies have been put in place to help improve development at the local level. It is therefore important to build the local capacities and strengthen these institutions to be able to exploit local resources and to stimulate economic development at the local level.

Key words: Local economic development, institutions, local government, poverty.